Top Tier — Texas Battery Sales Reference

CPS Energy · San Antonio & Bexar County

Sales reference for reps working CPS Energy territory. This is the deep reference — how to sell it up top, full utility detail below. San Antonio is municipal territory — CPS Energy is the nation's largest municipally owned gas-and-electric utility, there's no retail-provider market here, and the solar arrangement is net billing on a dual-register meter: within the month, your exports offset your imports roughly one-for-one down to zero, and anything left over — your Net Excess Generation — is credited at under two cents. That structure sets the honest battery story: month to month, when your solar and usage roughly balance, the meter already does the work and a battery adds little to the bill; the battery's bill lever lives in your surplus months, where excess that would dump at a penny-and-a-half gets stored and used at twelve-cent value instead. Two hard rules shape everything else here: CPS does not allow batteries to export to its grid — every battery we install is configured self-consumption and backup only — and CPS's own interconnection manual requires the customer to own the system, which bars leased and PPA solar from the arrangement entirely. Add Uri — the February 2021 freeze that ERCOT ordered utilities to shed through, San Antonio included — and the pitch here is modest, precise, and resilience-forward: the surplus months, the export bar told straight, and the lights.

What kind of market this is

CPS Energy is a net-billing municipal market with a dual-register meter — in-month exports offset imports down to zero, monthly surplus dumps at under 2¢ — where the battery's bill lever is the surplus months, batteries are barred from exporting, ownership is an interconnection requirement, and the value story is modest, honest, and resilience-led. Five defining facts:

1. Net billing on two registers — the month's balance decides everything. The meter tracks CPS Energy Delivered (Register 9) and PV Surplus (Register 10) separately. Within the billing month, your exports offset your imports roughly one-for-one down to zero; whatever surplus remains — Net Excess Generation — credits at 1.65¢/kWh (Oct–May) or 2.02¢ (Jun–Sep), against all-in retail around 12.6¢. Balanced months: the meter already time-shifts, and a battery adds little to the bill — we say so. Surplus months: the battery converts sub-2¢ dumps into 12-cent self-supply — the honest lever, and the tool prices it.
2. Batteries may not export — configured that way, disclosed that way. CPS bars battery export to its grid. Every battery here runs self-consumption and backup only, and the proposal says so before the customer asks.
3. The owner requirement is a hard bar. CPS's Distributed Generation Manual (9th Edition, May 2024) requires, verbatim: "The customer must also be the DG System's owner." Leased and PPA solar cannot interconnect under this arrangement — the ownership question is a qualifying question, asked early. Owned and financed systems qualify; ours do.
4. The rebate era is over; the DR program is small and real. The SmartSource solar rebate closed December 16, 2022 — never quote it. What exists: a demand-response program paying $10 per dispatch event — pocket change, quoted as exactly that, never annualized into income.
5. Uri reached San Antonio — and there's no plan to shop. February 2021: ERCOT ordered load shed statewide, and CPS customers went dark in the freeze by the hundreds of thousands (the precise peak was never officially pinned — we say "hundreds of thousands" and no more). Municipal territory means no REP switch exists — CPS is the utility, the board sets the terms, and the battery is the only equipment-side answer to any of it.

Your lead is the honest month-shape, then the surplus lever, then the lights. "In a balanced month, your meter already nets your solar and a battery won't move that bill much — the months a battery earns here are your surplus months, and here's your production history telling us which those are" is a pitch built on the customer's own data, and the export bar and ownership rule told up front are what make the rest of it believable.

Default configuration: backup-capable — the export bar makes self-consumption/backup the whole design anyway, and Uri makes backup the point.

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

Confirm pricing, configuration, ownership status, and current NEG rates 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.

The Problem

Your surplus months sell your power for a penny and a half. Within any month, your meter nets your exports against your imports down to zero — that part of the arrangement works, and we'll say so. But in the months your system out-produces the house — spring, mild fall — the leftover doesn't roll at full value: it's credited at a penny sixty-five, two cents in summer, against the twelve-and-a-half-cent power you buy back the rest of the year. Every surplus month donates the difference.

