¥akaSteelhead wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2024 5:02 am
Texas is a different kind of energy market than most states. In the majority of the state you pick a plan from various available and contract for a time period at a certain rate from the energy company. Most customers are not locked into a single provider, meaning they can contract from energy companies that have different offerings. There are pros and cons to way the Texas grid operates. It has generally low rates, but has problems at time ensuring grid reliability.
My contracts for the last several years have been plans that are renewable based. I pay about 1 cent more a kwh for a plan that is 100% renewable based than for one that isn't. My provider buys energy off of the Ercot market place from producers that are renewable based. Does that mean the electrons flowing into my house are 100% guaranteed to be from a wind farm? Of course not. It means out of the pool of electricity being produced and transmitter around the state somewhere wind power produced energy that was put on the grid and sold on the market sufficient to meet the long term and short term purchases from my energy company.
Obviously wind farms can only produce when weather allows, that is a given. Do you have solar panels and batteries for when the weather does not agree. Is your home all electric?
In my area, we have a substation that is I assume, mostly feed from the a natural gas generating plants around the area, this one is about 15-20 miles from my home.
https://www.energy.ca.gov/powerplant/co ... ng-station
My home has natural gas heat, White House, cooking, dryer, etc...and we have solar panels without battery back up. We haven't paid for electricity for almost two years, which is good in regards to cash flow, and cranking down the AC when its in three digits is nice. But!, we paid, after rebates, including going from a 100 amp to a 200 amp house panel, around 16K. So we won't break even for 6 or 7 years at best. Our system would have cost about 25K, but we found good rebates and being in construction I have connections and got very good pricing from a local contractor. We never would have bought it for the 25K, it would have been a loser for sure, and even at what we paid, it is a roll of the dice.
What I did not count on is I have to climb up on the roof (thank God I have a single story home) and clean the panels at least once a month in the winter, and ever few weeks in the summer, it takes a good hour. We had a huge fire season and I had to clean them weekly this past summer because of dust and ash. So, if someone is leaning towards solar, especially if older, you need to keep the panels clean for them to last and be efficient. They have folks that will clean them for you but I have not priced it out yet. Also, your roof needs to be in great condition. I actually re-roofed a year before we installed, so figure another 10-40K depending on how big your house is and what type of roof system you have. From what I understand most solar companies won't warrantee or finance the system without a decent roof, nor would you want to chance your solar outlasting your roofing.
I wanted batteries at first, but my contractor talked me out of it and said they are ripoff and the technology just isn't there yet.
But again living is So Ca. it is nice to not having 600 dollar monthly electric bills in the summer. I just hope I made the right call.