
Any excess energy generation is rolled over each month and credited to your account as prior banked energy. So if you create more energy than you needed for your home it would roll over to the next month and would be credited towards your usage.
Brandon M. says they are no longer allow these rollover credits. I went out to the Green Mountain Energy website and I see on the site as of January 1 2023 that they say they allow the credits.
A website can say one thing and the company can be doing something else. My question is if Green Mountain Energy switched back to allowing rollover credits again as their website seems to say or if they still do not allow these credits?
After looking into Green Mountains Renewable Energy Essentials program a little closer it looks like they do not allow rollover. What this program does is allow for only a match of your usage to the solar generation you produce but any excess they get to keep from what I can tell.
After speaking to a solar power expert in Texas they told me the way Green Mountain Energy’s solar plan works. He said, “The maximum credit available for surplus solar generation is your monthly energy usage from the grid (no rollover).”
So based on this understanding of “rollover” it’s clear that no matter what your solar panels produce you only get credited what your home uses in energy and no more than that.
I visited a “rewards buyback plan” on Green Mountain Energy’s website located here. This plan says they will buy back any excess energy produced from the customer but I could not find how much they would buy it back for. I did see a notice with an asterisks that said this”
* Subject to limitations. Please see your contract documents for details.
I would like to see the contract document for details to see what the fine print says. According to Brandon he gets no rollover from Green Mountain Energy anymore.
I can see how an energy provider getting to keep excess energy to resell from your solar panels is a great deal for the electric provider. If I was dealing with this problem it might be worth using any excess energy your solar panels produce to mine electronic currency or perhaps store it in some backup batteries.
I looked through all the electric companies in Texas that offer net metering where they will work with your solar panel setup to provide power to your home and none of these energy companies offered rollover credits.
In summary the incentive for an electric provider to offer a solar panel electric rate plan has a big incentive as they get to keep your excess energy your financed solar panels produce.
Donny Eisenbach
Donny has been writing about the deregulated energy markets since early 2007. His knowledge has helped consumers lower their electricity cost.
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