Top Tier — Texas Battery Sales Reference

Austin Energy · Austin & Travis County

Sales reference for reps working Austin Energy territory. This is the deep reference — how to sell it up top, full utility detail below. Austin is municipal territory — there's no retail-provider market here and no plan to shop: Austin Energy is the only utility, and its Value-of-Solar arrangement is unlike anything else in Texas. Two meters, two directions: your consumption is billed at tiered retail on the revenue meter, and every kilowatt-hour your panels produce — all of it, whether you used it or not — is credited at the Value-of-Solar rate on a separate solar meter, 9.91 cents as of last November. Here's the consequence we state plainly, because almost nobody else will: under buy-all/credit-all, a battery does not change your solar credit — the VoS line pays on gross generation, and it pays the same whether your power went into your toaster or your battery. What a battery does here is work the other meter: Austin bills consumption in tiers that climb steeply, and stored power that keeps your summer usage out of the top tiers is worth real money in exactly the months your bill hurts — plus it's the only part of the system that works in an outage, in the city that iced over in 2023 and froze with the rest of Texas in Uri. The pitch here is honesty-forward: the credit doesn't move, the tiers do, the lights stay on — and the $4,000 solar rebate belongs to new-install conversations, never to a battery retrofit.

What kind of market this is

Austin Energy is a buy-all/credit-all municipal market where the battery's solar-credit impact is zero — said plainly — and its bill lever is tier avoidance on the consumption meter, with resilience leading and a strictly solar-gated $4,000 rebate. Five defining facts:

1. Two meters, two directions — and the credit tracks gross generation. Consumption is billed at tiered retail on the revenue meter; every kilowatt-hour of PV output is credited at the Value-of-Solar rate — 9.91¢/kWh (effective 11/1/2025) — on a separate solar meter. This is not netting: production and consumption never offset each other kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour; they're two separate ledgers. A battery does not change the VoS credit — the solar meter pays on what the panels made, however the house used it — and every projection we show says so.
2. The battery's bill lever is the tier ladder. Austin bills residential energy in tiers that climb with monthly usage — the upper tiers around 7.5¢ and 10.9¢ per kilowatt-hour on the energy charge alone, before riders. A battery that keeps summer consumption out of the top tiers earns its keep in exactly the high-usage months — a real but modest lever, priced honestly by the tool, never inflated.
3. VoS credits roll forever and cash out never. Unused credit rolls month to month indefinitely — and is forfeited at account termination. No cash-out exists. Chronic over-crediting is a sizing conversation; a customer leaving Austin should plan to spend the balance down, and we say that at signing, not at closing.
4. The $4,000 rebate is a solar-install rebate — full stop. Current guidelines (effective 7/1/2026): $4,000, minimum 3 kW-dc, one per address since May 2018, on solar installations. A battery-only retrofit cannot claim it. And Austin has no confirmed residential battery program — the Power Partner program pays smart thermostats for demand response, not batteries; a rep who quotes it as battery income is quoting the wrong program.
5. No plan to shop — and a freeze record of its own. Municipal territory: Austin Energy is the utility, the council sets the terms, and there's no REP switch here (the one Texas play that doesn't exist inside city limits). The resilience record needs no invention: Uri's statewide ERCOT-ordered shed in February 2021, and Austin's own February 2023 ice storm — days-long outages within every customer's memory. Grid-tied solar produced nothing through either.

Your lead is the honest zero on the credit, then the tiers, then the lights. "A battery will not raise your solar credit — the solar meter pays on production either way, and I'll show you the meter diagram" is the opening no competitor makes, and it buys the hearing for what's true: stored power beats the top tiers in the months that hurt, and it's the only part of the system that worked in February 2023.

Default configuration: backup-capable — this city has iced over twice in living memory.

• 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 current VoS/tier rates in the tool before quoting — the VoS rate resets periodically.

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.

The Problem

Your solar credit is fixed by formula — and your consumption still climbs the tier ladder. Under Austin's Value-of-Solar setup, everything your panels make earns 9.91 cents on its own meter, automatically — that part works, and we'll say so. Meanwhile your usage is billed on the other meter, in tiers that get more expensive the more you use — and Texas summers push households straight up that ladder. The credit can't help you there: the two meters never talk.

