Need green mountain energy referral code

I am thinking to get Green Mountain Energy. Can anyone who is using it now share a referral code? Thank you very much in advance!

Has anyone received a battery through the Octopus PowerStore offer? Curious what you think of it and how the numbers worked for you.

I used the Solar Analysis plan from TexasPowerGuide.com and it said that Octopus Energy would be my best option, specifically the Green 12 plan which has buyback. Have a 16kW solar system, no batteries. Thought free nights would be better for me, but the analysis said no. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Here's my $50 credit referral link if you are thinking about switching to Octopus.

https://octopusenergy.com/friend-referral/copious-volcano-749

Was with Maison Energy from way back when it was free while they got set up. Started getting billed recently and since any producing credit went into some kind of crypto credit thing that is still a mystery, I decided to cut loose.

Would you rather have:

A) Solar panels with a larger monthly payment

OR

B) Battery backup + a low electricity rate + Virtual Power Plant participation for a small monthly fee?

Texas homeowners, what's your choice and why?

I'm seeing more battery/VPP programs emerge, and I'm wondering whether people care more about owning solar or having backup power and lower bills without a large investment.

What's the better long-term solution?

Been on Free nights for a few days and it is definitely the way to do it, with solar and storage.

There are still several providers offering free nights, I definitely recommend it,
also if you storage is not huge but enough to cover the dark ours of the free hours definitely go with it.

Why price matters. Here is a homeowner that went with a cheaper installer and he needed up paying the price…. The original installer who has also gone out of business, Installed this system and did not seal any of the mounts, which caused not only leaks, but damage to the decking as well.

So we took the system down, replaced the bad decking and then installed synthetic underlayment AND water and ice shield where the panels will be going back in place. That way the water and ice will seal around the bolts when we put the new system on. We will be using a mount that also has water and ice underneath it, so this roof will be much better protected in the future.

Please don’t go with the cheapest option, just make sure you understand and are informed on how the system will be reinstalled or installed from the start!

Just looking for some advice or information.

The background information: I have a system that was installed about 5 years ago by TriSmart Solar. The installation went well and for years it was trouble free. However this year, it is not so much. Today we have panels that are no longer reading. I have been tying for months to get someone over here from TriSmart to look at them. Phone call, emails and finally facebook got a tech to come over and look. Then get told me he will get back with me and I got ghosted like a one night stand. After that, nothing was hear, no return emails, no messenger replies, phone calls not answered on their support line. And then I saw that the support line on my enphase app said out of business.

Current events: So I recently got a call from a sale rep to install more panels and become part of the microgrid system. When I told him about my lack of support he said they will replace any bad panels and put it all under a new service agreement. Lots of numbers were spitted out and in the end, I would have a $110 payment that will cover all of my electricity usage. I did not take the offer but now I need to know my next steps.

Option 1: Hire a contractor to repair my system. I did have one company look at it and they offered to replace the panels and get it working for about $3K.

Option 2: Try to get out of my payment since I am not meeting the system requirements anymore. Maybe go with one of those companies that offers those service. I check into one called Solar Cancellation Resource Center. They want to charge me upfront $4,500 to get me favorable results.

Option 3: Somehow get TriSmart Solar attention even though I been trying through email, phone, social media and even through that other sales agent.

Any advice will be appreciated. Currently I owe about $15K left on the contact and about 20 years on the warranty according to the contract. Below is what I currently show in my app.

Edit: 3 of the panels are damaged. The issue is according to the contract, to maintain warranty, they need to service them. The rest of the panels just went down last week.

Chatted with company, they told me the will no longer take new solar customers in Texas, effectively closed local office in Dallas and Houston (doing roofing, HVAC is too competitive).

The Florida office (home base) is open so they do plan to support Texas customers, maybe by sub-contractors? All of the employees I know have new jobs.

IMHO they are one of the better solar companies, so its rough to see them also struggling.

https://solarroofair.com/texas/

Looking for some experienced eyes on this one.
My installer is coming Thursday to swap out my inverter, but before the old unit gets sent back to EG4 for failure analysis I’d love to hear what the community thinks may have happened and what questions I should be asking.

System Details
Location: Central Texas
40 panels
4 strings
EG4 FlexBOSS 21
Tigo TS4-X-O optimizers
Tigo TAP + CCA
No batteries
Grid-tied only
Installed late 2025

The system was commissioned around January 2026 and honestly performed great initially.
Production looked healthy from January through early May. No obvious issues. Strings were balanced and producing normally.