Rep layer: The honest opener — the in-month netting credited first (it genuinely time-shifts within balanced months), then the leak named precisely: NEG at 1.65¢/2.02¢ vs ~12.6¢ all-in retail, surplus months only. Discipline: NEVER pitch this as an every-month spread — the dual-register structure means balanced months give the battery little to do, and the customer's own production history identifies the surplus months. The tool computes from their curve. Objection — "My bill's already low." In balanced months, yes — the conversation is your surplus months and your Februarys.

Your solar arrangement has two rules most owners never read. CPS doesn't allow batteries to send power to its grid — and CPS requires the person on the bill to own the system. If your solar is leased or on a power-purchase agreement, the interconnection manual itself is the problem, before any hardware is.

Rep layer: The two-hard-rules beat — export bar + ownership bar, both stated as CPS's rules (DG Manual 9th Ed., §1.2.1 verbatim: "The customer must also be the DG System's owner"), not ours. The ownership question is QUALIFYING — ask early; leased/PPA solar routes to a different conversation (buyout/ownership first), never to a battery quote that interconnection would reject. Our systems are owned or financed — they qualify.

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 utilities to turn people off — and hundreds of thousands of CPS customers froze in the dark. Winter Storm Uri wasn't a line down in your neighborhood: ERCOT ran short and ordered load shed, and San Antonio went dark with the rest of Texas, in single-digit cold, for days in places. 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: deliberate ERCOT-ordered shed; CPS's exact peak was never officially published — "hundreds of thousands" is the honest ceiling of the claim, never a precise invented figure. The deliberate-shed truth + the freeze memory carry it.

The Solution

A battery earns in your surplus months and stands guard in all of them — and we'll show you which is which from your own meter. In balanced months your netting already does the bill work, and our numbers won't pretend otherwise. In surplus months, the battery stores power that would've dumped at a penny and a half and serves it back at full value. And every month, it's the only part of the system that works when the grid doesn't — which in this state is a design requirement, not a luxury.

• Self-consumption: "Your meter handles the balanced months; the battery handles the surplus months — and the tool tells us how many of those you have."
• Backup: "All of that — and heat and light the next time ERCOT does the math."

Monthly Cost Chart and Net Bill Breakdown render here.

Rep layer: THE core cure beat — the month-shape honesty stated inside it. The value stack, in order: resilience (Uri, deliberate) + the surplus-month lever (modest, real, priced from the customer's production history — never annualized as if every month were April) + the takeover. Configuration disclosure rides here: self-consumption/backup only, no export, per CPS rules — stated before the customer asks.

(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 it lasts.

Rep layer: The resilience cure beat. San Antonio seasonal honesty: the marquee risk is the winter freeze (Uri) 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 board does with rates, your stored power is yours. Your rates are set by a municipal board; your surplus credit is a rider the utility revises; 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 — municipal edition: rates are board-set, the NEG rider is CPS's to revise, nothing is pending against solar customers and we never imply otherwise. 25-yr scenarios: conservative 4%, moderate 6%, aggressive 8% — the consumption-rate backdrop, never converted into invented credit gains.

Urgency

The honest clocks — the surplus calendar, and the freeze.

The surplus clock. Every spring and mild-fall month your excess dumps at a penny and a half. There's no deadline — the cost of waiting recurs each surplus month, at the gap between two cents and twelve.

Rep layer: Honest seasonal urgency — sized to the customer's actual surplus months, from their history, never inflated to year-round.

The freeze clock. February 2021 is what "short" looks like: ERCOT ordering utilities to shed, San Antonio included, in single-digit cold. A battery installed before the next scarcity event is heat and light; one ordered after is a backorder behind the city.

Rep layer: Factual, preparedness-framed — the deliberate-shed history plus ERCOT's public seasonal margin math; no invented forecasts.

What is NOT a clock: a net-metering deadline. CPS's arrangement is net billing on a rider the utility can revise — nothing is pending against it, and we won't invent a countdown. Anyone running a "lock in your rate" deadline in San Antonio is importing another market's pitch.

Rep layer: The anti-manufacture rule, CPS edition — nothing pending; the honest structural note (board-set terms, revisable rider) is stated without a manufactured date.

