I'm going to piggy-back onto this thread. I am not using TechCu nor Xcel.
I live in Fort Worth, TX. The local grid provider in Texas is Oncor (not an energy company, just grid infrastructure, including meters and metering).
Over 6 months ago I signed a contract with Elevation Solar to install solar panels on my north-facing roof and a 17 kWhr battery backup system.
Batteries will be by S Korean company LG Chem. Good batteries. No cobalt in them.
(I already have a 5 kW solar system on my south-facing roof from Solar City -- now Tesla. But that severe "Deep Freeze" in Feb 2020 scared me; even though where I am I did not lose grid power nor natural gas.)
Elevation Solar did set up financing through Sunlight Financial, and once the system has been installed (still waiting) I will have 25 years to pay it off.
Fixed APR of 1.49%, Monthly Payment: $102.23 for the first 17 payments,
increasing to approximately $139.61 if the 26% voluntary payment of $8,886.68 is not paid by the 17th payment. There are no prepayment penalties.
The installation of the system has been delayed over 6 months because Oncor keeps delaying the permitting process or coming up with additional requests for documentation. I don't know if this is because Texas is an oil and gas state and in the past has seemed addicted to coal-fired power plants (though now very open to gas-fired power plants) or because the Texas energy control board and politicians think home-solar is counter to the state oil and gas business. Not making any accusations, but it does raise questions in my mind. The permitting process may be about to get resolved (???) and the system finally installed.
So I use Green Mountain Energy for the grid electricity (100% wind energy), and the SolarCity/Tesla system on the south-facing roof provides enough electricity that the winter bills from Green Mountain are small. (One month it was minus $0.58, and my April 2022 bill was $14.18).
You may think I'm crazy to spend money installing extra panels on the north-facing roof, but here in Texas during the hot summer months the sun shines pretty much straight down, and those are the months that the a.c. uses the most electricity. So I think those extra solar panels and the battery system will pay for themselves.
I do have one question. When the Solar City system was installed, Oncor required that the DC to AC Inverter would turn off the solar power if the grid power went off. That is a safety requirement to prevent linemen working on the outside power lines during an outage would not get shocked (and I would not just be pumping energy out to my neighbors houses, etc). Of course, if the grid power went off and the solar system was still connected and "on", it would probably just shut off anyway due to seeing the neighborhood as a big "short" load. So I understand that.
But the original solar system did not have a battery backup. So now that I'm getting a battery backup and extra panels, I'd like the Solar City system to stay on during a power outage so it could charge the batteries and also power the a.c., refrigerators, internet, wifi and cable TV. Wifi & internet so I can continue to work from home and cable TV so I can keep up with the news (although that can pretty much be done via internet).
I know that Elevation Solar has a design that will keep their panels at least powering the battery backup system and the battery backup system available to power house needs (until the battery gets below a certain level). That means they have a means to detect grid outage and disconnect the house power from the grid. I would like them to coordinate with Tesla to get the Solar City system to stay power-on during grid outages. That way the Solar City system can also be charging the battery as well as assisting with a.c. power and other critical household power needs.
I'm sure that if I had purchased a Tesla Power Wall, that Tesla would have modified the Solar City inverter to stay on (at least while sunlight strong), but when I inquired about Solar City installing extra panels on the north-facing roof, they wouldn't do it. So I went with local company Elevation Solar.
------------------------------
Henry Stinson
henrystinson@yahoo.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 06-06-2022 05:55 AM
From: Benjamin Harri
Subject: Questions
First, My panels have been up on my roof now for 3 weeks and have not produced a single Kw. The local energy company Xcel hasn't installed my bi-directional meter. Anyone else had problems like this?
Second, Anyone out there using TechCu to fund their panels? I didn't have a choice because Sunlight Financial chose them for me and now I'm reading the review of both and I'm worried. I want to pay them off before the loan is up and it looks like people have been having issues with that.
Any response will be great!
Thanks!
------------------------------
Benjamin Harri
bharri01@gmail.com
------------------------------