By Patrice “Pete” Parsons, TXSES Executive Director
We have had articles on this topic in the past, but with all the recent press, I feel compelled to address the issue of consumer protection again. Solar in Texas has seen explosive growth in the last few years, and Texas Solar Energy Society recognizes that while there have been unfortunate incidents in which consumers received unethical treatment, we have an opportunity to build consumer confidence in critical home solar and battery solutions.
TXSES, along with our Business Members & partners, are working to ensure families and businesses have the confidence in our industry solutions. Part of this effort has been working on a consumer protection bill filed in the current Texas legislative session. New policy can help the growth of our industry and build consumer trust.
On Jan. 31st, Senator Zaffirini (D-21) filed SB 1036, the Residential Solar Retailer Regulatory Act, which will regulate residential solar retail transactions by requiring an registration for solar salespersons and installers, authorizing fees, and providing a path for civil and administrative penalties for those bad actors.
TXSES, in collaboration with trusted installers, AARP, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations, and the Texas Solar Storage Association (formally Texas Solar Power Association), have joined forces to provide input on this solid consumer protection bill. We thank all our partners involved who have already been walking the halls of the Capitol to promote it to legislators.
We are working closely with the Senator’s office to be sure that consumers get the protection they need and the confidence they deserve, while at the same time ensuring this supports a growing residential solar industry.
In the Texas House, Representative VanDeaver submitted HB 1640, which we also support, calling for the creation of a guide called, “The Transparency and Best Practices Guide for Rooftop Solar Systems for Homes.” The guide would “provide customers with current information, best practices and guidelines to consider when deciding whether to install a rooftop solar system for their home,” and would be posted to the commission’s website and provided to utility providers electric utilities. We think this guide would be a great resource for those homeowners wanting to adopt solar.
Why Consider Going Solar?
There have been many articles in the press recently about the solar industry that are failing to identify the actual reasons togo solar. Aside from the obvious environmental benefits of using clean energy, the opportunity to reduce your electric bill can be a huge factor, especially during Texas’s increasingly hot summers & cold winters. Resiliency during the increasingly prevalent extreme weather events we experience in Texas is also an added benefit when you add storage to your system. To that end, you’ll also be contributing to grid stability as you provide much needed power to the grid during extreme weather events.
How to Choose an Installer
The Texas Solar Energy Society wants to stress that unethical practices are not the norm for solar businesses in Texas. However, consumers should protect themselves by doing their due diligence before giving the green light to a solar installer. Remember the old adage, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Here are some simple steps to start:
Always get bids from at least three different solar installers.
By Patrice “Pete” Parsons, TXSES Executive Director
We are saying goodbye to a very busy, yet successful 2024, and are just as energized by the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in 2025. There is plenty to tackle. Although in many ways, last year marked some significant milestones for solar energy in Texas, with record-setting demand and installations (although mostly utility-scale), we recognize that maintaining this momentum is critical. There are forces in the Texas Legislature that would like to make it harder for solar to thrive, threatening grid reliability and increasing costs both for large- and small-scale solar.
With the 89th Legislative Session beginning on January 14th, TXSES’s focus in 2025 will be on educating legislators, and tracking, supporting (or opposing) solar-related bills already filed this session. We are also helping develop language on legislation not yet submitted.
To this end, we will continue working with legislators, other organizations, and stakeholders, as well as our Business Members, who have been diligently collaborating on TXSES Steering Committees created this year for this purpose.
Bills We Are Tracking
CONSUMER PROTECTION
HB 1640 (VanDeaver): Transparency and creation of a best practices guide for rooftop solar systems for homes. We will be supporting this bill.
SB 1036 (Zaffirini): Relating to the regulation of residential solar retail transactions; requiring an occupational registration; authorizing fees; providing civil and administrative penalties. We were helping with the language on this bill, which will affect the relationships between solar salesman, installations and consumer protection. Sen. Zaffirini’s office says that this will be the most important piece of legislation for her in this next session. I have been working with installers, AARP, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations and the Texas Solar Storage Association (formally Texas Solar Power Association) on the language. We think this will be a great bill if passed and will provide help to the industry at large.
Senator Zaffirini: Solar Financing (to be submitted): The Senator’s other piece of distributed solar legislation is focusing on the financing aspect of purchasing solar through lenders. This bill was a piece of legislation she introduced in the last session that received push-back from lenders. It also protects consumers who must begin paying on their loans before their installations start performing. We are working closely with the Senator’s office to be sure that consumers get the protection they need, but at the same time does not cause harm to the ethical body of installers in the state. Most installers fall into the latter category. We think this will be a great bill if passed and will provide help to the industry at large.