The Close

1. Ask the ownership question, then verify credit + configuration. "Do you own your solar, or is it leased?" — CPS's manual makes this a qualifying question (owned/financed qualifies; leased/PPA can't interconnect under this arrangement). Then the credit check, and confirm backup vs self-consumption — with the export bar stated: every battery here is self-consumption/backup configured, per CPS rules.
2. Pull the production history and name the surplus months. The battery's bill case is month-shaped — show the customer their own curve and price the lever honestly from it.
3. Customer reads and signs the service agreement. Walk the disclosures honestly — the dual-register netting, the sub-2¢ surplus credit, the export bar, the ownership requirement, that SmartSource is closed, and that the $10 dispatch program is pocket change, not income.
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: CPS Energy — the nation's largest municipally owned gas-and-electric utility, board-governed, San Antonio and Bexar County. No REP market — the deregulated plan-switch play does not exist here.
• Territory: San Antonio metro.
• Market type: NET BILLING, dual-register — in-month exports offset imports to zero; monthly surplus (NEG) at 1.65¢/2.02¢; battery lever = surplus months (modest, month-shaped); battery export PROHIBITED; customer ownership REQUIRED for interconnection (TPO/lease/PPA barred); rebate closed; $10/dispatch DR only.
• Default config: backup-capable ($18,500 / $23,942 / ~$228); self-consumption ($17,000 / $22,068 / ~$210).

2. How the CPS Bill Works

1. The meter: two registers — CPS Energy Delivered (Register 9) and PV Surplus (Register 10), read monthly.
2. In-month netting: exports offset imports roughly one-for-one down to zero within the billing month — a balanced month behaves like 1:1 up to that floor.
3. Net Excess Generation: monthly surplus beyond zero credits at 1.65¢/kWh (Oct–May) / 2.02¢ (Jun–Sep) (effective date of the current rider unconfirmed — the tool carries current figures).
4. Retail: Rate RE all-in ~12.6¢/kWh ($9.50 customer charge; 7.503¢ base energy + adders).
5. What this means for a battery, exactly: in balanced/deficit months, the register pair already time-shifts and the battery's bill effect is small — stated plainly. In surplus months, each stored kilowatt-hour that would have dumped at ~1.65–2.02¢ instead offsets ~12.6¢ purchases — a ~10.5¢ lever on surplus-month excess only. The tool prices the customer's actual month shape; the guide never annualizes a seasonal lever.

Why this matters for the pitch: this is the modest-and-precise market — the mechanics reward a rep who shows the customer their own production curve and prices exactly the months that pay. The export bar and ownership rule, told first, are what make the modest number credible.

3. Net Billing at CPS — Two Registers, Two Hard Rules

Everything below is pinned to CPS's meter configuration and DG Manual.

• The structure: net billing on dual registers — not full retail net metering (the label matters: exports offset imports in-month to zero, and surplus settles at the NEG rider rate, not retail). No cohorts; the arrangement applies as published.
• Rule one — the export bar: batteries may not export to CPS's grid. Every battery is configured self-consumption + backup only, disclosed in the proposal.
• Rule two — the ownership bar (DG Manual 9th Ed., May 2024, §1.2.1, verbatim): "The customer must also be the DG System's owner." Leased and PPA systems cannot interconnect — a structural bar, not a preference. Owned and financed systems (ours) qualify. The ownership question is asked at the top of every appointment.
• The rep move: "Here's your meter's two registers: within the month, your exports cancel your imports down to zero — that part works. The months you out-produce, the leftover pays a penny sixty-five. Your battery's job is those months — storing penny-and-a-half power and serving it back at twelve cents — plus every outage. And two rules up front, because they're CPS's, not mine: your battery won't export to their grid, and CPS requires you to own your system — which yours is, so we're in business."
• See the "Net Metering & Grandfathering Status" section for the cited detail; the flag for CPS is NET-BILLING (dual-register; surplus-month lever; export-barred; ownership-gated).

4. Rate Reality + The Month-Shaped Lever

What drives the CPS pitch (named, honest):

1. The month shape. The customer's own curve names the surplus months — the pitch is their data, priced precisely.
2. The two rules told first. Export bar + ownership bar, up front — the credibility that carries the modest number.
3. Uri. ERCOT ordered the shed and San Antonio froze — the resilience case at honest scale.

