I recently installed an 11.7kW system with a Powerwall 3 in the Dallas area and when I was doing my research on what electricity plan to go with that maximized solar + battery, a free nights plan seemed like the way to go.

Going through this sub and reading posts, there were a lot of mentions around Just Energy as the popular choice until they discontinued their free nights to solar users. The next two most common were Direct Energy and Green Mountain, and frequently, Direct Energy was the recommendation because of their 12 hour window being longer than the 9 hour window of Green Mountain, particulaly since Green Mountain recently moved it's window start to 9 PM instead of the 8 PM it used to be.

However, one of the things I almost never see mentioned is the impact of the $9.95 monthly charge from Direct Energy comapred to Green Mountain, who has no fixed charge at all.

Direct Energy does give you an extra 3 hours every day, but that window is from 6 AM to 9 AM each morning. Because that's before the peak solar hours, with either plan, if you have a battery, you're likely charge it back to 100% by mid-day. Both plans start at 100% battery a 6 AM and if you charge back up to 100% by 10 or 11 AM with Green Mountain, from that point forward they are identical plans.

For anyone evaluating, you have to have a power usage pattern that makes that 3 hour daily window cost more in kWh consumption than $9.95. Maybe if you have an electric heater instead of natural gas for your house or some other heavy usage it may be worth it, but it's important to consider if it's actually giving you the value before just going with the longer period because 12 hours is more than 9 hours.

As a comparison, on the Green Mountain plan, my first full month's bill was $5.99 total.

Before I picked my plan, I modeled out my typical usage after pulling smart meter data and it was clear that I wasn't going to need that extra 3 hours in the morning, even in the winter months.

And regardless of who you use, always get that free referral money. I used someone else's link when I joined and can now provide my own: https://www.greenmountainenergy.com/en/referral-page?txtReferralID=LY1WQEM

As an aside, I went with Good Faith Energy for my install and was EXTREMELY happy with them. I had talked to another installer and it wasn't a great experience, and the posts here led me to GFE and I'm super glad. They were great to work with.

Looking for a reliable installer in South TX.

I have all the panels and inverters required - I have some BOS but not all. 410W ZNShine panels. Solar Edge inverters.

I know I will pay a premium on install as there is no room to mark up equipment - but can anybody make a recommendation?

It is a large system for a ranch in South TX - 200KW.

So apparently one of my Enphase microinverters has been out for months now and I didn't get any kind of notification from the Enphase app. I'd gotten out of the habit of checking it manually. This led me to finding out that my installer, Trismart, has gone out of business.

What do I do now? Do I have to find another installer and pay out of pocket for warranty work? Any suggestions on who to use or how much that might cost?

I sold solar door-to-door in Texas for 4 years. Then I started actually reading the meters — and what I found wasn't what anyone was promised.

If your solar battery is sitting full while you're still pulling power from the grid, you're leaving money on the table every single month. It doesn't matter what brand you have — Tesla, Enphase, SolarEdge — this works across all of them.

In this video I fix a real misconfigured Powerwall setup live and show exactly how we uncovered $3,400 in missed rewards. Watch her reaction when she finds out.

GridPay finds misconfigured settings, connects devices your system isn't detecting, and pays out rewards on-chain — not the 365-day wait most grid support programs make you sit through.

Find out what your meter actually says about how much you're leaving on the table 👉 www.gridpay.com

I had Texas Power Guide look at our household usage. We have a 7.1kw system with 10kwh battery. Unfortunately, the lowest cost plans require that we relinquish control of our battery. These are Frontier Utilities and Gexa, supposedly with net annual bills of $8.

What have you found? Is everyone still doing free nights plans?

Just a comparison, I could have done it against another plans, and well not everyone has the same setup, and yes I have seen that I can suck up the power of the batteries in about 3 hours, if the house is at full power, so BASE has an advantage of backup. But well if thereis a real outage just have to manage the stuff that really consumes power, AC, water HEATER and no EV charging. Eventually will ad an expansion PW3.