SOLAR-READY REQUIREMENTS
HB407 (Morales): Relating to solar compatibility for residential construction and making it a criminal offense to make fraudulent representations when making a solar sale. Also relates to municipal and county requirements for solar energy and device compatibility for certain residential construction. We will be supporting this bill.
TAXES
SB419 (Meza): Relating to the determination of the market value of solar energy property for ad valorem tax purposes (adding ad valorum taxes to homeowners for their solar installations.) We will be opposing this bill.
HOAs
HB431 (Cortez): Relating to the regulation by a property owners’ association of the installation of solar roof tiles. (HOAs, allows for solar homeowners to use solar shingles on their roofs instead of traditional panels. We will be supporting this bill.
NET METERING
HB 912 (Moody): Relating to the compensation of a distributed renewable generation owner in certain areas outside of ERCOT. This does away with net metering in El Paso. We will be opposing this bill.
SOLAR IN SCHOOLS AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
SB 799 (Menendez): Directs TCEQ to provide “assistance to public school districts to submit applications for federal and state funding for the installation and purchase of electric school buses and solar panels in public schools.” We will be supporting this bill.
Texas Backup Power Package (Johnson): Passed last session, but needs $1.8 billion appropriated still for backup power at nursing homes, hospitals, and other critical facilities. Must be capable of operating for at least 48 continuous hours, not more than 2.5 megawatts of load provides power sourced from: (A) a combination of natural gas or propane with photovoltaic panels and battery storage; or (B) battery storage on an electric school bus. We will be supporting this.
REGULATIONS ON UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR, WIND AND BATTERIES
SB 819 (Kolkhorst), HB 553 (Patterson): Relating to the permitting of renewable energy generation facilities by the Public Utility Commission of Texas; authorizing fees. It requires operators to obtain a permit from the PUC before construction or operation. It mandates setbacks, environmental impact assessments by TPWD, public notice, and hearings. It also creates a cleanup fund for facility removal. It will also will end use of Ch. 312 agreements. We will be opposing this bill.
As written currently, the bill will require anyone who wants to go solar, or already has solar, to get a permit and to notify surrounding neighbors up to 25 miles away, in the event they want to take issue. We are working to make sure that small scale solar is not included in this bill.
Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS):
HB 1378 (Troxclair) –Requires a municipality or county to prohibit energy storage within 500 yards of real property. HB 1343(Virdell) – Establishes a permitting process for batteries. It requires operators to obtain a permit from the PUC before construction or operation as well as fire mitigation, location and public hearing requirements.
SB1212: Relating to the interconnection and integration of distributed energy resources and Aggregated Distributed Energy Resources (ADER), which concerns small scale storage. By Senators Nathan Johnson & Sarah Eckhardt. We will be supporting this bill.
PUCRULE
In addition to efforts at the Legislature, TXSES is also working with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) to get a new utility interconnection rule created for distributed solar that will streamline the process and make it easier on the homeowner to get their solar turned on and begin receiving savings on electricity usage. This streamlined process not only helps the customer have access to their energy savings but will also eliminate some installer soft costs that can then be passed down to the consumer.
By Patrice “Pete” Parsons, TXSES Executive Director
As we near the end of the hottest October in Texas’s recorded history (since the 1890s), with new daily highs set across the state, and at least for us in Austin, the latest calendar date to ever hit 100 degrees—44 days later than the average date of Aug. 30th—it is becoming increasingly clear that the heat in Texas, and the ways we deal with it, are here to stay.
Weather-related disasters have cost Texans more than $100 billion just since 2000, and we continue to struggle with natural disaster recovery. As we all know, Texas is a large state with wide-ranging challenges: while some regions deal with drought and water shortages, others experience unseasonable heat waves; and still others find themselves hit by flooding and hurricanes. Homeowners insurance is increasingly hard to find in the state. Gas supply issues that caused the devastating Winter Storm Uri blackouts in 2021 continue to loom over the grid. And electricity is only getting more expensive for consumers.
The good news is that a significant amount of solar has been added to the Texas grid in the last few years, particularly after the painful summer of 2023—the second hottest summer in Texas history, after 2011—in which Texans suffered through 105-degree highs for over 61 days. From late 2022 until the beginning of summer 2024, 10,000 megawatts of solar has been added, and Texas continues to grow it’s solar input by 54% each year.