Documented vs. speculation (say this right):

• ✅ "Within the month, your exports cancel your imports down to zero — your netting genuinely works in balanced months" (register mechanics)
• ✅ "Surplus months pay a penny sixty-five — the battery's job is converting those dumps into twelve-cent self-supply" (NEG vs retail, month-shaped)
• ✅ "Your battery won't export to CPS's grid — that's their rule, and we configure for it" (export bar)
• ✅ "CPS requires the customer to own the system — their manual's words — so leased solar can't interconnect here" (§1.2.1 verbatim)
• ✅ "Hundreds of thousands of CPS customers went dark in Uri — by ERCOT's order" (honest-ceiling framing)
• ❌ Calling this "1:1 retail net metering" (it's net billing — in-month offset to zero plus a sub-2¢ surplus rider; the label was the old error)
• ❌ Annualizing the surplus-month lever into an every-month spread
• ❌ Quoting SmartSource (closed 2022) or annualizing the $10 dispatch program into income
• ❌ Quoting a battery to a leased/PPA-solar household without the ownership conversation first
• ❌ Inventing a precise CPS Uri count (never officially published — "hundreds of thousands" is the ceiling)
• ❌ Importing a NEM deadline or plan-switch pitch (nothing pending; no REPs in muni territory)
• ❌ Claiming a Texas sales-tax exemption

5. Incentives & Programs

• SmartSource solar rebate: CLOSED December 16, 2022. It appears in old marketing and stale search results — never quote it.
• Demand response: $10 per dispatch event — real, small, and quoted as exactly that. A handful of events a year is lunch money, not a revenue line; it never appears as projected 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 + the surplus-month lever (month-shaped, honestly priced) + 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 Freeze That Reached San Antonio

Why outages happen here. South Texas reads mild until it isn't:

• February 2021, Winter Storm Uri: ERCOT ran short and ordered load shed — CPS customers went dark by the hundreds of thousands (the precise peak was never officially published, and we don't invent one), in single-digit cold, for days in parts of the city. Deliberate disconnection under scarcity — policy, not equipment failure.
• Plus the standing Texas pattern: summer scarcity watches every year — ERCOT's margin math is public record — and the ordinary storm seasons on top.

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 line down on your street — the grid operator ordered utilities to turn people off, and San Antonio froze with the rest of the state. When Texas runs short, shedding is the plan. A battery is the part of your system that doesn't take that call."

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

• What you rent: twelve-cent power under board-set rates, surplus months that pay back a penny and a half — and heat that goes out when ERCOT's math says so.
• What you own (with the battery): your surplus months at full value instead of penny dumps, and a house that stays warm through the next shed.
• Hidden costs avoided: the $11K takeover bundle + every freeze's real costs — spoiled food, burst-pipe risk, hotel nights — the expenses no rider touches.

9. Battery Products

• Backup config (the point — and the export bar makes backup/self-consumption the whole design): 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).

• CPS takeaway: no VPP routes hardware here (no CPS battery program; no REP market), and export configuration is prohibited outright — hardware selection is about backup capability and surplus-month storage depth. Size for essential loads through a multi-day freeze; the surplus lever rides whatever capacity the resilience case justifies. Confirm config and ownership status in the tool.

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

10. Objection Handling

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

"I thought I had 1:1 net metering — my exports cancel my bill." (CPS-specific — the label-precision answer)

"Within the month, they do — down to zero, and that part of your setup genuinely works. Here's the part the '1:1' shorthand hides: your meter runs two registers, and once a month's exports have zeroed its imports, everything extra is Net Excess Generation — credited at a penny sixty-five, two cents in summer, not twelve. In your balanced months a battery honestly won't move this bill much, and I'll say that plainly. In your surplus months, it converts penny-and-a-half dumps into twelve-cent power. Let's pull your production history and count which months are which — the answer's in your own data."

"Why won't my battery sell power back like my neighbor's in Austin or Dallas?" (CPS-specific — the export-bar answer)

"Because CPS doesn't allow it — batteries may not export to their grid, full stop, and we configure yours for self-consumption and backup from day one rather than let you discover that rule in an interconnection rejection. Here's the honest silver lining: at a penny sixty-five, export was never where the money was in San Antonio anyway. The value here is using your own stored power at twelve-cent value, and having it when the grid's gone."

"My solar is leased — can I still add a battery?" (CPS-specific — the ownership-bar answer)

"That's the right question to ask first, and here's CPS's own sentence: the customer must also be the DG System's owner — it's in their interconnection manual. A leased or PPA system can't interconnect under this arrangement, so before any battery conversation, the honest path is the ownership one: a lease buyout or purchase option if your contract has one. If you own or finance your system — which everything we sell is — we're in business. I'd rather tell you the rule now than quote you hardware the manual would reject."

