Wow Oncor has joined the band wagon about 4 years after their Texas Rivals Austin Energy and Bryan Texas. 

Not only are they four years late but Oncors rebate is ONLY 50% of that offered by the other two Texas Utilities which is not mentioned in an exclusive by Elizabeth Souder in the Dallas Morning News on February 16th, 2009.

What is worse the article quotes a Mr. Wiese, " this really has not been done at this scale by any Utility in Texas" That is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts as I have repeatedly written about the Briant Texas and Austin Energy initiatives months ago.  

There is also no mention of what or how much if any, Oncor will pay for energy that the  consumer returns to the grid!

I guess it is a start and us "little people" should feel grateful for any little crumb that is thrown our way.

The cost of a solar panel mentioned in the article is also of rip off proportions. At current prices Voltaic enrergy panels of 3 kilowats of capacity should be a lot cheaper to install than the $26,000 price tag quoted in the article.

If you read my previous blogs on this topic you will see that there are considerably cheaper prices available around the country. I some states the rebates are so generous that a solar panel installation will virtually cost you nothing, after rebates and tax credits, and in some instances the panels can actually make you a little profit when you return excess energy back to the grid.

So this is too little too late, but it is a start, If only the consumers would put more pressure on the utilities to be a little more generous with the funds that they are getting from the government (money from you the taxpayer!) to convert their energy generation to renewable sources It may actually help the consumer.

Subsidies come out of taxpayers' money and as such should benefit the taxpayers, so come on Oncor a little more honesty with what you are doing with our money would greatly benefit the people in the DFW area. 

Click the link below and see how solar works 

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When will DFW’s Oncor/TXU follow Austin Energy and Bryan Texas Utilities and provide incentives to their customers in DFW to install Solar Panels on their residences?

As Anthony Ingram so eloquently wrote in a letter to the editor of The Dallas Morning News on July 30th.

"The Resident benefits from lower or zero Electric bills. The Electricity Company benefits from having small inexpensive power generating sites with minor maintenance. The community benefits by additional generation without major power plants. Everybody wins, except wind generation producers."

Austin Energy and Bryan Texas are doing exactly that in providing their resident customers with rebates of up to $13,500 per solar installation per residence. This allows residents to install 3KW Solar Power systems for only $1,300!

On top of which they pay the resident for any surplus electricity that gets returned to the grid by their solar systems.

Installing all these solar panels on residences will increase employment in the communities in and around DFW so people can feel good about themselves, they help their country, they help their community and they help themselves.

Now that is populism and what I call literally returning power to the people.

Commendable if compared to the meager commitment made by DFW’s energy providers towards energy conservation, none of which is for wind or solar!