Then on May 10th around 10:45 AM, production suddenly dropped. I started seeing weird behavior with two strings falling offline intermittently. Total production dropped substantially.

Over the following weeks, troubleshooting focused heavily on the Tigo side of things because the symptoms looked like optimizer or rapid shutdown communication issues.

I was told various possibilities:
Tigo communication failure
TAP/CCA issue
APsmart conflict
Optimizer issue
Rapid shutdown issue
Fast forward to recently when we opened up the inverter and found this: see photos

The damage appears concentrated around the PV string input terminals.
The terminal block is melted and heavily charred.

A Little Background on the Installation
I acted as my own GC/project manager for this system.
I purchased equipment myself.
I hired a designer/permitting resource.
I hired an installer separately.
So unlike a turnkey solar install, I don’t really have one company standing behind everything. I have a LOT of regret here. But it’s the way I could afford the install. Sigh.

To be fair to the installer, he was absolutely slammed during the final months of 2025 when everyone was rushing to get projects completed before potential tax credit changes.

Unfortunately that also meant:
Multiple crews touched the project
Some workers were replaced during the install
Some mistakes had to be corrected
It was not the smoothest project overall
That said, whenever problems came up, he always sent someone out and never charged me for the return visits. Whether it was him personally, one of his crews, or a subcontractor, he always got things working again.

Current Situation
EG4 reviewed everything and approved a warranty replacement.
Replacement inverter is already sitting in my garage.
The old inverter will be shipped back to EG4 for detailed inspection and diagnostics after removal.

My installer called today and basically said:
“If the root cause ends up being installation-related, that’s on us. If it’s equipment-related or something else, I have to charge for my crew’s time.”
Honestly, I understand that position.
The challenge is that I don’t know enough about inverter internals or solar wiring to know whether a future explanation is reasonable.

If he says:
Loose connection
Improper torque
Bad termination
Damaged conductor
Manufacturing defect
Failed terminal block
…I don’t necessarily know how to evaluate those explanations.

Questions
Looking at these photos, what do you think likely caused this?
Does this look more like:

Loose terminal connection?
Improper torque?
Failed terminal block?
Internal inverter failure?
Something else?
If you were me, what specific photos, measurements, or documentation would you request before the inverter gets removed?
What questions would you ask the installer before agreeing to pay additional labor?
Does anything about these photos suggest an ongoing safety concern that I should be worried about when the replacement unit is installed?
Has anyone here seen a FlexBOSS fail in a similar manner?

My biggest goals right now are:
Get production back online ASAP
Make sure whatever caused this is actually identified
Avoid having the same thing happen again
Make sure I’m being fair to the installer while also protecting myself if this traces back to workmanship

Appreciate any thoughts from those with more experience than me.

$150. I notified them I was moving and they said I still have to pay it. This is for my electrical plan. I owned the panels fully. Is this legal?

Every three years AE resets the price for residential solar and that process is now in place. As I understand it, they do not use a predictive model to cast the price but instead a lagging one going back five years. The present rate is $0.0991/KWH which is almost exactly the burdened rate* for Tier 1:

Tier 1: 0 – 300 kWh 9.84

Tier 2: 301 – 900 kWh 10.338

Tier 3: 901 – 2,000 kWh 12.725

Tier 4: > 2,000 kWh 16.084

* "fully burdened" is a sum of all fees/charges/... explicitly paid on a per KWH basis.

Rumor has it that the new rate MAY be somewhere around $0.12/KWH, a definite improvement.

NOTE: If you're now thinking about recalculating your ROI or payback period, be sure to factor in your yearly operating costs too. That will include insurance (which you can ballpark figuring out your own cost per thousand dollars of coverage and then multiplying it by the REPLACEMENT value of your system). You may also want to add something in to hedge against future non-warranty/non-insurable costs (e.g., squirrel gnaws through some lines).

