r/TexasSolar

I recently installed an 11.7kW system with a Powerwall 3 in the Dallas area and when I was doing my research on what electricity plan to go with that maximized solar + battery, a free nights plan seemed like the way to go.

Going through this sub and reading posts, there were a lot of mentions around Just Energy as the popular choice until they discontinued their free nights to solar users. The next two most common were Direct Energy and Green Mountain, and frequently, Direct Energy was the recommendation because of their 12 hour window being longer than the 9 hour window of Green Mountain, particulaly since Green Mountain recently moved it's window start to 9 PM instead of the 8 PM it used to be.

However, one of the things I almost never see mentioned is the impact of the $9.95 monthly charge from Direct Energy comapred to Green Mountain, who has no fixed charge at all.

Base Charge: $9.95

Direct Energy does give you an extra 3 hours every day, but that window is from 6 AM to 9 AM each morning. Because that's before the peak solar hours, with either plan, if you have a battery, you're likely charge it back to 100% by mid-day. Both plans start at 100% battery a 6 AM and if you charge back up to 100% by 10 or 11 AM with Green Mountain, from that point forward they are identical plans.

For anyone evaluating, you have to have a power usage pattern that makes that 3 hour daily window cost more in kWh consumption than $9.95. Maybe if you have an electric heater instead of natural gas for your house or some other heavy usage it may be worth it, but it's important to consider if it's actually giving you the value before just going with the longer period because 12 hours is more than 9 hours.

As a comparison, on the Green Mountain plan, my first full month's bill was $5.99 total.

$5.99 total current charges with Green Mountain Free Nights

Before I picked my plan, I modeled out my typical usage after pulling smart meter data and it was clear that I wasn't going to need that extra 3 hours in the morning, even in the winter months.

And regardless of who you use, always get that free referral money. I used someone else's link when I joined and can now provide my own: https://www.greenmountainenergy.com/en/referral-page?txtReferralID=LY1WQEM

As an aside, I went with Good Faith Energy for my install and was EXTREMELY happy with them. I had talked to another installer and it wasn't a great experience, and the posts here led me to GFE and I'm super glad. They were great to work with.

Hi all!

I’m not the most versed in solar so I would love some feedback/advice if possible. I’m going to make this list form mostly, because I’ve ADHD and will ramble otherwise. Also, please feel free to ask for any pertinent information I may have left out that would be helpful.

Here’s the long and short of it.

1. We live outside of Ft Worth for reference.
2. We’ve had solar for about three years. After our initial net metering terms went away we were getting pennies on the dollar for extra energy and not seeing nearly as much benefit.
3. My husband signed a contract to lease a solar battery last October. It is still never been turned on and as of June 29, the last time a tech actually worked on it, all power is being shunted to the battery that’s just sitting there. So our energy bill has gone up yet again.
4. We have never made a payment on the battery.

All of that to say, is this normal? Do we see if we can get out of the contract because it’s almost been a year and at this point is just costing us money in increased energy bills? Do we just stick it out and try to get this stupid thing up and running? Does anyone have any experience with this company and VPP? Just trying to get this thing up and running has been such a headache.

Thanks for any help or insights you may have!

I had Texas Power Guide look at our household usage. We have a 7.1kw system with 10kwh battery. Unfortunately, the lowest cost plans require that we relinquish control of our battery. These are Frontier Utilities and Gexa, supposedly with net annual bills of $8.

What have you found? Is everyone still doing free nights plans?

Looking for a reliable installer in South TX.

I have all the panels and inverters required - I have some BOS but not all. 410W ZNShine panels. Solar Edge inverters.

I know I will pay a premium on install as there is no room to mark up equipment - but can anybody make a recommendation?

It is a large system for a ranch in South TX - 200KW.

So apparently one of my Enphase microinverters has been out for months now and I didn't get any kind of notification from the Enphase app. I'd gotten out of the habit of checking it manually. This led me to finding out that my installer, Trismart, has gone out of business.

What do I do now? Do I have to find another installer and pay out of pocket for warranty work? Any suggestions on who to use or how much that might cost?

Just a comparison, I could have done it against another plans, and well not everyone has the same setup, and yes I have seen that I can suck up the power of the batteries in about 3 hours, if the house is at full power, so BASE has an advantage of backup. But well if thereis a real outage just have to manage the stuff that really consumes power, AC, water HEATER and no EV charging. Eventually will ad an expansion PW3.

