Solar Tech Times

Customers of Green Mountain Energy Co. will begin a program to provide incentive to its customers to install solar energy by offering to buy back excess electricity from home arrays at retail rates.

Using the principle of net-metering, the company will buy back from the homeowner any extra electricity at rates typically higher than most utility companies pay. In some areas, this is standard procedure — homeowners can see their electricity meter running backward at times, reducing their power bill. See “Net-metering: Getting payback for grid-connected systems’ excess power.”

But in Texas has had a different setup because the Public Utility Commission has decreed that every household should get a new meter that measures inflow separately from outflow. With that new meter, power companies can see how much energy they’re buying from the homeowner and pay a different rate, usually much lower than retail.

So when the homeowner has to buy power — when the rooftop installation can’t meet all the home’s electricity needs — the homeowner has to pay retail. Green Mountain’s plan would negate that disadvantage to the homeowner.

The arrangement caps at 500 kilowatt hours per month; if the homeowner produces more than that amount of excess electricity, the company will pay half the retail price.

Customers agreeing to the deal can have a month-to-month pricing plan costing about 14 cents. Some electricity providers in Texas offer rates closer to 10 cents.

Green Mountain Energy, based in Austin, Texas, says it is the nation’s leading retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions. Green Mountain offers residential, business, institutional and governmental customers a way to purchase cleaner, affordable electricity products, as well as the opportunity to offset their carbon footprint, the company says.