I have my site survey or visit on the 21st of June . I was hoping the install would happen in July. After hearing everyone’s stories. It may not happen until November. 
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Tesla Solar in Houston & Surrounding Area’s
- Thread starter Jones1
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What is your main goal with your system? Mine originally was to use for backup when needed and aid in lowering my grid usage from my home. I originally ordered an 8.16kw system with 3 Powerwalls. This was in June of 2021. Install was in July of 2021. Permit was nothing back then, PTO took until about January or February of this year, granted I had to upgrade my transformer per Centerpoint's inspection. Tesla covered this cost of around $4500. The entire time my system was "waiting for PTO".
It was great, allowed me to see what usage was really happening. Prior to the install I did track the smart meter data on this website, it helped as well. https://www.smartmetertexas.com/home I ordered another 8.4kW in November of 2021 to get ahead of any electric rate increases. Texas electricity is too cheap to try to combat with solar, currently, so in November of this year I will switch to a free nights plan and do all my heavy lifting between 8pm-6am, ie charge cars, run dishwasher, dryer, washer. During the day my Powerwalls are set to a 40% reserve for backup and I can get through the whole day with solar paired without grid use. You will not get your entire rated Kw out of your system. I've maxed at 13.6kW from what I've seen, but my roof is very complex and I do have some trees that need to come down. Unless you have a clear line of sight for your solar I wouldn't even worry about net metering. They are just trying to get customers on their plans. Go for the cheapest out there or the free nights option. I'd opt for another powerwall if you can do it. I'm in my forever home too, so I plan to just keep growing the system.
Welcome. Thank you.What is your main goal with your system? Mine originally was to use for backup when needed and aid in lowering my grid usage from my home. I originally ordered an 8.16kw system with 3 Powerwalls. This was in June of 2021. Install was in July of 2021. Permit was nothing back then, PTO took until about January or February of this year, granted I had to upgrade my transformer per Centerpoint's inspection. Tesla covered this cost of around $4500. The entire time my system was "waiting for PTO".
So far I’ve learn that my original order of 9.6kwh was too small. I was looking at my current usage and not adding my Tesla. Also I’m going to get a other EV. So my main goal is to be off the grid and charging mostly between after work and when the sun goes down. So I increase my order to 12 kWh. I would also like to have a back up. My wife and I discussed it. We feel like as long as we ca. run the essentials. We would be good with one power wall. I sold my truck. F Gas. My wife has a hybrid. We are trying to get away from the Ercot and electricity cost of the retail provider. My current bill is about $160-$170 average. Adding a MYP. I think my monthly average would be $200-$225. If I can charge at work. Parking garages. Then it will be lower. So we picked a system. That would it be too much more than what we would pay for electricity. Well with financing. I’m looking at $400 per month vs $225 probably for month. For us just paying for electricity. So now. It feels like we are just paying for a back up battery. A generac system. Natural gas. Would of ram us about the same over 10 years. So we are happy and content with our order. I’m kinda of glad. It will take a while. But my god not a year like some have said. I guess I can stack up more money. But wow. That is long.
. A few families in my neighborhood have Tesla solar. They are happy. Tesla suggested that I use MP2 as my retail electricity provider. Who do you use?
I’m in the Balmoral area of Atascocita. We have a lot of people with solar. I would say it’s about 15%. Most of them don’t have a backup battery. Even though the system is expensive right now. I just don’t see prices going down. Maybe a 5 % dip. But after that it will just go higher. So as a family we think now is the time. In 5 years our regular electricity bill could average $300.
Hopefully I can get the system installed quickly then so the PTO waiting game.
Thanks for the website I will try it out.
Well I can probably charge to 90 percent. On days I’m able to get the free charging spot. Where I work. That will lower my yearly electricity consumption at home. They only have two spots available here. So it’s hit or miss. To get one of them. Lowest level 2. 14amps as well.
If things go this fast that is great... but that was not my experience. A site survey was not a requirement for me, but I asked for one since they were insisting on putting the PW's on the outside of the house right where the gas connection/meter was. So the Site Survey took awhile, then they have to redo the design to move the PW's inside. Then once all this is done they have to submit a package to the city building department for a builders permit. Obviously this can vary greatly by how responsive your city building office is. My city has on-line access to permits and you can go look it up yourself. They also need to get the first part of the interconnection agreement with Centerpoint done. I'm on TNMP, maybe they are slower. If you PA is saying the PTO will take longer than getting it installed than I'm in trouble! I'm only 1.5 months short of a year into this thing.I have my site survey or visit on the 21st of June . I was hoping the install would happen in July. After hearing everyone’s stories. It may not happen until November.
Wow. Thanks for the info. I haven’t talk to my PA yet. I was given an email To reach him. He has never responded. I call and get a random person.
