Top Tier — Texas Battery Sales Reference

AEP Texas Territory · Corpus Christi, the Coastal Bend & Abilene

Sales reference for reps working AEP Texas territory. This is the deep reference — how to sell it up top, full utility detail below. AEP Texas is the transmission-and-distribution utility for two zones: Central (Corpus Christi, the Coastal Bend, the Rio Grande Valley) and North (Abilene and west-central Texas) — confirm the customer's zone, because the delivery rate differs slightly. Deregulated Texas works on two layers: AEP Texas bills delivery on every kilowatt-hour you draw from the grid — about 6.1 cents Central or 6 cents North, plus a $3.24 monthly charge — and your retail electric provider (REP) bills supply and settles your solar exports at whatever your plan says. That last clause is the whole market: Texas has no net-metering statute, no tariff-guaranteed export rate, and no grandfathering — your buyback is a retail contract that resets every renewal. Under most solar-buyback plans, exports earn five cents or less against all-in retail around fifteen to sixteen, so a battery captures a genuine ten-to-eleven-cent spread on every stored kilowatt-hour — roughly $600 a year — and settlement runs on fifteen-minute intervals, so the capture is real, not a netting illusion. And the plan itself is part of our proposal: Texas terms are contracts, so we don't leave customers on whichever plan they happen to hold — the battery unlocks plans a solar-only home can't get, like Gexa's Battery Benefits, which pays retail for every export plus a six-hundred-dollar-a-year VPP credit. The honest accounting on a plan like that: the battery isn't capturing a storage spread — the battery is what qualifies you for the plan. The resilience anchor is uniquely Texan: February 2021, when ERCOT ordered load shed and roughly 370,000 AEP Texas customers were turned off on purpose — coastal and Valley communities included — in a freeze. The battery here is a spread machine, a contract hedge in the one state where nothing is guaranteed, a VPP earner, and a takeover — and the first question in every appointment is "which electricity plan are you on?"

What kind of market this is

AEP Texas territory is a deregulated two-layer market with a real, interval-settled spread (~10–11¢ on most solar-buyback plans, ~$600/yr), no net-metering statute and therefore no grandfather, plan-class-dependent battery math that makes "which plan are you on?" the mandatory first question, a VPP menu with one important absence (Tesla's program isn't active here), an open solar-gated incentive with a $1,000 storage adder, and the Uri deliberate-shed anchor plus standing coastal hurricane exposure. Five defining facts:

1. Two layers, and the meter tells the truth in fifteen-minute intervals. AEP Texas bills delivery on gross consumption — ~6.13¢/kWh Central / ~6.02¢ North + $3.24/mo (effective 7/1/2026, Project 58511; confirm the zone) — on everything you draw, regardless of exports. Your REP bills supply and credits exports per your plan. Smart-meter settlement runs on 15-minute intervals (16 TAC §25.130), so power you make and use in the same interval never crosses the meter at all — self-consumption genuinely avoids the full retail rate. There is no monthly retail netting anywhere in deregulated Texas — the spread a battery captures is mechanical, not a framing.
2. No statute, no tariff, no grandfather — your buyback is a contract. Texas law says a REP "may contract" for exports "at a value agreed to between the owner and the provider" (PURA §39.916), and the PUCT determined that traditional net metering "will not be available" where retail competition operates. Nothing to grandfather exists — your export terms last exactly as long as your current plan, and reset at renewal. No installer can promise you a locked rate, and any who does is selling a term Texas law doesn't contain. The battery is the one fixed term in the arrangement.
3. The plan is part of the proposal — diagnose today's, then switch to what the battery unlocks. "Which plan are you on?" is Close step 1 because it prices today's leak — most solar owners are exporting at ~5¢ or less against retail in the mid-teens. Then the battery changes what's available: battery-VPP plans (Gexa Battery Benefits: exports at retail + ~$600/yr credit) exist only for homes with an eligible battery — the battery is the admission ticket, and the destination routes by hardware. On a sub-retail destination the battery's bill value is the storage spread — ~10–11¢/kWh stored; on a 1:1-plus-VPP destination the value is the plan itself — retail on every export, plus the credit. One discipline: never double-count — it's the spread or the plan-unlock, whichever the destination actually pays.
4. The VPP menu is real income — with hardware rules and one zone rule that matter. Tesla's program is not active in the AEP Texas zone — a Powerwall owner here picks the best buyback plan instead, said plainly. What is active: Octopus Intelligent ($20/mo per 5 kWh — Enphase batteries only); Gexa Battery Benefits and Reliant Battery Perks (~$600/yr — SolarEdge/Enphase family, including Nexis). No ERCOT VPP accepts FranklinWH anywhere — Franklin's play is the buyback plan too.
5. Uri is the anchor — and it was deliberate. The coast adds the standing exposure. February 2021: ERCOT ordered load shed and roughly 370,000 AEP Texas customers were turned off on purpose across the system — Valley and coastal communities in a freeze. That's a load-shed share, not equipment failure: when the Texas grid runs short, the operator sheds you. And this territory fronts the Gulf — hurricane exposure is the standing seasonal fact of the Coastal Bend, stated without invented counts. Grid-tied solar produced nothing through any of it.

