Texas is ‘Ready for Solar’

by Debra Kahn

Reprinted from ClimateWire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC.
www.eenews.net. 202/628-6500

California’s SolarCity is partnering with Texas energy provider TXU Energy to offer solar panels for lease to homeowners and eventually businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  Lyndon Rive, CEO of the Silicon Valley company, said the deal marks the first time a traditional utility has partnered directly with a solar company.

“If the industry wants to see millions of homes adopting solar across the U.S., we have to figure out a way to partner with those who are providing power today and embrace two business models,” Rive said in an interview. “If there’s no collaboration, then adoption will be slow.”

SolarCity made its name by eliminating upfront costs of solar power through 15-year leases that include maintenance, monitoring and a minimum kilowatt-hour guarantee, but about a third of its customers buy the solar panels outright. It currently has about 5,000 customers in Arizona, California, Colorado and Oregon, 90 percent of them residential.

TXU serves about 2 million homes and businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The program will initially be open to a few hundred homes, but could expand depending on the size of a rebate from grid operator Oncor. At $2.30 per watt, the rebate could defray 30 percent of the cost of the panels, with the federal solar investment tax credit knocking off another 30 percent. Rive said he expected to exhaust the current cap on the Oncor rebate, which is set at about 400 homes, by the end of the year.

“There’s been no solar company focused on bringing economies of scale, so the pool has always had available funds left at the end of the year,” Rive said. “We think we’re going to change that very quickly; we’ll probably deplete that in the next six months, and it gives the message that the state’s ready for solar.”

Last month, SolarCity announced a deal with California utility Pacific Gas & Electric to finance $60 million worth of solar installations, but the TXU agreement has the energy provider also taking the role of marketer and seller. TXU is the largest energy provider in Texas, with about 60 percent market share.

TXU will reach out to existing and potential customers through e-mail, mailings, bill inserts and community and environmental groups, said company Vice President John Geary.  Texas’ deregulated energy market gives TXU the incentive to court customers who want greener energy, he said.

“In a competitive market, customers have choices, and our customers have said they’re interested in solar but that the cost keeps them away,” he said. “This is a way to bring affordable renewable energy to customers, bring innovation to the market, and build deeper relationships with our customers.”