Posted on 05/29/2025 2:41:17 PM PDT by fwdude
I have a questions for those more financially savvy than I.
I live in a state that has deregulated electric energy markets, in an urban area with a lot of choices for providers. My current electric service contract is up in just over a month.
Seeing that energy prices are beginning to come down, is it wise to lock in with a new provider now, or wait as long as possible, possibly risking a spike in July?
Also, long or short contract? Fixed or variable?
Thanks for any advice.
There is sales tax on electricity in Texas.
Residential customers are exempt from paying sales tax on electricity. Commercial customers in Texas pay sales tax of 6.25 to 8.25% on their electricity bill. Your business may also pay a city tax depending on where you live. Texas is facing a crunch in its electricity supply because of a massive build-out of heavily subsidized wind and solar energy. Renewable subsidies force reliable resources like natural gas, coal and nuclear to sit idle for hours on end, making it harder to recoup costs and stifling investment. So it’s either pass the loss on to certain commercial enterprises or start taxing residential users.
wy69
We have a choice in Texas and I’d would suggest that you stay away from variable rate contracts. I took one and really got screwed when rates went up.
First time go short term, a year is good. See what’s included in rate, there’s more than just electricity like transmission of it which will cost as much or more then meterbrental . some rates will roll it in to the contract some won’t and quote a really low rate. Choosing a carrier is tricky. Consider doing this every time your contract comes up for renewal.
We are paying about 29 cents.
Bummer. Which state?
Too bad Generac went woke and will celebrate “gay pride” next month. I was considering a Generac backup system but no longer.
Alaska, where we have gas, coal, and oil falling out of our butts.
We installed a whole house Generac in 2011, and it was a fine company to do business with. For this house, we installed a Generac system in 2023, and used the same local company as before. They were/are terrible.
They’ve put more energy into woke than customer service, apparently.
Wow. That’s terrible.
If you’re thinking about a Generac review the warranty first.
For longevity an 1800 rpm unit is best.
You do not want a 3,600 rpm unit.
Thanks for the information.👍
Well, you don’t buy your produce directly from the farmer either. You go to a distributor, a grocery store, who had the produce delivered by a large transportation company. Electricity is no different.
If you are in Fort Worth then you are Oncor for T&D their monthly fee $4.23 is fixed by the legislature and they get $0.051248 per delivered kWh.
So what you are asking is what REP should you use. The Retail Energy Provider is not a power producer they are the middle man from the wholesaler to you the consumer the wholesaler is ERCOT who actually bought the power from power producers and sold it to the REP who marks it up even more about three times what the wholesale price was.
So regardless of who you choose you will pay 5.1248 cents per kWh PLUS what the REP charges you right now it’s in the 8 cent range. That’s $80 per megawatt hour.
Dreal-time Bus Avg wholesale from ERCOT is $20.02 right now this second.
You can see the delayed data here. Along with all the other public grid metrics and graphs. You will notice as solar @35% of the total grid load right now the price plummeting inversely as gas turbines sound down. Why? Because solar can be sold at a profit for $12 per MWh gas needs at least $30 at $3.50 MMBTU gas rates which is one fifth what the retail gas rate is right now.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
You can get the best deal for Oncor T&D affiliated REPs here.
https://www.powertochoose.org/
To answer your questions on timing right now the weather is relatively mild so peak demand is in the 75,000MW range in July or August it will be 83,000+ rates will spike due to gas turbines setting the peak energy price point which is then used to compute the average price point to charge for fixed rate REPs. It’s 13.4 cents per kWh right now with T&D charges included this is a good deal. It will be 19+ in peak summer it will fall again in the mild fall and rise in Dec to February as gas prices rise with winter demand.
GENERAC work great I have a whole house dual fuel set up plus a portable 15,000 watt tie fuel generator that can plug into a 50 amp NEMA house tie in for 30,000 watts total if both are running.
Retail natural gas prices are set specifically high enough so you cannot run a gas fueled generator for less per kWh than the REPs will sell it via the T&D provider. This is by design.