This summer, solar saved us from ERCOT’s forewarned conservation requests and the threat of brownouts, rolling or otherwise, and the price of energy dropped accordingly. It turns out that solar is the perfect match to meet high energy demand (& therefore expense) caused by hot, late afternoon AC use—traditionally the most challenging time of day for the Texas power grid. Wind and batteries can pick up the dropping demand overnight as winds pick up and temps cool off. Renewable resources not only power Texas through periods of peak demand, they also lower the price of wholesale power. The record summer heat of 2023, along with aging and failing gas & coal plants, led to the highest prices that year. This year, solar and storage, along with lower temperatures, helped keep costs lower.
Despite the success of solar and renewables in maintaining our grid and keeping the power on, not to mention their popularity amongst Texans (new polling from SEIA found that 73% of Texans believe that solar and battery storage make the grid more resilient & a majority oppose proposals that impose higher fees and more regulatory hurdles for solar projects), the state legislature continues to sideline them. Recent public hearings mentioning battery storage projects tended to focus on neighbors’ concerns (see Business and Commerce Committee), rather than the extremely vital job of keeping air conditioners on and lowering energy prices during hot summer nights.
In response, TXSES is continuing with plans advocating for legislation that should help the overall adoption of more rooftop solar. This includes new legislation on the adoption of SolarApp, free software that municipalities can use to make the solar permitting process much quicker; some consumer protection legislation; and new recommendations to the Public Utility Commission (PUC) on fair credit for distributed solar consumers from their energy providers. Additionally, we are working with the PUC to create a new interconnection rule that should ease the way for homeowners trying to get rooftop solar connected to the grid in a way that keeps some power at their home, regardless of the grid’s condition.
by Patrice “Pete” Parsons, TXSES Executive Director
The devastation caused by Hurricane Beryl this summer left millions of Texans reeling, including nearly 3 million in the Houston area who were without power in 100+ degree temperatures, with many still out weeks afterwards. Throughout the outage, one thing became crystal clear: localized distributed energy resources (DER), particularly solar with storage, saved the day—for those who had it.
Several of our Business Members who work in the Houston area have shared the experiences of their customers with solar and storage post-Beryl in the media. They were able to keep the power on, including AC, for the entire time the rest of the city was out. Many were able to help their neighbors, to boot. (See links to articles about them in the August 2024 Solar Report.)
The severity of the storm’s aftermath led Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to quickly announce the creation of a Senate Special Committee on Hurricane and Tropical Storm Preparedness, Recovery, and Electricity in mid-July, to investigate why electric utility companies (mainly CenterPoint Energy) were unable to restore power in a timely manner following Beryl. In addition, the City of Houston is now adding the new post of Resiliency Director to its Resilience & Sustainability Office in order to focus on better storm response. We hope that solar and DER will be given their due in these responses.
The federal Energy Information Administration ranks Texas third in the U.S. for small-scale solar electricity generation (less than 1 megawatt), after California and Arizona, however, Texas ranks 20th when considering per-capita. This means there is plenty of room for growth. As more homeowners consider adding energy backup services, such as solar batteries and generators, to their homes in response to weather-related grid instability, they may find that upfront costs are vastly different. However, once fuel, maintenance, and other considerations are taken into account, they become much more comparable in cost. SeeTXSES intern Mohammad Alkhatib’s report for more details.
TXSES has also just released, “Texas Grid Reliability: 2022 Interruption Cost Analysis,” a report that analyzes the economic impact of these grid service interruptions caused by the extreme weather we are having across Texas. Our research team found that in 2022, such interruptions cost the Texas economy an estimated $6.97 billion. Their findings are based on data from 68 Transmission and Distribution Utilities (TDUs) and aim to provide actionable insights and drive necessary grid reforms.
Our reports, and others, find that distributed solar has become increasingly vital in the last few years as these challenges arise more and more often, threatening the stability of the Texas grid. In fact, this month alone, solar has already contributed up to 25% of the daily power used by ERCOT and has so far prevented the rolling brownouts that ERCOT had warned could happen in August.
By Patrice ‘Pete’ Parsons, TXSES Executive Director
Until Hurricane Beryl, the biggest news in Texas energy this summer had stemmed from ERCOT Chief Executive Officer Pablo Vegas’s mid-June announcement to state legislators that demand for power in the ERCOT regions of Texas could nearly double by 2030—a number much higher than previously estimated. The news stunned the Senate Business and Commerce Committee he was presenting to and led to much speculation about why this was the first they had heard about it.
