Top Tier — Texas Battery Sales Reference

El Paso Electric · El Paso & Far West Texas

Sales reference for reps working El Paso Electric territory. This is the deep reference — how to sell it up top, full utility detail below. El Paso is different Texas: EPE is a regulated, vertically integrated utility on the Western grid — not ERCOT — so there's no retail-provider market, no plan to shop, and the solar terms live in a filed tariff, not a contract. The arrangement is net billing: your consumption net of production is billed at retail — eleven to fourteen cents on Schedule 01, plus a $13.71 customer charge and a $15 distributed-generation charge solar customers pay — and your net production is credited under Rate Schedule 48 at avoided cost, around a penny and a half. That's a ten-to-thirteen-cent gap on every exported kilowatt-hour, one of the widest genuinely battery-addressable spreads in our entire book, and the desert sun that makes El Paso solar great is exactly what makes the export leak big. The resilience story here is told with unusual honesty: EPE largely rode out Uri — being on the Western Interconnection, it avoided ERCOT's shed almost entirely — and we credit that, then sell what's true: anti-islanding still turns panels off in any outage, desert summers drive record demand, and the one battery program here — a $500 pilot with Base Power — doesn't even require solar. The pitch is the spread, told at full width, under tariff terms a rate case can revise.

What kind of market this is

El Paso Electric is a regulated net-billing market with one of the strongest verified spreads in the book (~10–13¢ per exported kilowatt-hour), tariff-set terms with no REP market, a $15/month DG charge told honestly, a $500 battery pilot that doesn't require solar, and a resilience story built on crediting EPE's Uri performance before selling what anti-islanding still costs. Five defining facts:

1. Net billing, tariff-set — and the gap is wide. Consumption net of production bills at Schedule 01 retail — ~11–14¢/kWh, plus a $13.71 customer charge and a $15/month DG charge for solar customers. Net production credits under Rate Schedule 48 (Method A) at avoided cost — about 1.6¢/kWh (the Jan–Feb 2025 factor was $0.016154; factors update — the tool carries current). The spread a battery captures: roughly 10–13¢ on every kilowatt-hour stored instead of exported — among the widest in any market we serve, and our shipped figure is deliberately conservative against it.
2. This is tariff country, not contract country. EPE is regulated and vertically integrated on the Western grid — no REP market, no plan-switching, no buyback shopping. The terms are PUCT-filed tariff schedules: stable until a rate case revises them, applied to everyone identically, with nothing currently pending against solar customers — and we say exactly that, no invented clocks.
3. The DG charge is real and we say it first. Solar customers pay a $15/month distributed-generation charge on top of the customer charge. Competitors bury it; we open with it — it's part of why self-consuming your own power beats exporting it here.
4. The one battery program doesn't require solar. EPE's $500 Home Battery Incentive — an active pilot with Base Power, first 500 homeowners — is the rare Texas program where solar pairing is not required (per-battery payment details carry an unconfirmed flag; structure quoted, never inflated). Base hardware; enrollment is the provider's call.
5. EPE largely rode out Uri — and we credit it. February 2021: while ERCOT shed millions, EPE — on the Western Interconnection — kept nearly all customers on (on the order of hundreds affected for minutes, not millions for days). That's real, and saying it buys the honest close: anti-islanding still shuts panels off in any outage, desert summers drive record peaks, and monsoon-season storms do the rest. Grid-tied solar produces nothing through any of it.

Your lead is the spread at full width, with the DG charge and the Uri credit as the honesty moves. An EPE solar owner is donating ten-plus cents on every exported kilowatt-hour — the widest leak in our book — while paying fifteen dollars a month for the privilege of the interconnection. The battery converts the leak to self-supply under tariff terms, and the rep who credits EPE's Uri performance before making the resilience case is the rep who gets believed on the spread math.

Default configuration: backup-capable remains the default — the desert's outages are shorter but real, and the program hardware conversation lives here.

• 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 Schedule 01/48 figures in the tool before quoting — avoided-cost factors update.

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

You sell your surplus for a penny and a half and buy it back at eleven to fourteen cents — and you pay fifteen dollars a month to do it. Every sunny midday, your net production earns EPE's avoided cost — around a penny sixty. Every evening, your net consumption bills at full Schedule 01 retail. The gap is ten cents or more on every exported kilowatt-hour — the widest we see anywhere — and the $15 distributed-generation charge rides your bill every month regardless.