Your lead is the spread + the contract truth, opened with the plan question. Most AEP Texas solar owners are donating ten-plus cents on every exported kilowatt-hour under terms that expire with their plan — the battery converts that to self-supply settled in their favor every fifteen minutes, and it's the only piece of their solar economics no renewal can reprice. Uri closes: the grid that shed this territory's customers on purpose — on a coast that catches hurricanes besides.

Default configuration: backup-capable is the strong default — this is the deliberate-shed state.

• Backup-capable: $18,500 cash / $23,942 financed / ~$228/mo
• Self-consumption-only: $17,000 cash / $22,068 financed / ~$210/mo

Confirm pricing, configuration, and the customer's REP plan (the mandatory question) in the tool before quoting.

PART A — The Pitch (Problem → Solution → Urgency → Close)

The spine is multiple beats per section: customer headline + statement + rep layer (+ objection where noted). Beats marked (BACKUP ONLY) render only for backup config. Plan-class beats swap on the customer's REP plan.

The Problem

You sell your surplus for about a nickel and buy it back for fifteen or sixteen cents. Every sunny midday, your exports earn whatever your plan pays — on most solar-buyback plans, around five cents or less. Every evening, you buy power back at your full all-in rate. The gap is ten cents or more, on every exported kilowatt-hour, settled against you in fifteen-minute intervals — and the terms doing this to you aren't even guaranteed: they reset every time your plan renews.

Rep layer: The exposed opener — AFTER the plan question confirms a sub-retail or wholesale-indexed plan (the majority). Mechanics precision: AEP Texas delivery ~6.13¢ Central / ~6.02¢ North + $3.24 on gross draw (zone-confirm); REP supply ~9–10¢; all-in ~15–16¢; typical buyback ~3–5¢ fixed or wholesale-indexed; spread ~10–11¢, ~$600/yr typical (the tool computes actuals). 15-minute interval settlement means the capture is mechanical. A customer already on a battery-VPP plan almost certainly already owns a battery (the plans require one) — the standard retrofit prospect is leaking on a buyback plan, and the proposal includes the switch (see Section 3). Objection — "My plan pays me for solar." It does — at its rate, until its renewal. Both halves of that sentence are the problem.

Nothing about your solar terms is locked — by design. Texas has no net-metering law. Your buyback rate lives in a retail contract, and the state's own rules say providers may offer one, at whatever value the two of you agree — which means at renewal, the offer can change, shrink, or vanish, and there's no tariff underneath to catch you. There's nothing to be grandfathered into, because there's no program to be grandfathered from.

Rep layer: THE structural beat — the contract-not-tariff truth, cited: PURA §39.916(h) ("may contract") + §39.916(j) ("at a value agreed to between the owner and the provider") + the PUCT's determination that net metering "will not be available" in competitive areas. Discipline: this is honesty, not fear — nothing is "about to change"; the point is nothing was ever fixed. NEVER run a fake deadline; the structure IS the pitch. Objection — "So I should shop a better plan." Absolutely, and we'll help — and notice that's a lease on better terms, renewable at their pleasure. The battery is the part you own.

Your system is orphaned. Whoever installed your solar is likely gone, merged, or unreachable — especially after so many installers folded when the federal tax credit expired at the end of 2025. If something goes wrong, there's no one accountable. You own the system and the risk.

Rep layer: Standard orphaned-system beat. Ask who installed it and whether they'd answer a service call.

Your inverter is on the clock. Your inverter is several years old. When it fails out of warranty, that's about $3,500 to $5,000 out of pocket — and your system produces nothing until it's replaced, typically 4 to 8 weeks.

Rep layer: Standard inverter beat. SolarEdge ~12-yr warranty, real failure 8–15 yrs; Enphase 25-yr, real issues 10–20.

(BACKUP ONLY) In February 2021, the grid operator ordered your utility to turn people off — about 370,000 AEP Texas customers, in a freeze. Winter Storm Uri wasn't a line down in your neighborhood: ERCOT ran short of power and ordered load shed, and AEP Texas disconnected customers on purpose across the Valley and the coast. And this territory fronts the Gulf — hurricane season is the standing fact of the Coastal Bend, every year. Grid-tied panels produce nothing in an outage — deliberate or otherwise. A battery keeps your critical systems running, and recharges from the sun through it.