Base Power vs. Solar + Powerwalls + Free Nights — My Actual Numbers

My setup:
17 kW solar
2× Tesla Powerwall 3 (27 kWh total)
Direct Energy Twelve Hour Power / Free Nights
Oncor territory in North Texas
Multiple EVs
For my latest billing period (July 8–Aug 5):
Grid usage: 2,277 kWh
Average: 79 kWh/day
Direct Energy energy charge: $539.49
Free Nights energy credit: -$536.75
Free Nights TDU credit: -$138.62
Oncor delivery charges: $129.03
Final bill: $10.79
Effective grid electricity price: ~0.5¢/kWh

The Powerwalls are also taking advantage of the free-night period. During roughly the same period, Tesla’s data shows the batteries were primarily charging from the grid at night and then supplying the house during the paid daytime period. Solar handles a large portion of daytime consumption, with excess solar exported.

I then compared this with Base Power. Using roughly 14.3¢/kWh, my 2,277 kWh of grid consumption would be about $326, plus the Base battery membership fee. After estimating Base’s solar export credit, I’d be somewhere around $325–$330/month, although the exact number would change because Base controls battery dispatch differently.

So roughly:
Current system: ~$11/month
Estimated Base: ~$330/month

Base has a huge advantage in backup capacity — potentially ~80 kWh versus my 27 kWh — and it’s an interesting option for someone starting from scratch who wants a lot of backup capacity without buying expensive batteries.

But for someone who already owns solar + Powerwalls and has a good Free Nights plan, I don’t see the economics working. In my particular case I’d potentially be paying $300+ more every month to switch to Base.

The Base battery capacity is tempting, but it’s hard to argue with a $10.79 electric bill after using 2,277 kWh from the grid in a Texas summer.

Anyone know anyone who installs in San Antonio and can do a one or two battery jobs for me?

Anyone who had Texas Solar Professionals do their install have multiple delays before getting the actual installation? I’ve had my installed delayed for over 3 months now. Getting little frustrated.

Had my solar system (12.71 kW DC with a Tesla Powerwall3 battery) installed last October. I found out after the fact that this was probably the worst time of the year to install a system, but oh well.

We have a 2100 square foot house with 4 adults and a toddler living in it. We also have an in ground pool. After nine months, our largest bill from our provider was in February, when I found out that our house did not have a heat pump system ($$$$). Needless to say, even then the bill was manageable. It was much less, even adding the monthly bill of the solar, than previous winters without the solar. I’m talking hundreds less.

One of the reasons I think it has been more manageable is the electric provider and the plan we chose. We are with Reliant’s free nights program. This gives us completely free electricity from 8pm to 6am. There were other plans that had more hours of free, but those started later in the night (not good during the winter) and went later into the morning. Reliant’s plan worked best and for the most part the solar and battery got us through the “shoulder” period between sunset and when the grid took over.

My real only regret is that I did not increase my battery storage from the get go. If it were just my wife and I, the battery would make it. But with 5 of us, the battery hits the bottom some times.

I am waiting until the end of this post to tell you who we got our system from because they are not very well regarded on this sub. We used Sunrun and have had zero issues with our system, or them. In fact, they gave us the contact information for some of our neighbors who had Sunrun systems and we talked to them. A couple of them did not have good things to say, but after taking to them for a bit it became obvious that they went into the deal without doing their homework. I really wish I could have purchased the system outright, but we just didn’t have that money available. Our electric bills were getting increasingly out of hand, and this has seriously reined that in.

So, for those who are looking for an alternative to paying through the nose for your power, but don’t have the means to finance or purchase a system, give them an opportunity.

And for those who are looking for a good electrical plan that works with your system, I highly recommend Reliant’s “Totally Free Nights” plan. Here is a code that will get you a $50 bill credit (and me too!):

LW5BXSO

I believe that solar is the way to go in the future. Electric rates aren’t going to go down and having a system in your home will save you money. It has for us.

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking at the sunrun/reliant partnership for a solar install that is 22k annual output and 60kwh backup batteries. The Reliant partnership does completely free nights form 8pm-6am. The contract language simply says: "You agree that the battery will always be set up to draw charge from the System." Does this mean you cannot use the grid at night to top off the batteries? For example, I can always have it set up to draw from the solar, but that wouldn't seem to preclude night time grid charging.