Only solar panels can under cut the grid and do it on the regular. Texas Republicans removed the net meeting laws years ago so REP’s are not required to buy back or allow your meter to run backwards. However they also have no power to stop you from being grid tied and having grid sync inverters that push enough amps at the right phase angle to stop your meter dead in its tracks making every watt comes from the panels and not the grid if you draw more amps than the inverters can push the phase angle shifts automatically and instantly and seamlessly amps flow in from the grid. You effectively are using the grid as a giant battery and only paying for the KVA you actually use which would be at night and some cloudy days. Panels still create nearly 50% of their rated outputs under scattered or partly cloudy sky’s.
Vertical bifacial panels make nearly 60% even under clouds from reflected light on both sides of the panels this effect gets better the more North or South you live as they also catch maximum rays when the sun is rising or setting and better in winter when the sun is lower in the horizon. Clouds don’t matter much to vertical solar fences and snow cannot cover them it’s win win.
It’s called solar fencing and it takes the place of 8 foot privacy fencing and it’s cheaper per day foot than fence panels now too. Panels can be had in bulk for 14 cents per watt of capacity by the pallet load. Panels are also cheaper than steel roofing per square foot yeah we are living in that world now.
Here are vertical solar fences at latitudes of Austin and Minneapolis at different compass pointing directions vs panels faced in the same directions at their latitude appropriate tilt angle. This data is actual collected data with clouds,snow and winter included. It’s not gut feelings or speculation or opinions.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1844102046871666963
“We are paying about 29 cents.”
Wow Texas is 13.4 all in today. Solar can be had for 40 cents per watt capacity not kWh with the installer getting them wholesale for 15 cents or less per watt.
A 15,000 watt system is twenty 750 watt panels even individual panels are only $450 delivered @ retail prices.... wholesale price is less than half that. These are plywood sheet sized panels 20 of them is 960 sq ft in area. Standing them up vertical would be 120 linear feet in lenght as a 8 foot tall privacy fence. As was shown in another post vertical panels can be faced in any direction and still make copious power because the sun moves across the sky and also throughout the seasons too. Panels only need light not direct sun reflection works too, snow is even better as it reflects more, water works too such as a pool surface.
In North Texas we have PVOUTs of 1461 kWh per kW of panels capacity. 15KW systems here put out 21,900 kWh per year clouds,rain and nights included using 30 year climate data for that calculation.
I have multiple 15,000 W systems and can confirm easily more than 21,000 kWh per year from each one. The system with single axis trackers is over 26,000kWh in a year. For comparison the average household not individual in the USA uses 10,600kWh per year. So a 15,000 watt system in Texas is DOUBLE what the average person would use in a year. Modern smart meters and more importantly smart home automation and plugs let you time shift or demand shift large loads like AC, water heating, clothes drying ,baking to times when the panels are rocking it. My night time demands are under 2000 watts it’s all LED lights, flat panel LED TVs and blower fans from the heat pumps which have thermal storage tanks for hot and cold fluids. My hot water is “free” it’s the heat sink from the AC heat pump condenser. In winter it’s still a COP of 3+ using ground source loops for the heat source and the tanks to store the heat for hot water and forced hydric heating. The compressors only run when the panels are rocking electrons out of the inverters.
Wish I could give you some wise advice.
But I live in NYS and Albany is allowing our foreign owned electricity provider to screw customers silly.
“Natural gas prices have been at all-time lows so something is fishy.”
Nothing fishy, Texas is Republican run for the last 20 years. Our power grid is “deregulated” in name only. ERCOT is the legislature created monopoly. They are the wholesaler on the grid. Power producers sell directly to them at the wholesale market rate set by and run by ERCOT. Then REPs buy wholesale power from ERCOT and mark it up considerably for massive profits when sold to the retail customer. The REP nor the power producers own or operate the transmission and distribution system that is a third commercial entity ONCOR or TXU for example.
You are paying THREE middleman for every kWh delivered. Each of them has a profit margin and each does a mark up for said profits. You will NEVER get “cheap power” with this system as it is designed for corporate profits in Texas by lobbyists from those industries and their buddies in the Texas legislature. The industry will always charge the maximum the market will bear and the market has shown 12-18 cents is what it will bear. No matter the source of the electrons or the fuel that will be the rate offered until the market shifts via inflation or recession.
Thanks. Good to know.
I've put together a comparison spreadsheet with the formulas included, and run a scenario with the last 12 months of my home kilowatt usage to plug in as a fairly accurate representation. The winner is always apparent, but usually by only a few bucks per year.
Thanks for taking the time to share that very detailed info.
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