Mr. Vegas had already shared these numbers at ERCOT’s May Summit, however, which I had attended, and where he also dropped the bombshell that Texas is facing a $13.9bn price tag to add enough transmission capability to keep up with our overall power needs over the next ten years.
Summer net peak demand is expected to grow from its current 82 GW to about 163 GW by 2030 due to an increase in large power users coming online, such as data centers, crypto mining, electrification, and hydrogen production. This is approximately 40GW more than last year’s estimate. The bump is the result of a new law passed in the last legislative session requiring ERCOT to include companies’ grid connection requests before they are finalized, whereas before they were not allowed to be included.
Before Mr. Vegas’ announcement, I had joined with colleagues at Solar United Neighbors and Public Citizen to form the Texans for Local Energy Freedom Coalition and explore possible solutions for utilities to reimburse rooftop solar owners and offset the cost of solar being fed back into the grid. The coalition determined the need first for a study that would define the true costs and value of solar per kilowatt hour in ERCOT regions in order to prove we had the correct market signals for those that either already have solar or those considering adding rooftop solar.
We are proud to share that the Value of Residential Solar in Texas report was released this past week, on Tuesday, July 16th. TXSES was able to secure a grant from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and commission Dunsky Energy to prepare the study. The release was accompanied by an online press conference (click to see recorded video) and press release. You can read the full report on our website: Value of Residential Solar in Texas.
Value of Rooftop Solar Findings
The report points out that if “generation and transmission buildout does not keep up with the pace and magnitude needed to support the anticipated increase in electric demand, ERCOT could face a significant capacity shortfall and a threat to its system reliability.” Adding that, “Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), such as rooftop solar, will play a crucial role in meeting emerging system needs and can alleviate constraints on the generation and transmission system.”
Among the report’s important conclusions, it found that energy supplied by rooftop solar in Texas is much more valuable than the average kilowatt-hour sent to the ERCOT grid by other means. It notes that ERCOT’s total installed rooftop solar capacity is currently at less than 3% of its potential capacity, and that “this is primarily due to inconsistent solar compensation policies among non-competitive utilities,” which send the wrong market price signal to homeowners. “Utilities must provide fair compensation for the full electric system benefits these systems offer the grid to ensure that rooftop solar PV continues to contribute to system reliability.”
The report’s key findings:
Solar offers substantial benefits to Texas’s grid: With the anticipated increase in electric demand, Texas needs all available generation and demand response tools. Even with the forecasted rise of rooftop solar, a significant amount of additional energy will need to be generated. Rooftop solar will alleviate some of the burden on the utilities and the state by reducing the additional infrastructure needed. The analysis found that in 2025, the overall value of solar in ERCOT will be about 27¢/kWh. About 55% of the total value (15¢/kWh) is realized in the generation, transmission, and distribution system, while the remaining 45% (12¢/kWh) is realized through air pollutant and emission reduction benefits.
Among the grid benefits, the largest component is avoided energy costs (9¢/kWh), followed by (ii) wholesale price suppression benefits (1¢/kWh). These savings are substantial because solar panels generate energy at times when wholesale energy prices tend to be high.
In 2025, the benefits from reducing greenhouse gas pollution (10¢/kWh) make up 90% of the overall public benefits, followed by benefits from reducing air pollutants that are harmful to human health (2¢/kWh). However, this value is expected to decrease significantly over time as the overall energy supply in ERCOT becomes cleaner.
The current export credits may not accurately reflect the value of solar: Retail Electricity Providers offer a wide range of export credits for customers with solar, ranging from 3¢/kWh up to 19¢/kWh. This disparity exists because utilities have different ways of evaluating the grid benefits of solar. Typically, utilities do not consider solar’s additional benefits to the wholesale market, such as avoided risk premium costs, ancillary costs, and price suppression benefits, as well as its benefits to the T&D system in the form of avoided transmission and distribution capacity costs. As a result, these export credits may not accurately reflect the full value that solar provides to the system.
Solar PV provides several intangible benefits: In addition to the values listed above, distributed solar provides significant benefits to the Lone Star State.
Job and Local Economic Impacts: Distributed solar can stimulate local economies by providing employment opportunities. Construction of one MW of residential solar could result in 12 to 20 full-time equivalent direct jobs that year. In addition, solar can bring stable and predictable revenue streams to communities through employee wages and the local supply chain involved in installing and maintaining solar PV systems.
Poverty Alleviation and Energy Equity: Solar energy addresses environmental justice concerns and can promote poverty alleviation and energy equity through electricity bill savings and buffer against price volatility.