Rep layer: The honest opener — the VoS mechanics praised for what they do (gross crediting is simple and fair-by-formula), then the gap named: the credit is invariant, the tiers are the live exposure, and the two-ledger structure means solar alone can't shield consumption from the top tiers. Precision: VoS 9.91¢ eff. 11/1/2025 (resets — tool carries current); upper energy-charge tiers ~7.5¢/~10.9¢ before riders. NO claim that a battery raises the credit — ever. Objection — "So my solar's fine?" The credit side is. The consumption side and the outage side are the conversation.

Your credit balance has a quiet catch. Unused Value-of-Solar credit rolls forward forever — which sounds great until you learn it never converts to cash and dies with the account. If you're banking credit you'll never burn, that's an oversized system, not a savings plan.

Rep layer: The rollover-honesty beat — indefinite rollover (genuinely customer-friendly), no cash-out, forfeited at termination. Sizing framing: chronic surplus = array-sizing conversation; a customer planning to move should spend down. Sometimes the honest answer is "your system's right-sized and there's nothing to fix" — say it.

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) This city has frozen in the dark twice in living memory — and your panels were off both times. February 2021, ERCOT ordered load shed statewide and Texas utilities turned customers off on purpose in single-digit cold. February 2023, Austin's ice storm brought lines and limbs down across the city — days-long outages, block by block. Grid-tied panels produce nothing in an outage. A battery keeps your critical systems running, and recharges from the sun through restoration.

Rep layer: Renders ONLY for backup config — and in Austin it's THE beat. Anchors, honest-scale discipline: Uri Feb 2021 = statewide ERCOT-ordered deliberate shed (Austin Energy's specific shed count not pinned — never invent); Feb 2023 ice storm = Austin's own days-long event, within every customer's memory, told without invented counts. The memory does the persuading; understate and let it.

The Solution

A battery works the meter your credit can't touch — and we'll be straight about which one that is. It will not raise your Value-of-Solar credit; the solar meter pays on production either way, and our numbers show that plainly. What it does: keeps your summer consumption out of Austin's top billing tiers — stored power replacing your most expensive kilowatt-hours in the months your bill peaks — and keeps the house running when the grid doesn't.

• Self-consumption: "The credit side is already handled by formula; the battery handles the tier side — and February."
• Backup: "Tier relief in July, light and heat in the next February."

Monthly Cost Chart and Net Bill Breakdown render here.

Rep layer: THE core cure beat — the credit-invariance stated inside it before the customer reads it off the screen. The value stack, in order: resilience (two freezes in memory) + tier avoidance (real, modest, seasonal — the tool prices it against the customer's actual usage curve; never inflate a thin-margin lever) + the takeover. Mechanics honesty if probed: energy stored rather than exported forgoes the 9.91¢ credit on those kilowatt-hours and avoids the tier price instead — the tool nets that trade correctly; a rep should never hand-wave it into free money.

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

Rep layer: The resilience cure beat. Austin seasonal honesty: the marquee risk is winter ice (2021, 2023) with summer scarcity behind it; winter sun recharges at reduced rates — load management and honest duration expectations.

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 the rate design does next, your stored power is yours. Your Value-of-Solar rate is a formula the utility recalculates; your tiers are a rate design the council can restructure. Power you store and use yourself answers to neither.

Rate Justification + Own vs Rent render here.

Rep layer: The independence beat — municipal edition: the VoS rate resets by formula (9.91¢ is the current figure, not a promise), the tier design is the council's to change; nothing is pending against solar customers and we never imply otherwise. 25-yr scenarios: conservative 4%, moderate 6%, aggressive 8% — the backdrop for consumption rates, never converted into battery credit gains.

Urgency

The honest clocks — the seasons, not a statute.

The freeze clock. Twice in living memory this city has gone dark in February — once by ERCOT's order, once under the ice. A battery installed before the next one is heat and light; one ordered after is a backorder behind the whole metro.

Rep layer: THE Austin urgency — two lived events; understate and let the memory work.

The tier clock. Every summer month bills the household up the ladder. There's no future deadline — the top-tier kilowatt-hours recur every July, at the highest prices on the rate card.

Rep layer: Honest seasonal urgency — the tier lever's value arrives with the heat, annually.

What is NOT a clock: the credit, or a net-metering deadline. Your Value-of-Solar credit doesn't change with or without a battery — no window is closing on it, and we won't pretend one is. And there's no net-metering deadline here, because Austin doesn't do net metering — it does Value-of-Solar, by formula. Anyone selling you either deadline is importing someone else's pitch.