Base Power vs. Solar + Powerwalls + Free Nights — My Actual Numbers

My setup:
17 kW solar
2× Tesla Powerwall 3 (27 kWh total)
Direct Energy Twelve Hour Power / Free Nights
Oncor territory in North Texas
Multiple EVs
For my latest billing period (July 8–Aug 5):
Grid usage: 2,277 kWh
Average: 79 kWh/day
Direct Energy energy charge: $539.49
Free Nights energy credit: -$536.75
Free Nights TDU credit: -$138.62
Oncor delivery charges: $129.03
Final bill: $10.79
Effective grid electricity price: ~0.5¢/kWh

The Powerwalls are also taking advantage of the free-night period. During roughly the same period, Tesla’s data shows the batteries were primarily charging from the grid at night and then supplying the house during the paid daytime period. Solar handles a large portion of daytime consumption, with excess solar exported.

I then compared this with Base Power. Using roughly 14.3¢/kWh, my 2,277 kWh of grid consumption would be about $326, plus the Base battery membership fee. After estimating Base’s solar export credit, I’d be somewhere around $325–$330/month, although the exact number would change because Base controls battery dispatch differently.

So roughly:
Current system: ~$11/month
Estimated Base: ~$330/month

Base has a huge advantage in backup capacity — potentially ~80 kWh versus my 27 kWh — and it’s an interesting option for someone starting from scratch who wants a lot of backup capacity without buying expensive batteries.

But for someone who already owns solar + Powerwalls and has a good Free Nights plan, I don’t see the economics working. In my particular case I’d potentially be paying $300+ more every month to switch to Base.

The Base battery capacity is tempting, but it’s hard to argue with a $10.79 electric bill after using 2,277 kWh from the grid in a Texas summer.

Had my solar system (12.71 kW DC with a Tesla Powerwall3 battery) installed last October. I found out after the fact that this was probably the worst time of the year to install a system, but oh well.

We have a 2100 square foot house with 4 adults and a toddler living in it. We also have an in ground pool. After nine months, our largest bill from our provider was in February, when I found out that our house did not have a heat pump system ($$$$). Needless to say, even then the bill was manageable. It was much less, even adding the monthly bill of the solar, than previous winters without the solar. I’m talking hundreds less.

One of the reasons I think it has been more manageable is the electric provider and the plan we chose. We are with Reliant’s free nights program. This gives us completely free electricity from 8pm to 6am. There were other plans that had more hours of free, but those started later in the night (not good during the winter) and went later into the morning. Reliant’s plan worked best and for the most part the solar and battery got us through the “shoulder” period between sunset and when the grid took over.

My real only regret is that I did not increase my battery storage from the get go. If it were just my wife and I, the battery would make it. But with 5 of us, the battery hits the bottom some times.

I am waiting until the end of this post to tell you who we got our system from because they are not very well regarded on this sub. We used Sunrun and have had zero issues with our system, or them. In fact, they gave us the contact information for some of our neighbors who had Sunrun systems and we talked to them. A couple of them did not have good things to say, but after taking to them for a bit it became obvious that they went into the deal without doing their homework. I really wish I could have purchased the system outright, but we just didn’t have that money available. Our electric bills were getting increasingly out of hand, and this has seriously reined that in.

So, for those who are looking for an alternative to paying through the nose for your power, but don’t have the means to finance or purchase a system, give them an opportunity.

And for those who are looking for a good electrical plan that works with your system, I highly recommend Reliant’s “Totally Free Nights” plan. Here is a code that will get you a $50 bill credit (and me too!):

LW5BXSO

I believe that solar is the way to go in the future. Electric rates aren’t going to go down and having a system in your home will save you money. It has for us.

I am 2 weeks in to a new install with 2 powerwalls, solar that covers 70% of my annual consumption and a free nights utility plan from 9pm to 6am. The powerwalls only charge to 60 to 90% overnight based on the next day's solar forecast. I have my utility plan set up correctly with 0 cost from 9pm to 6am. I want the powerwalls to always charge to 100% during the free nights time so I have max storage for power outages (i live in houston and they are surprisingly frequent for a first world country). I have not been able to find a setting to do that so I have to run stormwatch every night in the app to get it to charge to 100%. A google search says that there is no setting and that I have to do that manually or set up a home automation. I have home assitant but connecting tesla to it has been very frustrating and i have not been able to do it yet. Please tell me there is something that I am missing and that it is possible to force it to charge every night to 100% in some setting. Because there is no way that a company that is supposedly so smart can be this idiotic.

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking at the sunrun/reliant partnership for a solar install that is 22k annual output and 60kwh backup batteries. The Reliant partnership does completely free nights form 8pm-6am. The contract language simply says: "You agree that the battery will always be set up to draw charge from the System." Does this mean you cannot use the grid at night to top off the batteries? For example, I can always have it set up to draw from the solar, but that wouldn't seem to preclude night time grid charging.

Appreciate the insight.

Anyone who had Texas Solar Professionals do their install have multiple delays before getting the actual installation? I’ve had my installed delayed for over 3 months now. Getting little frustrated.

Anyone know anyone who installs in San Antonio and can do a one or two battery jobs for me?