As soon as i put my order in. It gave me a Site visit day. Maybe my pictures weren’t exact enough. So they have to do a survey. If this is going to take up to a year. I may put the down payment into some tesla stock. Until its time to pay. I live in Harris county. I believe its them not the city of Houston. That’s who l’ll have to deal with for permits and approval. I’m with Reliant now but the SA or lady i talked to last from Tesla. Told me to plan to switch retail provider to MP2 after they install. Tesla said they would help with that.
If you are getting 12kW of solar, you really need two Powerwalls so that they can absorb all the solar when the grid is down. Each Powerwall can supply or charge at up to 5kW instantaneous power. One Powerwall is just not going to work well for handling that much solar or running A/C in Houston.
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Thank you. I would like to get 2 Powerwall’s now. I’ll be pushing it with another $7000 added to the cost of the system. I have increased my order from 9.6kwh to 12kwh system. So I can get more kWh’s to charge my newly acquired Tesla. I will get another EV later. Hopefully a CyberTruck. My current estimated bill from last year will be lower than what I use this year. So I had to pick one or the other. More solar panels or more storage. I was thinking that my current usage would go up by 5000-9000kwhs from charging at home this year. Is it your opinion? To get more storage or more panels? If I was to keep the total system cost around what I have ordered now. Currently my system will be around $43,000 plus the interest over 10 years.
Thanks. I appreciate your input.
Tell me if I’m wrong. I was under the impression. That if my yearly usage from last year was 14,000kwh’s. I’m ordering a 12kwh system. That is supposed to produce 16-17,000kwh’s a year. Is this the right size system for my usage? Now that I will be adding an EV?
For a safe assumption you can bank on 80% of annual production. It's hard to put a firm number on it because at the end of the day you are dealing with weather, Texas weather at that. I'd say do the extra powerwall if you can, utilize them + solar during the day and opt for a free night electricity plan to charge for free at night. Here's my way of thinking based upon reading on here and my own application of my system.
Your 12kw system x 80% = 9.6kw in a perfect scenario
Your 14000 annual usage is roughly 1200 per month divide that by an average of 30 days, that's 40kW needed to produce everyday.
This would mean your 9.6kW system would have to run at close to 4 straight hours of full production throughout the day to produce your usage, in a prefect world.
2 powerwalls = 27kW Think of this in relationship of your total daily usage, if you drained them 100%, but you won't. You can set a reserve via the application, Tesla recommends 20% on the app which in your case would be 5.4kW reserved for outages, leaving 21.6 for daily use i.e. no sunshine.
So, you have home usage of roughly 40kW + 27Kw to fully charge your powerwalls and 9.6kW of assumed production. You need roughly 7 hours of 100% production to be off grid and charge for an outage to last through the night with your 2 PW's. BUT, if you used a free nights plan this would reduce your "average" daily usage by a lot. Tesla pushes the Mp2 but when does you current contract end? They won't come out and tell you that you don't have to change.
Again, all just my way of thinking about it, anyone may feel free to add or take away.
Thanks for the detail. I’m currently with reliant. On a Lower Nights&Weekends plan. It doesn’t end until next year. I’m at .12-.13kwh pricing. I will have to pay $200 to cancel my contract. I’m ok with that. If I can switch to a better plan or a buyback plan. I’m glad I upsize my system to 12kwh’s. If I do add another Powerwall. I would need to put more money down. I’m trying to keep my monthly Financing note to or below $400. To make this a viable plan. I figure the Solar will pay off to its self within 6 years. The Powerwall is like me buying a Home back up generator. If I got a generac. It would have been $10,000-$12,000.
So that justified me buying 1 Powerwall. For low usage backup. I will get the pen and paper out with the Tesla’s website price estimator. To see how much more I would need to put down for another PW.
Also. Does anyone know if Tesla is only installing the Powerwall + now? I see Powerwall + on my documents. But it actually reads “Powerwall + Solar Discount”
I renewed my reliant energy plan in January of this year. I had some neighbors mention that the price went up. My God. It did.
My wife and I. Were guestimating. That energy cost would go up. On an average of 3% over 10 years. That’s a 40% increase. Wow. In a few months.
Well, it should not need 7 hrs of 100% production. That 40kw is already the total usage for the whole day. IF 27kW from pw is also used up from last night, panels only need to supply the power for day time plus charging up the pw.
How many miles do you typically drive in a year? Let's say this is a Model Y - you should get 3 miles of driving for each kWh from the wall. If you're like me and drive about 10,000 miles/year then you should budget for an additional 3,333kWh per year for that car. A Cybertruck will get notably less miles for each kWh. Let's say it's only 2 miles for each kWh. 15,000 miles/year at that efficiency would require an additional 7,500kWh/year. This is on the high side because you won't be charging 100% at home with that many miles per year.
The solar system quote should give you a safe estimate of how many kWh it will produce each year. If you want to do your own estimates, you can use an online tool like PVwatts to put in the approximate solar system and array tilt and direction to get a production estimate.
PVWatts
Estimates the energy production and cost of energy of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) energy systems throughout the world. It allows homeowners, small building owners, installers and manufacturers to easily develop estimates of the performance of potential PV installations
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