Rep layer: The anti-manufacture rule, Austin edition — TWO fake clocks to refuse: a battery-credit window (the credit is invariant) and an imported NEM deadline (VoS isn't NEM). The refusal is the credibility play.

The Close

1. Verify credit + confirm configuration. Run the credit check and confirm backup vs self-consumption — and walk the customer through the meter diagram: the credit line unchanged, the consumption line where the battery works. Say it before the screen does.
2. Confirm current VoS and tier rates in the tool. The VoS rate resets (9.91¢ is the 11/1/2025 figure); tiers and riders move — never quote from memory.
3. Customer reads and signs the service agreement. Walk the disclosures honestly — the buy-all/credit-all mechanics, the credit invariance, the rollover/no-cash-out/forfeiture terms, tier-avoidance as the modest honest lever, and that the $4,000 rebate is a solar-install program a battery retrofit can't claim.
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: Austin Energy — municipally owned (City of Austin), ~half a million customers, council-governed. No REP market inside the service area — the deregulated plan-switch play does not exist here.
• Territory: Austin and surrounding Travis County areas.
• Market type: BUY-ALL/CREDIT-ALL (Value of Solar) — dual-meter, two-ledger; battery impact on the VoS credit = zero, stated plainly; battery bill lever = tier avoidance on the consumption meter (modest, seasonal, honestly priced); no cohorts on the credit mechanism; solar rebate strictly install-gated; no battery program.
• Default config: backup-capable ($18,500 / $23,942 / ~$228); self-consumption ($17,000 / $22,068 / ~$210).

2. How the Austin Energy Bill Works

1. Consumption (revenue meter): billed at tiered residential retail — the energy charge climbs with monthly usage, with the upper tiers around 7.525¢ and 10.884¢/kWh before riders and pass-throughs; customer charge and adders on top.
2. Production (solar meter): every kilowatt-hour of PV output — gross, not net — credited at the Value-of-Solar rate: 9.91¢/kWh, effective 11/1/2025 (the rate resets; the tool carries the current figure).
3. The two ledgers never net: consumption is billed in full; production is credited in full; the credit offsets dollars on the bill, not kilowatt-hours on the meter.
4. Credit rollover: indefinite, month to month; no cash-out; forfeited at account termination.
5. What this means for a battery, exactly: the VoS credit is invariant — charging a battery from solar just moves those kilowatt-hours' value from the 9.91¢ credit to the avoided consumption price, and the honest gain exists only where the avoided tier price beats the forgone credit (the top tiers, in high-usage months). The tool nets this trade correctly; the guide never rounds it up.

Why this matters for the pitch: the credit-invariance is the trust move — no other installer opens with "the battery won't touch your solar credit." The tier lever is real and seasonal; resilience leads; and the rollover/forfeiture terms give the sizing conversation its Austin shape.

3. Value of Solar — By Formula, Not Netting (and What That Means)

Everything below is pinned to Austin Energy's published mechanics.

• The structure: buy-all/credit-all on dual meters. Not net metering — no kilowatt-hour ever offsets another; the VoS credit is a dollar-line item computed on gross generation.
• The rate: 9.91¢/kWh effective 11/1/2025, set by Austin Energy's Value-of-Solar methodology and recalculated periodically — a formula output, not a contract term. Nothing is pending against it, and no grandfathering framework exists or is needed: the rate applies as published, to everyone, when it changes.
• The battery consequence, stated exactly: the credit pays on production regardless of destination — a battery cannot raise it, and we lead with that. The battery's honest ledger: forgo 9.91¢ on stored kilowatt-hours, avoid the consumption price instead — a winning trade against the top tiers in heavy months, a losing one against the low tiers, and the tool prices the customer's actual curve.
• The rep move: "Your credit is set by formula and it pays the same with or without a battery — I'll show you that on the meter diagram before you ask. What the battery works is the other meter: Austin's tiers climb, your summers climb with them, and stored power keeps you off the top rungs. And in February — either February — it was the only equipment on any roof in this city still doing its job."
• See the "Net Metering & Grandfathering Status" section for the cited detail; the flag for Austin Energy is VALUE-OF-SOLAR (credit-invariant to batteries; tier-avoidance + resilience register).