Rep layer: The exposed opener — full-width and precise: Schedule 48 Method A ~1.6¢ (factors update — tool carries current) vs Schedule 01 ~11–14¢ + $13.71 customer charge + $15 DG charge. The DG charge is stated BY US, first — the honesty move competitors skip. Discipline: our shipped savings figure is deliberately conservative against this spread; the tool computes actuals — a rep never inflates past what it prints, even though the tariff math would tempt it. Objection — "Why is the gap so big?" Avoided cost is what the tariff pays; retail is what generation, wires, and the desert peak cost. The battery is the arbitrage the tariff itself creates.

Your terms are a tariff — stable, uniform, and revisable by rate case. No contract to renew here, and no plan to shop: EPE's schedules apply to everyone until the next rate case changes them. Nothing is pending against solar customers today, and we won't pretend otherwise — the honest structural note is simply that filed tariffs are what rate cases exist to revise, and the power you store and use yourself is the one arrangement no schedule reprices.

Rep layer: The tariff-country beat — the inverse of deregulated Texas: terms ARE a tariff (stability credited honestly), revisable only by rate case (structural note, never a manufactured deadline). Post-April-2025 Rate 48 factors and the DG minimum-bill details carry unconfirmed flags — the tool carries current figures; never quote stale factors from memory.

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) El Paso rode out the storm that broke Texas — and your panels still shut off every time the lights blink. February 2021: while ERCOT shed millions for days, EPE — connected to the Western grid — kept nearly everyone on. Credit where due. Here's what that record doesn't change: grid-tied panels disconnect in any outage, desert summers push demand to records, monsoon season knocks its lines down like anywhere — and a battery is the only part of your system that works through all of it.

Rep layer: Renders ONLY for backup config — the CREDIT-FIRST resilience beat (the DTE top-quartile pattern, strongest version in the book): EPE avoided Uri (~hundreds of customers for under five minutes — Western Interconnection, confirmed) and the rep says so before the customer can. Then the honest case: anti-islanding is universal; heat-driven record demand + monsoon storms are the local reality; and no interconnection makes a grid outage-proof. NEVER borrow ERCOT's shed numbers here — EPE's non-participation in that disaster is the point.

The Solution

A battery captures the widest spread in our book — automatically, every day. Instead of selling your surplus at a penny and a half and buying it back at twelve, the battery stores it and serves your own home — capturing ten to thirteen cents on every stored kilowatt-hour, under tariff terms that apply to everyone. Our projection is deliberately conservative against that math; the meter will tell you which of us undersold it.

• Self-consumption: "The surplus stops earning a penny and starts replacing twelve-cent power — the tariff's own arithmetic."
• Backup: "All of that — and a house that runs when the desert grid has its moment."

Monthly Cost Chart and Net Bill Breakdown render here.

Rep layer: THE core cure beat — the spread story at full width with the conservative-figure honesty stated ("our number is the floor, not the ceiling" is permitted here precisely because the grounding verified the shipped figure as understated — the ONE market where that sentence is true and stays). The stack: spread + tariff-position + resilience (credit-first) + takeover.

(BACKUP ONLY) It keeps your home running when the grid goes down. Powers your essentials — refrigeration and cooling in the heat, medical devices, connectivity — through an outage, and recharges from the desert sun daily for as long as it lasts.

Rep layer: The resilience cure beat. El Paso seasonal honesty: summer heat is the marquee exposure (cooling loads, record peaks); monsoon-season storms are the outage driver; the desert sun makes solar recharge unusually reliable — say so, it's true here.

The one battery program here doesn't ask whether you have solar. EPE runs a $500 home-battery pilot with Base Power — five hundred homeowners, first come — and it's the rare program with no solar requirement at all. If the hardware and enrollment fit, it's upside; the math we show you stands without it.

Rep layer: The program beat — structure-only: $500 Home Battery Incentive, ACTIVE pilot, Base Power partnership, first 500 homeowners, solar pairing NOT required; per-battery payment detail carries an unconfirmed flag — quote the structure, never inflate, enrollment is the provider's. Hardware note: it's a Base Power program — our standard hardware may not route to it; said plainly at selection.

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 next rate case files, your stored power is yours. Your retail rate, your DG charge, and your penny-and-a-half credit all live in schedules a rate case can rewrite. 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 — tariff edition: schedules are uniform and revisable; nothing pending; the position argument is structural, never dated. 25-yr scenarios: conservative 4%, moderate 6%, aggressive 8% — the consumption-rate backdrop.

Urgency

The honest clocks — a daily spread and a desert summer.

The spread clock. Every sunny day exports at a penny and a half what the evening buys back at twelve. No future deadline — the cost of waiting runs daily, at the widest gap in our book, under the strongest sun in Texas.