Rep layer: Renders ONLY for backup config. Uri framing discipline: ~370K = AEP Texas's system-wide ERCOT load-shed share (RGV/coastal communities included) — deliberate, ordered, not equipment failure; never invent additional per-event peaks. Coastal exposure: the Coastal Bend's hurricane risk is stated as the standing seasonal fact — honest-scale discipline: no named-storm AEP-specific counts were pinned by the grounding, so we sell the geography, not invented numbers.

The Solution

A battery captures the spread — every fifteen minutes, automatically. Instead of selling your surplus at a nickel and buying it back at fifteen, the battery stores it and serves your own home — capturing the ten-to-eleven-cent gap on every stored kilowatt-hour, about six hundred dollars a year on a typical system. And because Texas settles on intervals, not monthly netting, the capture is mechanical: power that never leaves your meter never gets repriced by anyone's plan.

• Self-consumption: "The surplus stops selling at a nickel and starts replacing fifteen-cent power — under terms nobody can renew away."
• Backup: "All of that — and your house stays warm the next time ERCOT does the math."

Monthly Cost Chart and Net Bill Breakdown render here.

Rep layer: THE core cure beat — routed by the DESTINATION plan, because the proposal includes the REP switch. Hardware picks the destination: Powerwall → Tesla Electric (sub-retail + storage spread + dispatch, where active); SolarEdge/Enphase/Nexis → Gexa/Reliant (the plan-unlock: retail on every export + ~$600/yr credit, available only because the battery qualifies them); FranklinWH → best sub-retail buyback plan (storage spread, no VPP). Sub-retail destination = the full spread story (tool computes actuals). 1:1-plus-VPP destination = the plan-unlock story — with the honest note that on that plan the battery isn't ALSO capturing a storage spread (never stack spread + 1:1 exports + VPP; one battery doesn't earn all three). ALWAYS name today's plan and the destination plan in the math. The contract hedge rides every version: stored self-supply is the only term that survives renewal.

(BACKUP ONLY) It keeps your home running when the grid goes down — or gets shed. Powers your essentials — heat circuits in a freeze, refrigerator, medical devices, connectivity — through an outage, and recharges from solar daily for as long as it lasts.

Rep layer: The resilience cure beat. Texas seasonal honesty: the marquee risk is winter (Uri was February) and summer scarcity both — a battery recharging from winter sun covers essentials with load management; set duration expectations honestly.

A VPP can pay your battery — if the hardware matches, and one big name doesn't play here. Tesla's program isn't active in the AEP Texas zone — so a Powerwall's play here is the best buyback plan, and we say that up front. The SolarEdge and Enphase family does have programs: about six hundred dollars a year on Gexa or Reliant, or Octopus's per-kilowatt-hour credit on Enphase. We match the program to your hardware honestly — including telling you if none fits.

Rep layer: The VPP beat — hardware-gated AND zone-gated, structure-only: Tesla NOT active in AEP Texas zone (Powerwall = buyback-plan play here — the honest zone note, stated at hardware selection); Octopus = $20/mo per 5 kWh, Enphase-only; Gexa/Reliant = ~$600/yr, SolarEdge/Enphase/Nexis. FranklinWH: no ERCOT VPP anywhere — same buyback-plan play. Never project income beyond published structures; enrollment and terms are the provider's.

We take it over. Top Tier becomes the single point of contact for your entire system — a new 10-year workmanship warranty, the 5-year Align Solar Protection contract ($0 deductible, non-transferable), and manufacturer warranty coordination.

Rep layer: Answers the orphaned-system problem. Transfers: workmanship with written consent; Align non-transferable; manufacturer per OEM terms.

Thousands you don't pay. The $11K+ Hidden Costs Avoided bundle — built into the takeover, not sold as extras.

Rep layer: Reframes total cost. "Your payment buys the battery plus warranty plus service plus inverter-replacement coverage — over $11K of value."

And whatever your next plan says, your stored power is yours. Your buyback rate is a contract term; your delivery rate is a regulator's docket; ERCOT's margins are ERCOT's. The kilowatt-hours you store and use yourself answer to none of them.

Rate Justification + Own vs Rent render here.

Rep layer: The independence beat — the contract structure as the position argument (nothing pending, nothing needed to be pending; the terms are renewable by design). 25-yr scenarios: conservative 4%, moderate 6%, aggressive 8% — anchored to delivery-rate dockets (Project 58511 just reset AEP's) and supply-market reality, never to invented buyback deadlines.

Urgency

The honest clocks — a daily spread, a renewal calendar, and a grid that does math in public.

The spread clock. Every sunny day on a nickel-buyback plan sells the surplus at five and buys it back at fifteen. There's no future deadline — the cost of waiting runs daily, in fifteen-minute increments, at whatever your plan pays this term.

