Table of Contents
Written by : Mikel Zerhusen |
Current |
Write a comment |
Write a comment
hey folks it's william with all solar texas if you're looking into going solar but you're not sure what the various solar programs are that's available in texas well you've come to the right place i'll break them down for you in this video stay tunedthank you so much for joining today but before we dive in please make sure to hit that subscribe button and don't forget to tap on that notification bell that keeps you up to date with all the latest energy news that we produce here on the channel and it does help us out with youtube a little bit lastly please reach out to us give us a call send us a text email check out our website all right so before we go into the different types of solar programs that are currently available for texas solar customers we first need to understand a little bit about the texas utility market so the texas utility market is a very unique animal especially when you look nationally i've worked for the utilities for years that's my background i came out of the utility and so it's a very unique situation that we have here in texas when compared to the rest of the nation first off we have a combination of what's called regulated utilities and deregulated utilities well about 20 years or so ago electric prices were going up very quickly and we really couldn't stay on top of it as a customer base so these utilities kind of ran more of a monopoly style where you had certain parts of the grid that were fully owned and operated by a certain utility and they had a complete monopoly over that area and so we saw rising costs and prices of electricity so the texas government the legislators stepped in and decided that they were going to put forth the bill which ended up passing to opt into a deregulated state if you were in parts of the regulated parts of the state well that left us with two primary forms of utility one is regulated and one is deregulated so what's the difference if you're a solar customer between being in a regulated utility space versus a deregulated utility space well first off if you're in a regulated utility space you just have one option that's it that's all you got you have one option for a utility so that's normally going to be your co-ops or if you live in a city like a i do in college station or brine then we have our own municipal electric provider here electric utility so no matter what we do or what we want it doesn't matter now if you're living in a deregulated space really you're looking at a nice competitive market you have different retailers that are vying for your business so they're going to create certain incentives to help make sure that you sign up and commit to their program now utilities across texas whether or not they're regulated or in a deregulated area are both under the governance of aircon ericot is the electric reliability council of texas they have four primary functions they are to provide a competitive space for the wholesale market which is how you buy and sell electricity they're to facilitate a competitive market in the retail space to make sure that there's not one company that's gouging a customer way above and beyond what's the normal market they want to ensure access to open transmission so being able to export and import electricity from across the state through multiple different types of generation sources and then lastly they need to maintain the system reliability meaning that they are there to govern over the capacity and the demand and make sure that these utilities that own these electric assets are making the types of capital investment that's what's needed to make the system more reliable the problem is this they're just another governing agency and so now as a customer i'm forced to be in either a deregulated space or a regulated space either way i'm forced to be connected to a utility in some way form or fashion which means that i'm still having to pay a premium to get my power i'm having to pay a utility even during an outage because i'm still connected to the grid so year after year i'm being charged more and more money for my electric rates but i'm not getting any more value out of it i continue to have blackouts and power outages and now we see rolling brownouts now that it's coming up on the summertime and the high heat so as a customer i'm continuing to pay more and more and more year after year to these utilities that just continue to fail us time and time again offering less reliability of the grid raising prices without us getting any additional value now what's the difference between utility and a utility or electric retailer well if you're in a deregulated space you still have one utility servicing a certain part of that service territory they are the utility that owns the assets they own the wires they own the generation so that's like your encore or your center point and then you have the retailer like the txu or the reliant and they're responsible for making sure that they supply that product to a customer base so they're the ones that are going to be putting together some different solar programs trying to create different incentives so that you the customer if you decide to go solar are wanting to go with them and choose one of their plans but the utility still is there and the utility is still forced to make those investments into their grid to make it more reliable or to expand its capacity which as we know takes years and years and years for them to do meanwhile passing those costs down to you so why is it so important to know how the texas grid is kind of structured and what my different types of utilities are as a potential solar customer well the bottom line is this just because you decide to go solar does not mean that you're going to pay a fixed certain per amount just for your solar system and never have any type of utility cost whatsoever ever again all right that is fantasy what's really difficult about this particular market is that no matter which area you're in in texas whether or not you're in a regulated space or deregulated space every single utility every single retailer every single co-op and municipality has a different set of rules when it comes to solar programs that they offer their customers so all solar texas when you give us a call we actually ask what type of utility that that that you work with do you work with a co-op do you work with a municipality are you in a deregulated space and then we go through and we learn everything about that particular space that you're in within the utility market and we identify what are all of those costs and charges what's the process for getting connected to solar what can you as the consumer end up paying anyway even though you install solar but you're still going to have some type of base pay commitment to the utility so we work through all of that with the customer one of the things that is some of the worst tactics that i've seen in this industry is sales people trying to tell you that once you decide to go solar that you're never going to have any utility bills ever again that's just not true even if we put you know as much solar as possible on your roof and you're y
Thanks for your comment Bradly Dirago, have a nice day.