Rep layer: Honest exposed urgency — the tariff math IS the clock, and El Paso's insolation makes the daily leak larger than anywhere else we serve.

The summer clock. Desert heat drives record demand every year, and outage season rides the monsoon. A battery installed before July is cooling insurance; one ordered after a heat event is a backorder.

Rep layer: Seasonal, factual, preparedness-framed — no invented forecasts; ERCOT's drama isn't EPE's, and we don't import it.

What is NOT a clock: a net-metering deadline. EPE's terms are filed tariffs — nothing is pending against them, there's no cohort closing, and anyone selling a lock-it-in date here is importing another market's pitch. The honest structural note is simply that tariffs are revisable — undated, because that's the truth.

Rep layer: The anti-manufacture rule, tariff edition — the show-the-schedule move: Schedule 48 is public; so is the absence of any pending change.

The Close

1. Verify credit + confirm configuration. Run the credit check and confirm backup vs self-consumption — and state the DG charge and the spread in the same breath: the honesty pairing that defines this market's pitch.
2. Confirm current Schedule 01/48 figures in the tool. Avoided-cost factors update; the DG minimum-bill detail carries a flag — never quote from memory.
3. Customer reads and signs the service agreement. Walk the disclosures honestly — the net-billing mechanics, the ~1.6¢ credit, the $15 DG charge, the conservative-projection note, and the Base Power pilot as structure-not-promise.
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: El Paso Electric — regulated, vertically integrated IOU on the Western Interconnection (WECC), not ERCOT; PUCT-jurisdiction on the Texas side. No REP market — no plan-switch play exists here.
• Territory: El Paso and far west Texas (EPE also serves southern New Mexico; this guide covers the Texas side).
• Market type: NET BILLING, tariff-set — net consumption at Schedule 01 retail (~11–14¢ + $13.71 + $15 DG charge); net production at Schedule 48 avoided cost (~1.6¢); spread ~10–13¢ — the widest verified in the book; shipped figure deliberately conservative; $500 Base Power pilot (solar NOT required); credit-first resilience register (EPE avoided Uri).
• Default config: backup-capable ($18,500 / $23,942 / ~$228); self-consumption ($17,000 / $22,068 / ~$210).

2. How the EPE Bill Works

1. Consumption: net consumption (usage minus same-period production) bills at Schedule 01 residential retail — ~11–14¢/kWh depending on season and blocks, plus the $13.71 customer charge and the $15/month DG charge solar customers pay.
2. Production: net production credits under Rate Schedule 48, Method A, at avoided cost — ~1.6¢/kWh (Jan–Feb 2025 factor $0.016154; factors update — the tool carries current, and post-April-2025 factors carry an unconfirmed flag).
3. What this means for a battery, exactly: every kilowatt-hour stored instead of exported trades a ~1.6¢ credit for an ~11–14¢ avoided purchase — ~10–13¢ captured per stored kilowatt-hour. The tool computes actuals; the shipped projection is deliberately conservative against this spread (verified in the July 2026 grounding), so the honest line "our number is the floor" is true here — and only here.

Why this matters for the pitch: El Paso is the anti-thin-margin market — the spread is so wide the discipline runs the other way: quote the conservative figure, state that it's conservative, and let the meter over-deliver. The DG charge told first is what makes the width believable.

3. Net Billing at EPE — Tariff Terms, Full Width

Everything below is pinned to EPE's filed schedules.

• The mechanism (grounded verbatim): "Net consumption is charged at the applicable rate and net production is credited based on … Rate Schedule No. 48." Net billing — not net metering: production offsets consumption in the period, and net production settles at avoided cost, not retail.
• The credit: Schedule 48 Method A, ~1.6¢/kWh — an avoided-cost factor that updates; always the tool's current figure.
• The charges: $13.71 customer charge + $15/month DG charge — solar-customer-specific, stated by us before the customer finds it.
• No cohorts, nothing pending: tariff terms apply uniformly; no grandfathering framework exists or is needed; no proceeding currently changes residential DG terms — the structural note (tariffs are what rate cases revise) is honest and undated.
• The rep move: "Here's your tariff's own arithmetic: exports earn about a penny sixty under Schedule 48; purchases cost eleven to fourteen under Schedule 01 — and you pay fifteen a month for the interconnection besides. That's the widest gap we see anywhere, and the battery is the arbitrage the tariff itself creates. Our projection is the conservative version of that math — the meter will tell you which of us undersold it."
• See the "Net Metering & Grandfathering Status" section for the cited detail; the flag for EPE is NET-BILLING (tariff-set; widest verified spread; conservative-projection register).