Rep layer: Honest exposed urgency — the settlement mechanics ARE the clock.

The renewal clock. Your buyback terms expire with your plan — most renew inside twelve months, and each renewal reprices the whole arrangement at the provider's pleasure. A battery installed now earns under this term and every term after, whatever they say.

Rep layer: The contract clock — real, dated to the customer's own renewal, never manufactured. Ask when their plan renews; that date is theirs, not ours.

The grid-and-gulf clock. ERCOT publishes its margin math every season, and February 2021 is what "short" looks like: hundreds of thousands of this territory's customers shed on purpose. And the Gulf publishes its own calendar — June through November, every year. A battery installed before either clock strikes is power and cooling; one ordered after is a backorder.

Rep layer: Factual, preparedness-framed — the deliberate-shed history plus public scarcity math; no invented forecasts.

What is NOT a clock: a net-metering deadline. Texas has no net metering to lose — and any installer running a "lock in your NEM rate" deadline is selling a term that doesn't exist in this state. Ask them to show you the statute. We'll show you the one that says "may contract."

Rep layer: The anti-manufacture rule, Texas edition — the fake deadline here is especially common because it imports other states' pitches. The show-the-line move: PURA §39.916's "may contract… at a value agreed."

The Close

1. Ask the plan question, then verify credit + configuration. "Which electricity plan are you on?" — the answer routes the entire bill case (sub-retail spread / wholesale spread / 1:1-match VPP story / VPP-only). Pull the plan's EFL if they have it. Then the credit check and backup vs self-consumption config.
2. Match the VPP to the hardware. Powerwall → Tesla; Enphase → Octopus or Gexa/Reliant; SolarEdge/Nexis → Gexa/Reliant; FranklinWH → best general buyback plan, no VPP, said plainly. Confirm current program terms at enrollment — they're the provider's, not ours.
3. Customer reads and signs the service agreement. Walk the disclosures honestly — the two-layer mechanics, the plan-class math actually applicable to them, the contract-not-tariff structure, VPP structure-not-promise, and the solar-gated rebate reality (SMART Source's storage adder requires qualifying solar and can't be claimed on a standalone battery).
4. Complete the Welcome Call. Finalizes the sale and sets expectations for installation.

Standing Rules (Do NOT Violate)

• ❌ NEVER coach reps to disqualify based on home tenure. Resale story is real — not "walk away."
• ❌ NEVER claim "all warranties transfer." Workmanship: with written consent. Align: non-transferable. Manufacturer: per OEM terms.
• ❌ NEVER fabricate inspection findings.
• ❌ NEVER quote a bill-reduction factor as a guarantee.
• ❌ NEVER quote a REP buyback rate as fixed/guaranteed — plan-dependent, confirm the customer's actual plan.
• ❌ 85+ confirmation call required. Customer confirms own finances, no POA, sound mind.
• ❌ Financing ends before age 91. 75 → 15-year max. 80 → 10-year max.
• ❌ Honest cancellation window. Overselling = free customer exit + $1K–$1.5K clawback.
• ❌ Certified before selling.

Go get the sale. A battery is a strong product — clean energy, independence, backup, long-term savings, and in Texas real VPP income. A customer who wants one for any honest reason is a good sale. We never walk away over price or low savings — that's the customer's call. Do right by the customer, protect the company, be honest.

PART B — The Deep Reference

1. Orientation

• Utility structure: AEP Texas = the TDU (regulated delivery, PUCT-jurisdiction; two zones — Central and North — with slightly different delivery rates); the customer's REP = supply + export settlement (competitive contract).
• Territory: Central zone — Corpus Christi, the Coastal Bend, the Rio Grande Valley; North zone — Abilene and west-central Texas. Confirm the zone by the bill.
• Market type: DEREGULATED two-layer — no NEM statute, no cohorts, no grandfather (structurally impossible); interval settlement; spread ~10–11¢ on sub-retail plans (~$600/yr); plan-class routing mandatory; active VPP menu; batteries may export (unlike the munis).
• Default config: backup-capable ($18,500 / $23,942 / ~$228); self-consumption ($17,000 / $22,068 / ~$210).

2. How the AEP-Texas-Territory Bill Works

1. Delivery (AEP Texas, regulated): ~6.13¢/kWh Central / ~6.02¢ North + $3.24/mo (eff. 7/1/2026, Project 58511; zone per the bill) — billed on gross consumption, every kilowatt-hour drawn, regardless of exports.
2. Supply (REP, contract): typically ~9–10¢/kWh on current plans — all-in ~15–16¢ at 1,000 kWh.
3. Exports (REP, contract): settled at the plan's buyback rate on 15-minute smart-meter intervals (16 TAC §25.130; PURA §39.916(f) requires metering of in-flow and out-flow separately). Same-interval self-consumption never crosses the meter.
4. What this means for a battery, exactly: on a sub-retail plan, every stored kilowatt-hour shifted from export to evening self-use captures retail minus buyback ≈ 10–11¢ — mechanically, interval by interval. ~$600/yr typical (the tool computes actuals from usage, system size, and the actual plan).