4. Rate Reality + The Honest Lever

What drives the Austin pitch (named, honest):

1. The honesty itself. "The battery won't touch your credit" — checkable, disarming, and the sentence no competitor says.
2. February. Twice in living memory — the resilience case writes itself, without a single invented count.
3. The tiers. A modest, seasonal, real lever — priced by the tool, never inflated.

Documented vs. speculation (say this right):

• ✅ "Every kilowatt-hour your panels make earns nine ninety-one on its own meter — with or without a battery" (VoS mechanics)
• ✅ "Your consumption bills in tiers that climb; stored power keeps summer usage off the top rungs — the tool prices your actual curve" (tier lever, honestly netted)
• ✅ "Credits roll forever, never cash out, and die with the account — if you're banking credit you'll never burn, that's a sizing conversation" (rollover terms)
• ✅ "The $4,000 rebate is a solar-install program — a battery retrofit can't claim it" (guidelines)
• ❌ Any claim that a battery raises, protects, or unlocks VoS credit (invariant — the defining never)
• ❌ Quoting Power Partner as battery income (thermostat DR) or any Austin battery program (none confirmed)
• ❌ Pitching the $4,000 on a battery-only retrofit (install-gated)
• ❌ Importing a NEM deadline or plan-switch pitch (VoS isn't NEM; munis have no REPs)
• ❌ Inventing Austin-specific Uri or 2023-ice-storm outage counts (not pinned — the memory needs no numbers)
• ❌ Claiming a Texas sales-tax exemption

5. Incentives & Programs

• Austin Energy solar rebate: $4,000 (current guidelines eff. 7/1/2026) — minimum 3 kW-dc, one per address since May 2018, solar installations only. It belongs to new-install and solar+battery conversations; a battery-only retrofit cannot claim it, and it never appears in battery-only projections.
• Battery programs: none confirmed. The Power Partner program is smart-thermostat demand response — mention only if asked, never as battery income.
• Federal ITC: expired 12/31/2025. Never quote 30%.
• Texas tax treatment: §11.27 property-tax exemption ACTIVE, including storage installed with solar (standalone batteries unconfirmed — appraisal-district determination). No sales-tax exemption.
• The value is resilience + tier avoidance (honestly netted) + 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 — Two Februaries

Why outages happen here. Austin carries the Texas double exposure, and lived both:

• February 2021, Winter Storm Uri: ERCOT ordered load shed statewide — deliberate disconnection in single-digit cold (Austin Energy's specific shed count isn't separately pinned, and we quote the event, not an invented number).
• February 2023, the Austin ice storm: ice brought lines and limbs down across the city — days-long, block-by-block outages, within every customer's living memory.
• Plus the standing pattern: summer scarcity watches every year — ERCOT's margin math is public record.

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

How to pitch it honestly: "This city has gone dark in February twice — once because ERCOT ordered it, once under the ice — and every solar roof in Austin was off both times. The battery is the one piece of the system built for exactly that, and it's the first job we're selling it for."

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

• What you rent: tiered power that climbs every July, a solar credit set by a formula the utility recalculates — and a grid that has gone dark in February twice.
• What you own (with the battery): summer consumption held off the top tiers, and a house that stays warm through the next ice storm.
• Hidden costs avoided: the $11K takeover bundle + every freeze's real costs — spoiled food, burst-pipe risk, hotel nights — the expenses no credit formula touches.

9. Battery Products

• Backup config (the point in this market): 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).

• Austin takeaway: no VPP routes hardware here (no confirmed Austin battery program, no REP market) — hardware selection is about backup capability and the home's needs, said plainly. Size for essential loads through a multi-day freeze; the tier lever rides whatever capacity the resilience case justifies. Confirm config in the tool.

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

10. Objection Handling

Universal objections (swap in Austin figures) + Austin-specific objections.

"Will the battery increase my solar credit?" (Austin-specific — THE defining objection; the answer is the pitch)

"No — and I'd rather be the one who tells you. Your credit pays on everything your panels produce, on its own meter, at nine ninety-one a kilowatt-hour — with a battery or without one. Anyone who tells you a battery boosts a Value-of-Solar credit doesn't understand the meter setup, and I'll show you the diagram. What the battery actually works is your other meter: Austin bills your usage in tiers that climb, and stored power keeps your summers off the top rungs — plus it's the only part of the system that ran through either February. That's the honest job description."