4. Rate Reality + The Full-Width Spread

What drives the EPE pitch (named, honest):

1. The spread at full width. A penny and a half against twelve-plus, under the strongest sun in Texas — with the conservative projection as the trust move.
2. The DG charge, told first. Fifteen a month, stated by us — the honesty that carries the width.
3. The Uri credit. The utility that held — credited plainly, then the universal anti-islanding truth.

Documented vs. speculation (say this right):

• ✅ "Your exports earn about a penny sixty under Schedule 48; your purchases cost eleven to fourteen — the tariff's own arithmetic" (schedules)
• ✅ "Solar customers pay a fifteen-dollar monthly DG charge — I'd rather you hear it from me" (tariff, told first)
• ✅ "Our projection is deliberately conservative against this spread — the meter will over-deliver or I'll be wrong in your favor" (grounding-verified understatement)
• ✅ "EPE largely rode out Uri — Western grid — and that's to their credit; your panels still shut off in any outage" (credit-first resilience)
• ✅ "The $500 battery pilot doesn't require solar — rare in Texas; it's a Base Power program, structure not promise" (pilot terms)
• ❌ Inflating past the tool's figure because the tariff math tempts it (conservative stays conservative until recalibrated)
• ❌ Borrowing ERCOT's Uri shed numbers for EPE (EPE's non-participation is the point)
• ❌ Quoting stale avoided-cost factors from memory (they update — tool carries current)
• ❌ Promising Base Power pilot enrollment or routing our standard hardware to it without confirmation
• ❌ Any lock-it-in tariff deadline (nothing pending — undated structural note only)
• ❌ Claiming a Texas sales-tax exemption

5. Incentives & Programs

• EPE $500 Home Battery Incentive: ACTIVE pilot with Base Power — first 500 homeowners, solar pairing NOT required (the rare Texas program that doesn't gate on solar). Per-battery payment details carry an unconfirmed flag; it's Base Power hardware — our standard equipment may not route to it, said plainly. Structure quoted; enrollment is the provider's; never projected as 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 the full-width spread (conservatively projected) + tariff-position + 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 Utility That Held, and What Still Isn't Covered

Why the honest story is different here. El Paso sits on the Western Interconnection:

• February 2021, Winter Storm Uri: while ERCOT shed millions for days, EPE kept nearly all customers on — on the order of hundreds affected, for under five minutes. Credit it plainly; it's confirmed, and pretending otherwise would cost the appointment.
• What the record doesn't change: anti-islanding shuts grid-tied panels off in any outage; desert summers drive record cooling demand; monsoon-season storms take lines down like anywhere; and no interconnection makes a grid outage-proof.

What a battery does — and the honest mechanism. Grid-tied solar shuts off automatically in an outage. A battery with backup keeps essential loads running — cooling, refrigeration, medical devices, connectivity — and recharges from the desert sun daily, which here is about as reliable as recharging gets.

How to pitch it honestly: "El Paso held through Uri — Western grid, and credit to EPE for it. Two things that record doesn't cover: your panels still disconnect the moment any outage hits, and desert summers test this grid with records every year. The battery handles both — and the sun that recharges it is the most dependable in Texas."

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

• What you rent: twelve-cent power plus a fifteen-dollar monthly DG charge, with your surplus sold back at a penny and a half — all under schedules the next rate case can rewrite.
• What you own (with the battery): your surplus at full replacement value under the widest spread in our book, and a house that cools through the desert grid's worst afternoon.
• Hidden costs avoided: the $11K takeover bundle + the donated ~11¢ spread, every sunny day.

9. Battery Products

• Backup config (default): 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).

• EPE takeaway: no VPP routes our hardware here (the $500 pilot is Base Power's program and hardware — flagged plainly at selection) — hardware choice is about backup capability and storage depth against the spread. The desert sun makes daily cycling unusually productive; size to the customer's evening load. Confirm config in the tool.

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

10. Objection Handling

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

"Why is my export credit so tiny?" (EPE-specific — the tariff-arithmetic answer)

"Because Schedule 48 pays avoided cost — what it costs EPE not to generate that kilowatt-hour — and that's about a penny sixty right now. Retail is what generation, wires, the desert peak, and your fifteen-dollar DG charge cost. I didn't set either number; the tariff did — and the gap between them is exactly what a battery captures: ten to thirteen cents on every kilowatt-hour you store instead of export. It's the widest gap in any market we serve. The tariff built the arbitrage; the battery just runs it."

