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Tesla Solar in Houston & Surrounding Area’s
- Thread starter Jones1
- Start date
DrewHou
Tesla S|3|Solar+PW
It really does help with knowing what’s going on. I even figured out what days and times my water softener / filter does it regeneration by going through its breaker history. I don’t know why that was important for me to know but without span I’d never know.
In the 0% reserve club... Had to pull ~11 kwh from the grid on Sunday before the free nights started. Now need to put ~100 kwh back into the next couple weeks to zero out the bill.
One should be mine... finally got my first bill. But the free night credit kwh was more than the total energy kwh
I see you both using Just Energy which is same as Amigo. I guess their billing department is just as messy as Amigo.
Watch your bills carefully guys. Check the data with Smart Meter Texas which mirror the info that your meter sends to CenterPoint and report to all retail energy providers.
Yeah, the game is try to get a zero bill each month. If you have to pay, then no mater how much you generate and build the credits, it does not give you back money so the best outcome is zero or as low as possible bill each month.
DrewHou
Tesla S|3|Solar+PW
Yep I will have months where they claim I had energy usage during the day that I don’t think is correct but then other months they claim I have more night credit than even the total usage. Like this past bill makes no sense. So far it’s balanced out to be a win for me so I am not saying a word.
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Yeah, each bill doesn't match my calculations, but the mismatch has gone both ways. But so far, cumulatively, it's pretty close to my estimate. Since I started with $100 credit, I may never pay them a penny. I currently track to net $2 each week before I stop selling back to the grid. This should offset the base charge and their accounting snafu.
@dc81 @DrewHou
It's a worrisome sights. It seems they share the same billing departments.
All the data is provided to them electronically by CenterPoint so there is zero reason they have any wrong data at all. A lot of people speculate that their billing is done manually via a spreadsheet or something. Very antiqued billing. Don't expect to see correct billings for a while. Sometime it's in your favor, sometime not. But when it's wrong, it's massively wrong and you spend hours dealing with them.
After moving to Green Mountain, my bill is matching exactly what the data in Smart Meter Texas reports.
It's a worrisome sights. It seems they share the same billing departments.
All the data is provided to them electronically by CenterPoint so there is zero reason they have any wrong data at all. A lot of people speculate that their billing is done manually via a spreadsheet or something. Very antiqued billing. Don't expect to see correct billings for a while. Sometime it's in your favor, sometime not. But when it's wrong, it's massively wrong and you spend hours dealing with them.
After moving to Green Mountain, my bill is matching exactly what the data in Smart Meter Texas reports.
wiltoking
Member
Billing for me matches to the nearest kWh with Amigo Energy. Just got the bill for Meter Dates "12/14 - 01/18" which add up to 733 usage and Smart Meter Texas reports the same 733 for "12/14 - up to 01/18 (until the end of 01/17)".
That said, Nights Free does not forgive, with the cold, lack of sun, and heat running, the 30 kWh I used during peak on 01/15 killed me. If it wasn't for what I've banked in surplus sell-back credits, this would be the highest bill to date at $7.11. If the panels or PW ever go down I'm SOL with my bills.
Sounds like you need to get another PW. These things and these plans work beautifully until they don't. Ask me how I know.Billing for me matches to the nearest kWh with Amigo Energy. Just got the bill for Meter Dates "12/14 - 01/18" which add up to 733 usage and Smart Meter Texas reports the same 733 for "12/14 - up to 01/18 (until the end of 01/17)".
That said, Nights Free does not forgive, with the cold, lack of sun, and heat running, the 30 kWh I used during peak on 01/15 killed me. If it wasn't for what I've banked in surplus sell-back credits, this would be the highest bill to date at $7.11. If the panels or PW ever go down I'm SOL with my bills.
I'm still fighting with Amigo over the remaining $2,600 bill they want me to pay for their BS.
On the subject of the 1/15 freeze, I pulled 47 Kwh from the grid intentionally because I want to prep for the worst case. It costs me $10 so small price for piece of mind. I didn't want to run out of power during the coldest day of the year just to save a few bucks.
I think for those with solar/PW, the night free plan is the best one plan. Buying back at 3 cent is just a bonus which comes at a price of billing issues. I tried and it did not work for me.
At the end of the day, using several thousands Kwh from grid and pay a few dollars a month is an amazing deal.
Now that I see this, yes, they are good with your consumption data where you pay but not very good with your energy generation data where you get credits.
And when they start to see you use large amount of energy during free night, suddenly, your meter has issue and no longer compatible with their free night plan
DrewHou
Tesla S|3|Solar+PW
Yeah I keep a close eye on the bills even those are not consistent on when they generate. I don’t know what old school crazy system they use but it definitely is a mess. When I was with Reliant and also Shell it always matched perfectly too so something is off about them.
Glad to hear i am not the only one seeing these messy billing issues. We all use smart meter these days so we can track our data up to 15min intervals. And for them to have the guts to tell us that our billing is correct when the data from Smart Meter Texas says otherwise. When you complain, they blame CenterPoint.
When you think about it, they are the only ones that buyback with free nights. How do they make money when everyone else is only offering free nights. All of these companies are resellers, they just pass through the connection and don't generate any energy themselves. Essentially, they are just billing companies. And how billing companies make money? By shady billing practices.
I have never ran into a company that have such a questionable billing practice from day 1. One one hand, I'm sad that I a unable to sell back to get credit. On the other hand, I'm relieved that I no longer have to stress every month because they mess up the bill every month.
Took a quick look at all my bills and usage
Energy Charges - This matches SMT's billing usage. It's the last day of the cycle's reading (rounded) minus the first day (rounded)
Nights free credit - Can't figure it out, but this number has been higher than Energy Charges all but one month, so it's generally in my favor.
Sell back credit - This is sum of all surplus, but rounded each 15 min (ie, surplus < 0.5 kwh goes to 0). May try to optimize this, but don't care that much.
Small sample size, but probably not going to worry about it until I start using up my initial $100 credit.
If you download SMT data in the 15 min format, and put in excel, you can sum all usage from 9PM to 7AM for the whole billing cycle. That should give you free night usage.
If your billing data doesn't match SMT and in your favor, then good for you. If they start to go the other direction, you may want to keep quiet and take the hit because it's a waste of time to deal with them. Every agent tells a different story. All the investigation results in consumption data is correct when you explicitly tell them to investigate the sell back or night data.
Enjoy it and try to bill more credits in case you need them during the summer.
Too bad they didn't credit me the $100 referral in my first bill so I have to pay $.
Tesla Electric was great for me at first. Until I switched my location of employment. I was able to charge for free at Work. Location I’m out of now. Can’t even plug into a 120 outlet.
My Tesla Electric Bill. Was about what I would have paid for Charging my Tesla. $50-$70. On average. My two coworkers. Still have about $500 & $400 of bill credit. Only one of them has an EV. He just got. Doesn’t drive it much. I drive about 75 miles a day. M-F. I’m saving $300 or more a month by not buying gas for my Truck. $50-$70 ain’t a problem. It’s just not FREE.
My Tesla Electric Bill. Was about what I would have paid for Charging my Tesla. $50-$70. On average. My two coworkers. Still have about $500 & $400 of bill credit. Only one of them has an EV. He just got. Doesn’t drive it much. I drive about 75 miles a day. M-F. I’m saving $300 or more a month by not buying gas for my Truck. $50-$70 ain’t a problem. It’s just not FREE.
On Twitter or Reddit. People post their Bills. In the past. I work with the two guys. I see it and I’m embarrassed for Tesla Solar customers. Most of the VPP customers have PW1.
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