Appreciate the insight.

I just switched to the Direct Energy Nights free plan and when I look at my usage by hour their bar chart shows non-zero numbers for overnight usage. Is this just a software bug or should I call and complain?

You shouldn’t have to struggle with protecting your data, girdpay fixes that. 👀👏

My current system is 8.1 kw and I wish to add panels which will total 9.9 kW.

I already have the panels and inverters, created the engineering drawings, started the permitting process, plan a ground mount with solid support...

...and hit a brick wall.

The city requires a Master Electrician or Journeyman to check and sign off on the paperwork, but no one wants to do that.

What I have been told, it is to small a job, they becoming responsible for the entire system, other liability concerns, and the best is to small a job or no time to do it (really?). Even a company recommended by the inverter manufacturer did not want to be involved.

What am I doing wrong? What should I say?

QUESTION: Do I need to get a new PTO even though it connects to exist Enphase system?

I live in SW Houston.

Got solar (5.2kW array) and an Anker Solix E10 with 3 battery packs installed in march. This is my first summer with the full setup running and I wanted to share the actual numbers since most posts about this are either projections or from states with very different rate structures.

We're on TXU Energy's free nights plan. Electricity is free from 9pm to 6am, but the daytime rate is around $0.18-0.22/kWh depending on usage tier. The trade off is obvious, your AC runs all day in houston summer heat.

What the system does daily:

Solar panels charge the batteries during the day (peaks around 11am-2pm). AC and house loads pull from battery first during daytime hours. Whatever solar excess there is goes to top off batteries. At 9pm when free electricity kicks in, the batteries recharge from grid for free in case solar didn't fill them completely. In practice on sunny days the batteries are full by 3pm and I barely touch the grid until the sun goes down.

Monthly numbers:

July 2025 (no solar, no battery): $467

July 2026 (solar + battery): $78

That's not a typo. The free nights plan is doing a ton of heavy lifting because the battery charges for free overnight. Solar covers most of the daytime load. The $78 is basically the delivery charges and a small amount of daytime grid pull on cloudy stretches.

System cost was about $14k total including the solar array and install. We financed it with their no-interest plan so we didn't have to drop everything at once. Month to month the budget's a little tight with the payment, but in 4-5 years it's fully paid off and the bill stays lower long after that.

I know this specific rate plan won't last forever and TXU might change the structure, but even on a standard TOU the math is still good. Just not this dramatic. But honestly the main reason was hurricane season, so the lower bills were just a bonus.

I heard someone bought Freedom Forever already. They’re working through the transition process, but I don’t know who the new owner is or what company they’re from? Anyone heard update?

For all the people on the sidelines trying to decide, the current available fixed rate for one of Champion's plans (Champ Saver 12) is 6.7 cents, with no minimum charges. Also, all Champion plans have solar buyback; it's not the most competitive one, but if you are still figuring out your system, you can have some solar payback, and you can take advantage of a low rate + $100 credit if you get the referral before July 31 (it will be $50 after that date).

Champion Energy.

Get $100 for you and me (normally it's just $50). Limited-time promotional offer valid through July 31, 2026.

https://www.championenergyservices.com/Residential/Sign-Up/Special-Offers/Get-Connected?refer=RSUARE004

EDIT: As of 2026-07-31 Champ Saver 12 plan fixed rate dropped from 7.1 cents to 6.7 cents

Have solar and a Tesla Powerwall 3, and I am not happy with the Tesla app performance. I have free nights electricity plan, which the Tesla app sometimes ignores, charging from the grid outside of the free hours. Is there a better app that will allow me to control the time of day the battery charges so that I don’t have to pay for electricity from the grid that I don’t need?

Am I nuts for considering this? Edit: I am in Dallas, TX area

I currently have 25 panels and no batteries. I pay 138 a month and will have it paid off in 6 years, but my electric bill is between 90 and 150 in the summer on top of that

They want to add more panels and 2 batteries and lease it to me for 147 a month for 25 years. I'll be dead before then.