"What's this $15 charge on my bill?" (EPE-specific — the DG-charge honesty answer)

"That's the distributed-generation charge — solar customers pay it monthly, and I'd rather you hear it from me than find it. It doesn't change with a battery, and I won't pretend it does. What it does do is make the case for self-supply stronger: you're paying for the interconnection either way, and every kilowatt-hour you store and use yourself is one you didn't sell at a penny sixty and buy back at twelve."

"We didn't lose power in the big freeze — why do I need backup?" (EPE-specific — the credit-first answer)

"You're right, and credit to EPE: El Paso's on the Western grid, and while ERCOT shed millions, this utility kept nearly everyone on — minutes, not days. Here's what that record doesn't cover: your panels shut off in any outage, however short — that's a safety requirement, not a choice — and this grid gets tested by record heat every summer and monsoon storms every season. Backup here isn't about expecting another Uri; it's about the ordinary outages the desert already delivers, and cooling that doesn't blink through them."

"Is there a battery rebate?" (the pilot-structure answer)

"There's a real one, with honest fine print: EPE runs a five-hundred-dollar home-battery pilot with a company called Base Power — first five hundred homeowners, and notably it doesn't require solar at all, which is rare in Texas. Two straight caveats: it's built around Base Power's hardware, so our equipment may not route to it, and enrollment is their call, not ours. If it fits, it's upside. The math I've shown you — the spread — stands entirely without it."

"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 the local pilot is structure-not-promise — so the value is the widest spread in our book, conservatively projected, plus the backup and the takeover, with over $11K of the total in warranty, service, and inverter coverage."

11. DO SAY / NEVER SAY

12. Required Disclosures

• El Paso Electric provides net billing under filed tariffs: net consumption is billed at Schedule 01 retail rates (plus the customer charge and the $15/month distributed-generation charge applicable to solar customers), and net production is credited under Rate Schedule 48 at avoided cost (~1.6¢/kWh; factors subject to periodic update). Savings projections use current tariff figures and are computed conservatively relative to the tariff spread.
• Tariff terms apply uniformly and are subject to revision through future rate proceedings; no proceeding currently pending changes residential distributed-generation terms, and no deadline is represented.
• EPE's $500 Home Battery Incentive is an active pilot administered with Base Power (first 500 homeowners; solar pairing not required); hardware eligibility, payment details, and enrollment are determined by the program provider, are not guaranteed, and are not included in projections.
• Winter Storm Uri references reflect EPE's Western Interconnection performance (minimal customer impact); no ERCOT outage figures are attributed to EPE. Backup duration depends on system sizing and load, and whole-home cooling through a multi-day event is not implied.
• 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.
• 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).
• EPE serves Texas and New Mexico; this proposal reflects Texas-side tariffs, and jurisdiction is confirmed by the bill.
• Pricing confirmed in the tool before commitment.

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

• Retail: Schedule 01 ~11–14¢ + $13.71 customer charge + $15/mo DG CHARGE (told first) | Export: Schedule 48 Method A ~1.6¢ ($0.016154 Jan–Feb 2025; factors UPDATE — confirm in tool)
• THE SPREAD: ~10–13¢ per stored kWh — WIDEST verified in the book; shipped projection deliberately CONSERVATIVE (the one market where "our number is the floor" is true — and it stays the tool's number)
• Structure: regulated IOU, WECC not ERCOT; tariff-set; NO REP market; no cohorts; nothing pending (undated structural note only)
• Pilot: $500 Home Battery Incentive — ACTIVE, Base Power, first 500, solar NOT required; per-battery detail UNCONFIRMED; their hardware/enrollment
• 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
• Resilience record: Uri — EPE HELD (~hundreds affected, <5 min; Western grid) — CREDIT IT FIRST; then anti-islanding truth + desert-summer records + monsoon storms

14. Sell Hard, Sell Honest — the standing rules

• The spread is quoted conservative, and that's stated. The one market where "our number is the floor" is true — because the grounding verified the understatement. The tool's figure is still the quote.
• The DG charge goes first. Fifteen a month, from our mouth — the honesty that makes the widest spread believable.
• Credit Uri before selling backup. EPE held; say so plainly, then sell what anti-islanding and the desert actually cost. A rep who imports ERCOT's disaster here loses the room.
• Rate 48 factors update — the tool's current figure, never memory.
• The Base Power pilot is structure-not-promise — their hardware, their enrollment, said at selection.
• Tariff country has no deadlines — undated structural note, show-the-schedule move.
• Never quote the federal ITC (expired). Never claim a TX sales-tax exemption.