Why this matters for the pitch: Texas is the anti-Missouri — interval settlement makes the spread fully battery-addressable, and the absence of any statute makes the terms the exposure. Both truths sell the same hardware.

3. Solar Terms in Deregulated Texas — A Contract, Not a Tariff (and Four Plan Classes)

The structural facts, cited — then the plan-class table that routes every appointment.

• The law: PURA §39.916(h) — a REP "may contract" to purchase exports; §39.916(j) — "at a value agreed to between the owner and the provider." PUCT Project 34890, Phase I: traditional net metering "will not be available… in which retail electric competition has been introduced." No statute, no tariff floor, no program — and therefore no grandfathering, because there's nothing to be grandfathered into. Export terms live and die with the retail contract.
• The plan classes (ask first, quote second):

• The discipline: value routes by the DESTINATION plan. Moving a nickel-buyback customer to Gexa Battery Benefits, the gain is the export-rate uplift — retail instead of ~5¢ on everything they export — plus the ~$600/yr credit, both earned because the battery qualifies them for the plan. What we never do is stack claims: on a 1:1-match destination the battery isn't also capturing a ten-cent storage spread (exports already earn retail), and a rep who quotes spread + 1:1 exports + VPP together is triple-counting one battery. The tool prices the destination the hardware actually routes to.
• The rep move: "Which plan are you on today? Because in Texas that's your whole solar policy — there's no statute underneath it. Here's what today's plan does to your exports — and here's the part most people don't know: the plans with the best terms in this market require a battery to join. The battery doesn't just store power; it changes which contracts you're allowed to sign."
• See the "Net Metering & Grandfathering Status" section for the cited detail; the flag for AEP Texas territory is TX_DEREG (exposed by structure; no cohorts exist or can).

4. Rate Reality + The Spread

What drives the AEP Texas pitch (named, honest):

1. The spread, interval-settled. ~15–16¢ in, ~5¢ out on most plans — ~$600/yr, mechanically capturable.
2. The contract truth. No statute, no floor, no grandfather — the battery is the only fixed term.
3. Uri plus the Gulf. 370,000 shed on purpose in the freeze — on a coast whose hurricane season is a standing annual fact.

Documented vs. speculation (say this right):

• ✅ "AEP Texas bills delivery on every kilowatt-hour you draw — about six cents plus three twenty-four, zone depending — and your plan settles exports on fifteen-minute intervals" (mechanics, cited)
• ✅ "Texas law says providers may contract for your exports at a value you two agree — that's the whole guarantee" (PURA verbatim)
• ✅ "On your plan's five-cent buyback, the battery captures about ten cents per stored kilowatt-hour — six hundred a year" (plan-confirmed math)
• ✅ "About 370,000 AEP Texas customers were shed in Uri — deliberately, by ERCOT order" (load-shed framing)
• ❌ Quoting the spread before asking the plan (a Gexa 1:1 customer's spread is ~$0 — the VPP is their story)
• ❌ "Lock in your net-metering rate" or any NEM deadline (no NEM exists — show PURA if a competitor runs it)
• ❌ Promising Tesla VPP enrollment here (not active in the AEP zone — the Powerwall play is the buyback plan)
• ❌ Pitching SMART Source's storage adder on a standalone battery (verbatim: storage is eligible only WITH qualifying solar — it belongs to the solar+battery path)
• ❌ Promising FranklinWH VPP income (no ERCOT VPP accepts it — the buyback-plan play is Franklin's honest story)
• ❌ Inventing per-territory Uri peaks or calling the shed "equipment failure"
• ❌ Claiming a Texas sales-tax exemption (none exists; §11.27 is property tax)