"Why is my credit balance so big — should I get a battery to use it?" (Austin-specific — the sizing answer)

"A big rolling balance means your system out-produces your bill — and here's the straight answer: a battery doesn't burn credit; credit is dollars, not stored power. Your balance rolls forever, never converts to cash, and is forfeited if you close the account — so the real conversations are sizing, and spend-down planning if you ever move. If the honest answer is that you don't need anything from us, that's the answer you'll get."

"I heard Austin pays people for their batteries." (Austin-specific — the wrong-program answer)

"What Austin runs is Power Partner — and that's a smart-thermostat program: it pays for letting the utility nudge your AC, not for a battery. There's no confirmed Austin Energy battery program today, and I won't invent one. The battery's math here is what I've shown you: the tiers, and the two Februaries. If Austin launches a real battery program, that's upside — never the basis."

"Doesn't Austin have a $4,000 rebate?" (the solar-gated answer)

"They do — four thousand dollars, and it's a solar-install rebate: minimum system size, one per address, on new panels. A battery added to your existing array can't claim it. If new solar is on your table, we'll price that path with the rebate in it, honestly. For a battery on your existing system, the math is the tiers, the backup, and the takeover — no rebate, and no pretending."

"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, the city rebate is install-only, and I've told you straight the battery won't move your solar credit — what the payment buys is the tier relief, the backup, and the takeover, with over $11K of it in warranty, service, and inverter coverage."

11. DO SAY / NEVER SAY

12. Required Disclosures

• Austin Energy operates a buy-all/credit-all (Value of Solar) arrangement: all PV production is credited at the published VoS rate (9.91¢/kWh as of 11/1/2025, subject to recalculation) on a separate meter, and all consumption is billed at tiered retail. A battery does not increase the VoS credit, and projections show the credit unchanged.
• Battery bill value in this territory derives from consumption-tier avoidance, computed against the customer's actual usage and net of the VoS credit forgone on stored energy; no export-spread, netting, or credit-enhancement value is claimed.
• VoS credits roll over indefinitely, are never paid out in cash, and are forfeited at account termination; excess crediting is a system-sizing consideration a battery does not address.
• Austin Energy's $4,000 solar rebate applies to qualifying solar installations only (minimum 3 kW-dc, one per address since May 2018) and is not available for battery additions; no such rebate is included in battery-only projections. No Austin Energy residential battery program is confirmed, and no program income is quoted.
• No federal ITC after 12/31/2025. Texas provides a property-tax exemption (Tex. Tax Code §11.27) including storage installed with solar; treatment of standalone batteries is determined by the local appraisal district. No Texas sales-tax exemption applies.
• Outage references cite Winter Storm Uri (ERCOT-directed load shed) and the February 2023 Austin ice storm as events; no utility-specific outage counts are represented. 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)

• Structure: buy-all/credit-all dual meter — consumption and production NEVER net; no REP market (muni)
• VoS credit: 9.91¢/kWh gross production (eff. 11/1/2025; RESETS — confirm in tool) | BATTERY EFFECT ON CREDIT: ZERO — say it first
• Consumption tiers: climbing energy charge; upper tiers ~7.525¢ / 10.884¢ before riders — the battery's honest lever, netted against the forgone credit by the tool
• Rollover: indefinite; NO cash-out; forfeited at termination — sizing/spend-down conversation
• Rebate: $4,000 solar-install (eff. 7/1/2026; min 3 kW-dc; one per address since May 2018); battery retrofits CANNOT claim
• Battery program: NONE confirmed (Power Partner = thermostat DR — never income)
• 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 — statewide ERCOT-ordered shed (no invented Austin counts); Feb 2023 Austin ice storm — days-long outages (event, not counts)

14. Sell Hard, Sell Honest — the standing rules

• Open with the invariant credit. "The battery won't touch your credit" is the strongest sentence in this market — checkable on the meter diagram, and nobody else says it.
• The tier lever stays modest. The tool nets the forgone credit against the avoided tier price; a rep who hand-waves it into headline savings is writing a check the first bill bounces.
• Rollover honesty is a sizing conversation — forever, no cash-out, forfeited at closing; sometimes the answer is "you don't need anything from us."
• Two fake clocks get refused: no battery-credit window exists, and no NEM deadline exists — VoS is a formula, not a program to lock.
• The $4,000 is install-gated. Power Partner is a thermostat. Wrong-program quotes die here.
• Two Februaries carry the resilience case — events, memory, zero invented counts.
• Never quote the federal ITC (expired). Never claim a TX sales-tax exemption.