Anyone been forced to provide your electric private bills account information?

[Tanquen]

Just trying to get a quote from Tesla on solar panels.

They say it's “In order for Tesla to properly size your solar system “


Other venders without a question (including the Tesla solar shingles team) have been fine with a spreadsheet. They have my name, address, usage amounts and monies paid. I don’t see how my private account info will help them size the system and provide a quote. The PG&E bill is actually misleading as it doesn’t easily identify the MCE electricity generation costs and makes it look like I pay less.


“Customers should remember that the best way for any professional solar PV designer to custom design the right system for a customer is to look at the historic electric consumption for the structure where they wish to add solar PV. By looking at the electric consumption history, a system can be designed and sized appropriately to meet the assumed future demand. This information is also important to ensure that the customer does not buy more than what they need, nor buy a system that is too small.”

 

[MorrisonHiker]

We had to provide the monthly electrical usage for the previous year. Our utility has restrictions which limit our the size of our solar system to cover 120% of our previous year's usage. Due to another restriction, we also had to provide proof of the new electric cars registered at our address. This allowed Tesla to size a system with an additional 300 kWh per month by proving we had a new electric car whose charging wasn't shown in the historical monthly bills. While they were able to effectively size our solar system to 141% of our previous year's usage, it still won't be enough to cover things 100% since I no longer have workplace charging. We've asked about putting more solar in already but we were told we need to wait until September. Then we will have another 12 months worth of billing history.

 

[Tam]

...proof...

I guess the question in this thread is trust.

@Tanquen thinks a spreadsheet should be good enough and consumers don't need to prove private account information to verify if there's any cheating with the spreadsheet.

 

[woferry]

I'm also a PG&E customer, and yes, Tesla asked for the data, and their preference was to go through a site that would let them directly access the data from PG&E. So I authorized that, and since it needed my account password I changed it, gave the linking site the info it needed, confirmed a few days later that Tesla got the information they needed, then changed my password again.

I doubt they care about the costs at all, it's the kWh's they care about I believe. Part of the paperwork they have to file in CA requires comparing the size of the system you're going to get to your annual consumption (like what MorrisonHiker mentioned), so they obviously need this information in some form, whether a spreadsheet is acceptable is another question. I'm sure it's easier for them when they can just set up the link and get the data the way they're used to getting it, rather than however each customer might provide it.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I guess the question in this thread is trust.

@Tanquen thinks a spreadsheet should be good enough and consumers don't need to prove private account information to verify if there's any cheating with the spreadsheet.

Once Tesla sizes the system, they have to submit it for the utility for approval. The utility company can easily deny the system if it wasn't sized correctly. I don't know if all utilities have such restrictions but ours certainly does.

Thinking back, I know I didn't have to give my account information. It's possible I had to allow them to contact my utility company on my behalf but I don't remember anything specific.

 

[cwied]

It’s pretty normal for them to ask for this information. I went through an independent solar installer and they asked for the same thing. I expect that the other installers who were fine doing the quote with the spreadsheet would eventually ask for access to the actual usage.

Note that they don’t really care how much you’re paying except to convince you to go ahead. For sizing, they just care about the kWh numbers.

 

[Tam]

...my account information...

It's different from state to state but what spooky is consumers are required to give out their secret passwords to solar installers.

I like @woferry suggestion that utilities should make this process more friendly by creating a link for all approved solar installers to have access to a consented customer's electric usage history.

 

[Tanquen]

It’s just that none of the other venders cared and were fine with the spreadsheet. They just need to size it about the same and give a quote. Like Tesla is going to tell me no, you must buy a larger system? Why lie about it, the utility or the city or state will need to see it if there is some kind of limit not Tesla or any other random vender you want a quote from.

 

[woferry]

II like @woferry suggestion that utilities should make this process more friendly by creating a link for all approved solar installers to have access to a consented customer's electric usage history.

Actually, I wasn't suggesting anything, just saying what Tesla did in my case. Tesla used some third party company that did the data-collection for them (looking back at my emails it was a site named utilityapi.com). So of all things I was giving my PG&E login information to a company other than Tesla, not sure if I feel better or worse about that. But I guess utilityapi takes care of getting data from multiple utilities and providing it to companies like Tesla, so I guess it makes things consistent on both ends (presumably other solar providers might use utilityapi as well).

 

[Tam]

...Why lie about it...

It's about accurate information.

Professionals need objective data from the source, a machine, not a summary from a human.

Human can be trusted but info from human transcription can have errors.

 

[Tam]

...login information to a company other than Tesla...

In general, giving login information to anyone is a very bad idea.

Some companies even say do not give that to anyone including themselves because they never ask passwords from their own customers.

 

[zanary]

I had no idea that PG&E offered API access to our data. Seems a bit more complicated because of the granular RBAC, but it's interesting no doubt. It doesn't help here, but since we're talking about access to our PG&E, I thought this was interesting to say the least.

Source URL = Share My Data: Application Programming Interface (API)

 

[Vines]

In general we also ask for account access when we size a system, if we want it to be very accurately sized. UtilityAPI is also our preferred tool. If you trust the installer to do the job right, you should also trust them to not do anything nefarious in your utility account.

 

[woferry]

In general, giving login information to anyone is a very bad idea.

Yes, that's exactly why I changed my password to something simple before giving utilityapi the account access, and changed it back to something secure as soon as I knew Tesla had what they needed.

 

[Tanquen]

It's about accurate information.

Professionals need objective data from the source, a machine, not a summary from a human.

Human can be trusted but info from human transcription can have errors.

It's the same info. It's not my summary of anything.

 

[Tanquen]

In general we also ask for account access when we size a system, if we want it to be very accurately sized. UtilityAPI is also our preferred tool. If you trust the installer to do the job right, you should also trust them to not do anything nefarious in your utility account.

I can give them the same info. It's silly to say they have to log into your account to get the same info that you would get and then pass along to them.

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

In general we also ask for account access when we size a system, if we want it to be very accurately sized. UtilityAPI is also our preferred tool. If you trust the installer to do the job right, you should also trust them to not do anything nefarious in your utility account.

Also, change the damn password after they've pulled the information.

 

[Vines]

I can give them the same info. It's silly to say they have to log into your account to get the same info that you would get and then pass along to them.

As you wish.

Edit: Sales team says they do not ask for account access, my mistake.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

In general we also ask for account access when we size a system, if we want it to be very accurately sized. UtilityAPI is also our preferred tool. If you trust the installer to do the job right, you should also trust them to not do anything nefarious in your utility account.

My utility allows the customer to download a CSV or "GreenButton XML" file of smart meter data for any given date range. That should be enough.

 

[NuShrike]

I usually just PDF edit (LibreOffice) the bill to remove personal account numbers/info, and give them the appropriately "redacted" version.