5. Incentives & Programs

• AEP Texas SMART Source: OPEN for PY2026 (renamed from "Solar PV") — includes a $1,000 storage adder and $500 EVSE adder, $4,250 cap — with the verbatim gate: "Energy Storage equipment is only eligible if installed with qualifying solar equipment." A standalone battery cannot qualify; a new solar+battery install can — quote it only on that path. Exact 2026 application-open date unconfirmed (txreincentives channel).
• The VPP menu (structure only, hardware- and zone-gated): Tesla — NOT active in the AEP Texas zone (a Powerwall here takes the best-buyback-plan play; if Tesla expands zones, that's the provider's news to confirm, not ours to predict). Octopus Intelligent — $20/mo per 5 kWh, Enphase-only. Gexa Battery Benefits — ~$600/yr, SolarEdge/Enphase/Nexis, on its 1:1-match plan. Reliant Battery Perks — ~$600/yr, SolarEdge/Enphase + LG-via-SolarEdge. FranklinWH: no ERCOT VPP — best-buyback-plan play (the one TX program that takes Franklin is Entergy's, outside ERCOT).
• Federal ITC: expired 12/31/2025. Never quote 30%.
• Texas tax treatment: §11.27 property-tax exemption ACTIVE — the definition includes the storage prong, so solar-paired batteries qualify; a standalone grid-charged battery is unconfirmed (chief-appraiser determination). No sales-tax exemption — 6.25%+ applies.
• The value is the spread (plan-class honest) + the contract hedge + the VPP + resilience + the takeover.

6. System Rescue Value — The System Takeover

This applies to any customer with existing solar — and it's identical across every Top Tier market. These are takeover facts, not TX-specific.

The Orphaned Solar Customer Problem. Many Texas solar customers installed during the 2019–2024 growth years and now face:

• An original installer that's gone out of business, been acquired, or stopped servicing residential (especially common after the federal tax credit expired Dec 2025)
• A 10-year workmanship warranty that's unenforceable (installer is gone)
• An inverter approaching or past typical failure windows
• No service relationship, and most companies refuse to service systems they didn't install

The Inverter Failure Reality. Inverters are the weakest link. Panels last 25–30 years; the inverter fails much sooner.

• SolarEdge string inverters: 8–15 years (12-yr standard warranty)
• Enphase microinverters: 10–20 years (25-yr warranty)
• Industry-wide: 70–90% of systems experience inverter failure within the panel lifespan
• When it fails on an orphaned system: production stops, bills jump to full retail, most providers won't quote it, out-of-pocket replacement is $3,500–5,000, and the customer is down 4–8 weeks.

What Top Tier's takeover provides (formalized through a Service Warranty Agreement with a brand-new 10-year Limited Workmanship and Roof Penetration Warranty):

• A new 10-year Top Tier workmanship warranty (regardless of system age)
• Manufacturer warranty claim handling (Top Tier chases the claim + labor, not the customer)
• Inverter replacement coverage when it fails within manufacturer warranty (customer pays nothing for the work)
• Single point of contact; monitoring setup help; performance verification at inspection

The $11K System Takeover Bundle (the exact 5-tile bundle on the proposal):

How to use it: "On top of the bill math, you're picking up over $11K of bundled services that aren't sold separately. If your inverter fails in year 12, the warranty handling alone is worth a few hundred; the replacement coordination saves $3–5K; the Align contract is $1,500 you'd otherwise pay. It adds up."

Align Solar Protection — the terms (get these right):

• 5-year term, $0 deductible, insurance-backed by American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida, non-transferable to subsequent owners.
• Covers: mechanical breakdown of existing PV (panels, inverters/optimizers, racking) — parts, labor, service calls.
• Does NOT cover: the new battery (own warranty), wear-and-tear, weather/hail, pre-existing conditions, roof issues.
• Age limits: panels/microinverters under 15 years; string/central inverters under 7 years. Not every system fully qualifies — disclose at inspection.
• It's ONE of three layers: (1) equipment manufacturer warranties, (2) Top Tier's 10-yr workmanship, (3) the 5-yr Align contract. Never call it "full coverage."
• NEVER say: "Everything's covered" / "never worry again" / "Align is your full coverage" / "you can extend beyond 5 years" / "Align transfers when you sell."

Quantifying the rescue value:

This is independent of bill savings — the rescue alone can be worth $4,000–7,500.

7. Outage Reality — The Shed, and the Gulf's Standing Calendar

Why outages happen here. The Coastal Bend carries both Texas exposures at once:

• February 2021, Winter Storm Uri: ERCOT ran short and ordered load shed — roughly 370,000 AEP Texas customers deliberately disconnected system-wide, Valley and coastal communities included, in a freeze. Not equipment failure; policy under scarcity.
• The Gulf: this territory fronts hurricane water — June through November is a standing annual exposure, stated as geography rather than invented counts (no AEP-specific named-storm figures were pinned; the geography needs no help).
• Plus the standing Texas pattern: summer scarcity watches, winter freeze risk — ERCOT publishes its margin math in public, every season.

What a battery does — and the honest mechanism. Grid-tied solar shuts off automatically in an outage — including a deliberate shed. A battery with backup keeps essential loads running — heat circuits, refrigerator, medical devices, connectivity — and recharges from solar daily through it.