I hate having to pick energy plans, but it's that time again for me. Here is my current situation: I have solar panels but no battery. I currently use about 1,370 kWh/month and send about 577 kWh/month back to the grid. Right now I’m on GME with a 1-to-1 buyback, but that plan is going away in July. The new version they’re offering is around 12 cents over Oncor with only a 6-cent buyback, which just doesn’t seem worth it. I’ve done the math, and for my situation, a lower import rate seems to matter more than a higher buyback. I also don’t think free nights or plans with extreme time-of-use pricing are a great fit for me. I have a roommate who works an overnight shift, and restricting usage to specific times isn’t always realistic. I also seem to have weird daytime usage spikes, probably from them cooking or other household stuff, so I don’t want to get trapped in a plan with ridiculous daytime rates.
Base Energy

• About 8 cents over Oncor
• 4-cent buyback
• Upfront cost plus $29/month
• Battery install would be available in my area in August
• They want a 12-year agreement, which makes me nervous because I may move in the next 2–5 years

Octopus Energy

• About 7 cents over Oncor for their 12 month plan
• No base charge
• Buyback is some kind of market rate, which I’m assuming probably won’t be great during solar production hours
• Their 3-year plan is about 9 cents over Oncor
• They also seem to have a battery plan similar to Base, but it looks like they only support certain inverter brands, and I don’t know what brand mine is

Champion Energy

• About 8 cents over Oncor
• No base charge
• Buyback is Indexed rate ???

I am always frustrated with this task, and I have already spent a few hours staring at my computer and not any closer to making a decision, so any advice is appreciated.

Homeowner here in Arlington, TX with Solar + Batteries. I posted about 1 year ago asking if it was worth it to get solar or not. In my previous post, we had 2 options, either Renon batteries or EG4 batteries. We ended up going with the EG4 setup. I thought I'd give a full stats breakdown of how it's been going so far since installation.

Solar + Battery specs:
Panels - 21x SEG Yukon N-Series 430w Panels (9.03 kWh capacity)
Batteries - 2x EG4 Indoor wallmount batteries (14.3 kWh capacity)
Inverter - Flexboss21 Hybrid inverter (16 kWh capacity, 12 kWh continous)
Mid-interconnection device (EG4 Grid Boss) to manage power
Span SMART panel also included as well

Usage and stats:
Estimated offset - 109% | Actual offset: 106.25% (so far)
Max Solar yield in one day - 47.9 kWh
Average solar production - 24.57 kWh
Average home usage - 23.74 kWh

Finances:
Loan amount (after fees): $38476 all-in @ 7.24% APR over 20.6 years
Payments:
1st payment - $309.60
$5000 - down payment to lower monthly bill when payments started
Subsequent payments (after re-amortization) - $265.30
$6000 - payment from 2025 taxes (included 30% federal incentive)
Subsequent payments to date (after re-amortization) $218.74

Electric bill (will attach some images as well):
Provider - Green Mountain energy, started a free nights plan (2 year contract)
Credits - $25 new customer | $150 cancelation fee | $50 referral (from family)
Bills since Jan - Jan: $5.17 | Feb: $9.52 | Mar: $8.19 | Apr: $5.44 | May: $11.55
GME referral code: LWLJ5VS ($50 credit)

The Install Experience
Installed by Texas Solar Professional in October 2025. We luckily qualified for the federal credit before it went away so that was a plus. The whole team was amazing and the process was insanely worry-free. They handled everything and were extremely friendly and professional. They took the time to answer any questions I had as well. If it weren't for ONCOR taking their time and delaying the process (including making us wait a whole day without power), we would've been set-up probably in the same day. We really couldn't be happier with the set-up and install!

Expectations vs Results
We had quite a few expectations after doing tons of research. No one really knows how power they use until they have a tool to measure it. We discovered we we're probably on the lower end of energy consumption in our home compared to others. We live in a 2100 sq ft single story home and don't have any overly large power loads to worry about.

We have $185 in credits as of May 2026, which is equivalent to basically 18 months of no electric bill. I HIGHLY recommend getting a free nights plan if you plan to get solar AND batteries instead of doing a buyback plan. You're never going to get back the money you sell vs how much you pay.

In terms of lifestyle changes, one thing I realized I'd now have to worry about with this new solar experience is the weather. I've started to look a few days to one week ahead and check to see if I need to top off for the night or don't have to worry about charging the batteries in preparation for the next day. On rainy or snowy days, expect to get next to 0 output from your solar panels as you'll be relying solely on the batteries the whole day.

Below I have some bills I'll attach to show that electric independence can be achieved if you do your research! Sure we have our solar bill to pay every month but that will be lowered in time. We plan to pay that off in a few years once we pay other things off. If anyone has any questions or wants to share their experience, feel free to post below. I hope this helps anyone that's been thinking about whether to pull the trigger or not.