- Mikel Zerhusen, Staff Member
[Applause] welcome back my name is Dana Brown I'm training manager Jeff Casillas and I'm the owner of x dark captains in doing my previous videos on mold and the reason why we need to take the regulations and make sure we keep those regulations with some organization and the insurance issues well I found out going through all those that all that material and content dense information dense videos because the videos I put together or for my students and they're more information danced where they can download them and go through them from time to time in making these videos dealing with the mold issue one of the things I found out I did not address what the regulation actually requires and when I was doing one of my classes here I do this I do this exercise on the board to make everybody sit down the piece of paper and write this all out it seems to it prepares them for the state test a lot better so in doing this I was I was astonished the fact that I did not cover this in my videos so one of the things I'm trying to address in this video is how the Talbot Texas mole rules work and what you have to do for each one and how altogether they're elegant to start with the Texas rules had to deal with three issues the Texas rule is not about protection for mold for buildings or for building or for for health issues within buildings it's not written for that purpose the purpose it was written for primarily is the underwriting and the insurance requirements because we had a lot of problems with the weather that they call the texas mold insurance wars of 2004 there was a lot of shenanigans going on both with the industry and with the insurers and the homeowners as well i mean there's there's enough to go around there there are no innocence in that whole group but again what the texas ruled in is it basically sat down and normalize the process if you will so it regulates mold related activities but for what purpose well from the purpose is threefold number one consumer protection that's the very first reason why we do that number two is for the underwriting or the insurance issues to normalize that insurance process similar things have been done for fire damage and for hail damages well again having the roofers go through and having all these these contractors take advantage of the situation is problematic and the insurance companies you know they want to make sure the money spent on on the repair that they're giving the money or underwriting for so this is why they do it the third thing is for the re-evaluation if you follow the rule a reassessment of the civil liability provided that you do these particular mold related activities there's nothing in the rule that says you must remediate mold in a certain way it's not a regulated material like asbestos but there's a lot of reasons and when I start going through there there's a lot of reasons in the hurricane Harvey and these flood areas where this rule makes makes it a big impact remember we've got disclosure rules in the state of Texas dealing with the sale or the lease of mold related of mold impacts asbestos impacts and led impacts as well if the company knew about it if the owner knew about this so I'm going to put these up also now there's a couple things in the presentation I do I have taken pictures of what's on the board so there'll be still frames with this so you can actually pause the video and write down what you want you can make a flowchart if you wish in the PDF I don't really care what you do with that after this and and the other part is while I'm going through and reading some of the origination documents in the Insurance Code this will also be up as far as as a screen a screen text so here I want to read directly from the Texas Insurance Code here and it's the 21 Trade Practices prohibited Trade Practices restrictions on you the underwriting guidelines based on a water damage claim previous mold damage or mold damage claim and this is the origination document was all the water appliance damage claims because you get multiple ones on the same property and that's the problem you know you usually have a fire or one of these hail damage it usually goes to a point where it's either to totally destroyed or you destroy it a certain portion of it is fixed or it's incidental or you know holes in the roof broken windows and things taken care of it's not you know over and over and over gentle so I'm reading this the underlying guideline is the rules standards or practices whether written or electronic used by the insurer agent of an insurer decide to accept or reject an application for residential property insurance policy or to determine how to classify risks that are acceptable for the purposes of determining great that's what this whole war was about the subsection contains provisions related to underwriting based on previous mold damage so an insurer may not use underwriting guidelines based on previous mold damage or previous water damage claims based on the covered property if it is insured and eligible for property insurance the property had mold damage mold remediation was performed on the property and the property was remediated in accordance with the application with the requirements in the Texas occupational code nineteen five eight subchapter D which was the mold rules that TDLR had it was was trying to repeal again remember TDLR is trying to get rid of these because they're going we're not an enforcement agency or their enforcement agency these insurance guidelines and underwriting is the meet this is the whole reason we have but not where they're TDLR wants to be an enforcement agency that's absolutely insane issued by the Department of Licensing and Regulation inspected by a mold assessment consultant and mold remediation certificate was issued to the property under those particular actions or if you did it under exemption or exception which in the emergency areas such as floods your tornado harry and in dallas your hurricane harvey strike area here's the deal inspected by a licensed independent assessment consultant or licensed adjuster and a mold remediation certificate was issued to the property owner under the texas occupational code certifying that based on mold inspection report the property which is the entire building does not contain evidence involved so you look at these rules here the whole rules is basically have somebody who knows what they're doing and they come into a house and they go molds here here here here and they're licensed to do so and then they get a mold remediation contractor and they deal with care here here here and then they clear here here here here and on the certificate of mold damage remediation the thing we do at the end here they fill out the first lines and the contractor basically said I did what they told me to do and here's your piece of paper and then the mold assessment consultant is basically saying this is what I saw the problem this is what I said to take care of it and they took care of it and here's my report that shows that that happened now under the last section C and most recently Texas Department of Insurance has updat
Thanks Terrie your participation is very much appreciated
- Mikel Zerhusen
About the author
I've studied historical archaeology at State University of New York at Fredonia in Fredonia and I am an expert in object conservation. I usually feel accepted. My previous job was patent lawyer I held this position for 2 years, I love talking about origami and sailing. Huge fan of Steve Carell I practice weightlifting and collect books and periodicals.
Try Not to laugh !
Joke resides here...