How to pitch it honestly: "Uri wasn't a storm knocking your line down — the grid operator ordered your utility to turn people off, and hundreds of thousands of AEP Texas customers went dark in a freeze. And you live on hurricane water besides. When Texas runs short, shedding is the plan; when the Gulf turns, the calendar is the plan. A battery is the part of your system that doesn't take either call."

8. Hidden Costs Avoided / What You Own vs What You Rent

• What you rent: fifteen-cent power under a plan that reprices your whole solar arrangement at renewal — export terms Texas law never guaranteed — and heat that goes out when ERCOT's math says so.
• What you own (with the battery): your surplus at full replacement value, settled in your favor every fifteen minutes, under the one term no renewal touches — plus a house that stays warm through the next shed.
• Hidden costs avoided: the $11K takeover bundle + the donated ~10¢ spread + every scarcity event's real costs.

9. Battery Products

• Backup config (default — shed history plus hurricane coast): Tesla Powerwall 3 (13.5 kWh; Redline: $20,500), FranklinWH aPower 2 (15 kWh; Redline: $20,500). Not compatible with HDM.

• Self-consumption config: Enphase IQ 5P (10 kWh; Redline: $15,500 SC / $17,600 BU), SolarEdge Home Battery (9.7 kWh usable; Redline: $14,500 SC / $16,000 BU), SolarEdge Nexis (self-consumption only pending crew backup training; Redline: $15,500 SC).

• AEP Texas takeaway: hardware choice routes VPP eligibility — and the zone rule leads: Powerwall → NO Tesla program here (buyback-plan play, said at selection); Enphase → Octopus/Gexa/Reliant; SolarEdge/Nexis → Gexa/Reliant; FranklinWH → no VPP, buyback play, with backup capability as its standing strength. Batteries may export in dereg territory, but at nickel buybacks, export configuration earns pennies — self-consumption/backup remains the play. Confirm config and plan in the tool.

• Financing terms vary by lender — price deals through the proposal tool.

10. Objection Handling

Universal objections (swap in AEP Texas figures) + territory-specific objections.

"My plan already pays me for my solar — why do I need a battery?" (the plan-switch answer)

"It does — let's look at what it pays. On a typical buyback you're exporting at about a nickel and buying back at fifteen or sixteen. A battery fixes that one of two ways, and your hardware picks which: either it stores the surplus and captures that ten-cent gap directly, or it qualifies you for a plan you can't sign today — the battery programs that pay full retail for every export plus about six hundred a year for grid support. Part of our proposal is moving you to whichever of those your equipment unlocks. Either way the leak stops — and here's the part no plan can offer: plan terms expire at renewal. The battery's don't."

"Can't I just lock in a good net-metering rate?" (the contract-truth answer)

"There's no such thing to lock — and I'd rather show you the law than let someone sell you the promise. Texas has no net-metering statute: the rule says a provider may contract for your exports at a value agreed between you two — that's the entire guarantee, and it resets when your plan does. Anyone offering to 'lock in your NEM rate' here is importing another state's pitch. What you can actually lock is physics: power you store and use yourself never gets repriced, because it never crosses the meter."

"Doesn't AEP have a battery rebate?" (the solar-gated answer)

"They have SMART Source — open this year, with a thousand-dollar storage adder — and here's the sentence that matters, straight from the program: energy storage equipment is only eligible if installed with qualifying solar equipment. A battery added to your existing array can't claim it; a new solar-plus-battery project can. If new solar is on your table, we'll price that path with the program in it, honestly. For a battery on your existing system, the math I'll show you is the math that exists: the spread, the VPP if your hardware fits one, and the backup."

"Will my battery get paid for helping the grid?" (the VPP hardware answer — with the zone rule)

"Depends on your hardware — and here's the zone truth first: Tesla's program isn't active in AEP Texas territory, so a Powerwall's play here is the best buyback plan, and I'd rather you hear that from me than from a rejected enrollment. What is active: Enphase batteries fit Octopus at twenty a month per five kilowatt-hours, or the Gexa and Reliant programs at about six hundred a year — SolarEdge gear fits those two as well. FranklinWH has no ERCOT program anywhere, same buyback play. We match the program to the hardware before you buy — not after."

"Why is the loan more than the system price?"

"The cash price is $17,000–18,500 depending on config. Service Finance adds dealer fees bringing the financed amount to about $22,068–23,942. Cash or a HELOC is cheaper if that's an option. The federal credit expired, and SMART Source's adder requires qualifying solar — so the value here is the spread your plan is leaking, the VPP if your hardware fits one, the backup, and the takeover."