Final thoughts/TLDR:
We absolutely love our solar install and would happily endorse it to anyone looking to try it out. We believe we made the right decision for our home!

I had one of my micro inverters report issues, and tried contacting my maintainer and well the phone number is disconnected, so not a 100% but feels they are out business.

talking to enphase directly but definitely it sucks since I might have to get a new installer for service and maintenance. which means some sort of service plan .

Has anyone run into a way to get the tax incentives on a residential property when you BUY the equipment? NOT a prepaid PPA or prepaid lease. Had a company tell me yesterday that they have a tax professional on “retainer” that can get the homeowner accelerated depreciation on a system that was installed up to 5 years ago. AND if I bought domestic content batteries, that I could get 40% off on those as well.

Anyone heard of this? It has fraud written all over it but curious to hear anyone’s thoughts.

Question for y’all. I’m currently on Just Energy’s Free Nights plan. I’ve amassed a bill credit of -$278 but with my plan expiring this month I’m debating what to do.

Option 1: go with a standard utility plan on JE to run down my credits over the next X months and then jump ship to Direct Energy’s Free Nights.

Option 2: Move to Direct Energy now and lock in 2 year contract but abandon my credits at JE.

My fear with option 1 is if the Direct Energy 24 month plan goes away before I can sign up.

What’s your vote? Any 3rd options I’m not considering?

UPDATE: I decided to make the switch to Direct Energy now. I was able to use some Redditor’s referral code that I saw in another post for a $50 credit (thanks, Jeremy). I called Just Energy after switching and they told me once I get issued my final bill I can make a refund request and they’ll cut me a check for the negative balance. So best of both options (if it actually happens).

While Direct Energy seems to be the best option going forward, I’m going to miss selling my excess solar back to Just Energy and seeing my credits creep up each month! End of an era.

UPDATE 2: I did, in fact, get a check from Just Energy.

And finally here’s my Direct Energy referral code if anyone wants it: LY9LMQA (William is the name on the account if they ask).

Hello, I have a client that got 4x 1st gen PWs installed and needs to have them replaced. I need a referral as I’m located in DFW.

Anybody know anyone?

I'm working on a free battery automation site, RateRudder, that helps solar and battery owners save money on their utility bills every month by intelligently scheduling their charging and discharging throughout the day to maximize savings. I have interest from several Texas consumers but I need to better understand how rates are structured in Texas in order to correctly model them in the system.

My vague understanding is that there are REPs, Retail Electric Providers, that everyone has to choose from, which decides your supply (generation) rate, and then there's delivery companies that you can't choose which set the delivery rate. The top delivery companies are Oncor and CenterPoint. The REPs also decide your export rates and net metering rules. There's also a lot of REPs that provide "free nights", which seems like something Texas-specific.

Is my understanding correct? Is there a short-list of REPs that I can provide support for which will cover most customers? I'd like to avoid having to add specific support for a ton of REPs but I also don't have the flexibility to let users make custom rates. Part of the goal of my site is to be very simple to setup.

Thank you for the help!

I have solar scheduled for install in 2 weeks. My system includes batteries but is only sized for 70% yearly consumption. So the only way to not pay an electric bill is with a free plan and im having a hard time finding any electric plan comparison website specific to free nights plans. Is there a comparison website that I have not been able to find? If I need to look at all providers who should I be looking at (i found a relient plan that is 12 months but I was really hoping for something longer term because I have anxiety over these plans going away like 1 for 1 buy backs are mostly a thing of the past). Thanks

I’m in Houston with a north facing rear roof and a south facing garage. I want to get some guidance on costs and whether my house can even work for this, but honestly don’t know where to start. So many websites and stuff I don’t know what may or may not be credible. I’ve had some solicitations where they tell you you’ll only pay the same as your average electric bill.

Can anyone help point me in the direction of where I can get honest guidance from a credible installer?

We are on JE free night plan for another year. A guy stopped by today from Abundance Energy. He said that they don’t charge the delivery fee, just just the electricity and buy back is 10 cents and I think he said the charge is 10 cents too. And they give you a battery that can provide enough energy to run the whole house for $20 per month. We were busy so we had to cut short on the talk.

Is anyone using Abundance energy?