"Doesn't CPS pay for batteries?" (the wrong-program/closed-program answer)

"Two honest answers. The SmartSource rebate closed in December 2022 — anyone quoting it is reading old marketing. What exists today is a demand-response program that pays ten dollars per dispatch event — real, and it's lunch money: a few events a year, never a revenue line. The battery's math here is what I've shown you: your surplus months, and the freeze. If CPS launches a real battery program, that's upside — never the basis."

"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, CPS's rebate closed in 2022, and I've told you straight the battery earns in your surplus months, not every month — what the payment buys is that lever, the backup, and the takeover, with over $11K of it in warranty, service, and inverter coverage."

11. DO SAY / NEVER SAY

12. Required Disclosures

• CPS Energy provides net billing on a dual-register meter: within each billing month, exported energy offsets delivered energy down to zero, and remaining Net Excess Generation is credited at CPS's published rider rate (1.65¢/kWh Oct–May, 2.02¢ Jun–Sep, subject to revision). This arrangement is not full retail net metering.
• Battery bill value in this territory derives primarily from surplus-month storage (converting NEG-rate excess into avoided retail purchases), computed from the customer's actual production and usage history; in months where production and usage are balanced, battery bill impact is minimal, and projections reflect the customer's month shape.
• CPS Energy does not permit battery export to its grid; all battery systems are configured for self-consumption and backup only.
• CPS Energy's interconnection requirements provide that the customer must be the DG system's owner (DG Manual, 9th Ed., §1.2.1); leased and PPA solar systems do not qualify, and ownership status is confirmed before proposal.
• The CPS SmartSource rebate closed December 16, 2022, and no rebate is available or quoted. CPS's demand-response program pays per dispatch event and is not projected as income. No federal ITC after 12/31/2025. Texas provides a property-tax exemption (Tex. Tax Code §11.27) including storage installed with solar; standalone-battery treatment is determined by the local appraisal district. No Texas sales-tax exemption applies.
• Winter Storm Uri outage references reflect ERCOT-directed load shed; CPS-specific outage totals were not officially published and are not 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: NET BILLING, dual register (Reg 9 Delivered / Reg 10 PV Surplus) — in-month offset to ZERO; NOT "1:1 retail NEM"; no REP market (muni)
• NEG credit: 1.65¢ Oct–May / 2.02¢ Jun–Sep (rider revisable; effective date unconfirmed — tool carries current) | Retail: Rate RE ~12.6¢ all-in ($9.50 + 7.503¢ base + adders)
• THE LEVER: surplus months only — ~10.5¢ per stored kWh that would have dumped at NEG; priced from the customer's month shape; NEVER annualized
• EXPORT: PROHIBITED — every battery = self-consumption/backup config, disclosed up front
• OWNERSHIP: required (DG Manual 9th Ed. §1.2.1 verbatim) — leased/PPA CANNOT interconnect; qualifying question, asked first
• Programs: SmartSource CLOSED 12/16/2022 (never quote); DR = $10/dispatch (lunch money, never annualized)
• 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 anchor: Uri Feb 2021 — ERCOT-ordered shed; CPS customers dark by the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS (exact peak never published — never invent a precise figure)

14. Sell Hard, Sell Honest — the standing rules

• The label is net billing, and precision is the pitch. "1:1" is the shorthand that hides the penny-and-a-half surplus rider — the rep who explains the two registers owns the appointment.
• The lever is month-shaped. Priced from the customer's own production history, surplus months only — an annualized version is a lie with a spreadsheet.
• The two hard rules go first. Export bar and ownership bar, stated as CPS's sentences before the customer asks — the credibility that carries the modest number.
• The ownership question qualifies the appointment — leased/PPA routes to the ownership conversation, never to a quote the manual would reject.
• SmartSource is closed and the $10 dispatch is lunch money — wrong-program and stale-program quotes die here.
• Uri at honest ceiling — "hundreds of thousands," ERCOT-ordered, and not one digit more precise than the record.
• Never quote the federal ITC (expired). Never claim a TX sales-tax exemption.