11. DO SAY / NEVER SAY

12. Required Disclosures

• Savings are estimates computed from the customer's confirmed retail plan; export compensation in deregulated Texas is set by the customer's retail contract, may change or end at plan renewal, and is not guaranteed by any statute or tariff. Projections assume the identified plan's current terms.
• AEP Texas delivery charges apply to all grid consumption regardless of solar exports; settlement occurs on smart-meter intervals per PUCT rules. Where the proposal includes a retail-plan change, projections reflect the identified destination plan's published terms (export rate and VPP credit); on 1:1 retail-match destination plans no additional storage-spread value is claimed.
• VPP program figures describe published program structures only; enrollment, payments, hardware eligibility, and continuation are determined by the program provider and are not guaranteed by Top Tier. No ERCOT VPP currently accepts FranklinWH hardware.
• AEP Texas's SMART Source incentive (including its $1,000 storage adder) requires qualifying solar equipment and is not available for standalone battery installations; no such incentive is included in battery-only projections. Tesla's VPP is not active in the AEP Texas zone, and no Tesla program participation is represented.
• No federal ITC after 12/31/2025. Texas provides a property-tax exemption (Tex. Tax Code §11.27) that includes storage installed with solar; treatment of standalone batteries is determined by the local appraisal district. No Texas sales-tax exemption applies.
• Winter Storm Uri outage figures reflect ERCOT-directed load shed allocations, not equipment failures; backup duration depends on system sizing and load, and whole-home heating through a multi-day event is not implied.
• Align Solar Protection is non-transferable; workmanship warranty transfer requires written consent; manufacturer warranties transfer per OEM terms. Align coverage is contingent on inspection + age limits (panels <15 yr, inverters <7 yr).
• Pricing confirmed in the tool before commitment.

13. Quick-Reference Numbers (dated — confirm before quoting)

• Delivery: AEP Texas ~6.13¢ Central / ~6.02¢ North + $3.24/mo on GROSS draw (eff. 7/1/2026, Project 58511 — CONFIRM ZONE) | Supply: ~9–10¢ | All-in: ~15–16¢
• Settlement: 15-minute intervals (16 TAC §25.130); delivery on gross; NO monthly retail netting in dereg TX
• THE VALUE (by destination): sub-retail destination = storage spread ~10–11¢; battery-VPP destination (Gexa/Reliant) = plan-unlock — retail exports + ~$600/yr credit (never stacked with a spread); the battery is the admission ticket to those plans
• THE FIRST QUESTION: "which plan are you on?" — prices today's leak; the proposal INCLUDES the switch to the hardware-matched destination plan; pull the EFL
• Structure: no NEM statute (PURA §39.916 "may contract… value agreed"); no cohorts, no grandfather — terms reset at plan renewal
• SMART Source: OPEN PY2026; $1,000 storage adder + $500 EVSE, $4,250 cap; storage ONLY with qualifying solar (verbatim gate); standalone battery CANNOT claim it; exact open date unconfirmed
• VPPs: Tesla NOT ACTIVE in AEP zone (Powerwall = buyback play) · Octopus ($20/mo per 5 kWh, Enphase-only) · Gexa ~$600/yr (1:1-match plan; SE/Enphase/Nexis) · Reliant ~$600/yr (SE/Enphase + LG-via-SE) · FranklinWH: NO ERCOT VPP — buyback play
• Federal ITC: expired 12/31/2025 | Taxes: §11.27 property exemption incl. solar-paired storage (standalone unconfirmed); NO sales-tax exemption
• Inverter replacement out-of-pocket: $3,500–5,000 | Takeover bundle: ~$11,800
• Default config: backup $18,500 / self-consumption $17,000
• Storm anchors: Uri Feb 2021 — ~370K AEP Texas customers SHED by ERCOT order system-wide (deliberate; never equipment failure); Gulf hurricane exposure = standing seasonal geography (no invented named-storm counts)

14. Sell Hard, Sell Honest — the standing rules

• The plan question comes first — and the plan switch is part of the proposal. Today's plan prices the leak; the hardware-matched destination plan is where the value lands. A pitch that ignores the switch undersells the deal we actually offer.
• Never triple-count one battery. Spread, retail exports, and the VPP credit don't stack — the destination plan determines which apply, and the honest math is the version that survives the customer's first bill.
• The contract truth is the pitch, never a scare. Nothing is pending; nothing was ever fixed. Show PURA's "may contract" when a competitor imports another state's NEM deadline.
• The Tesla zone rule is said at hardware selection — no program here; the Powerwall play is the buyback plan, told before purchase, never after a rejected enrollment.
• SMART Source's storage adder is solar-gated — the program's own sentence; never on a standalone battery.
• FranklinWH gets the honest no on VPPs — and the honest yes on backup and the buyback-plan play.
• Uri framing discipline — deliberate shed, ERCOT-ordered, ~370K system-wide; the Gulf is geography, not invented counts.
• Never quote the federal ITC (expired). Never claim a TX sales-tax exemption (property only, solar-paired).