Tesla files to become an electricity provider in Texas

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Tesla files to become an electricity provider in Texas
PUBLISHED THU, AUG 26 20217:58 PM EDTUPDATED 40 MIN AGO

Lora Kolodny@LORAKOLODNY

KEY POINTS
  • Tesla filed an application with the Texas Public Utility Commission to sell electricity in the state.
  • The application follows the start of a big battery build out by Tesla in Angleton, Texas (near Houston), where it aims to connect a 100 megawatt energy storage system to the grid.
  • A cold snap seized Texas in February this year, stranding millions of residents without power or water for days on end. The Texas grid is isolated from the rest of the U.S., so transmission of power from other states was not available to relieve those stuck in the cold.

Tesla Cybertruck Tesla files to become an electricity provider in Texas 102654592-RTX1B270

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk reveals a Tesla Energy battery for businesses and utility companies during an event in Hawthorne, Calif., April 30, 2015.
Patrick T. Fallon | Reuters

Tesla wants to sell electricity directly to customers in Texas, according to an application filed by the company this month with the Public Utility Commission there.

The application follows the start of a big battery build out by Tesla in Angleton, Texas (near Houston), where it aims to connect a 100 megawatt energy storage system to the grid. Texas Monthly first reported on the application, submitted by a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesla called Tesla Energy Ventures.




Tesla has also built several utility-scale energy storage systems around the world, including one east of Los Angeles, another underway in Monterey, California, and two in Australia -- one in Geelong, Victoria, and another in Adelaide, South Australia.

However, Tesla hasn’t functioned as the retail electricity provider where it sets up these systems. Instead, big batteries built by Tesla tend to help other companies in energy generation, storage and consumption.

A cold snap seized Texas in February this year, stranding millions of residents without power or water for days on end.

Some officials initially blamed the intermittent nature of renewable energy, even though the state largely runs on fossil fuels.

It later emerged that state lawmakers and regulators, including the Public Utilities Commission and the Texas Railroad Commission (which is supposed to regulate the oil and gas industry) had ignored, or softened requirements to fix and prevent more vulnerabilities in the Texas electric grid. After prior blackouts, experts had called for efforts like weatherproofing facilities and turbines used to generate power with proper insulation and heaters.


The Texas grid is isolated from the rest of the U.S., so transmission of power from other states was not available to relieve those stuck in the cold. Instead, the Texas grid is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, a nonprofit group that essentially schedules the flow of electricity to more than 25 million households in Texas.
During the blackout crisis in Texas, Tesla CEO Elon Musk needled ERCOT on Twitter, writing that the group was “not earning that R.”



Musk’s name was not directly listed on the Tesla Energy Ventures application. At the helm of that subsidiary, in the role of President, is Ana Stewart, Tesla’s director of regulatory credit trading.
As CNBC has previously reported, Musk’s electric car and solar panel company has been able to fatten its margins with sales of green credits through the years. For instance, in the second quarter of 2020, regulatory credit sales were greater than the company’s free cash flow and amounted to more than four times Tesla’s $104 million of net profit for the quarter.

Businesses who need them -- typically including automakers, oil and gas providers, and retail energy providers -- buy environmental regulatory credits to comply with regulations that limit the amount of greenhouse gases they are allowed to emit each year.

According to her resume, which was part of the application, Stewart has helped Tesla net over $3.8 billion from regulatory credits since 2017.

Should it gain approval as a retail electric provider in Texas, Tesla Energy Ventures will use employees from Tesla’s energy division -- the same one that sells solar rooftops -- to drum up sales and provide customer service in the state. Tesla’s application also notes that it will work with Engie Energy Marketing on scheduling.




SOURCE: CNBC
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Elon Musk Wants to Sell Texans Electricity
Tesla has filed to become a Texas power retailer in a move that could shake up an already fast-changing market.

By Russell Gold
August 26, 2021

Tesla Cybertruck Tesla files to become an electricity provider in Texas mpress&crop=faces&fit=fit&fm=jpg&h=0&ixlib=php-1.2

Illustration by Texas Monthly; Musk: Win McNamee/Getty; Lightbulb: Getty

Elon Musk is about to become a Texas power broker—literally.

The idiosyncratic serial entrepreneur who reinvented rocketry and juiced up the electric-car business has established a new subsidiary of Tesla, called Tesla Energy Ventures, that filed in mid-August with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to sell electricity on the retail market.

Details of the move are scant, and Tesla isn’t talking, but if the filing is approved this November, people involved with the state’s power market say that the new Tesla Energy Ventures could stand out in a crowded, deregulated retail market where 120 other companies are already hawking kilowatts.


Tesla, which markets itself as a premium brand, isn’t expected to be among the bargain-basement retailers fighting to sign up customers by running interstate billboards offering free power on nights and weekends. Tesla could sell kilowatts that are either drawn from the grid—when it is working—or pulled from Tesla-made home batteries when the grid goes down. Importantly, Tesla could also let individual Texans with solar panels earn money by sharing their excess power with the grid. That’s something that, today, only large commercial customers can do easily.

Tesla also told the state’s grid operator that it wants to build two giant utility-scale batteries that will serve wholesale power companies in the state. A 250-megawatt battery would be located near its under-construction Gigafactory outside Austin, where it plans to build Cybertrucks and Model Y SUVs. Another massive battery would be located outside Houston, according to Bloomberg.

All of this would be a significant expansion of Musk’s growing ambitions in Texas, to which he recently moved after abandoning California. Although Tesla didn’t respond to requests to talk about its new business, one executive affiliated with Tesla Energy Ventures told me to try tweeting at chief executive Elon Musk for comment. Musk, who has more than 59 million followers, didn’t immediately respond.

People aware of Tesla’s strategy tell me the company had hoped to enter the state’s deregulated power market earlier. Then came the widespread blackouts due to February’s winter storms, which ripped through the power markets like an EF5 tornado, leaving over a hundred dead and the state on the hook for more than $10 billion in costs that providers such as Brazos Electric Power Cooperative couldn’t pay.

Five electric retailers have exited the market since February, including train wrecks like Griddy, as well as others forced to purchase electricity on the spot market for $9,000 per megawatt hour and then sell it to customers who’d locked in prices below $50. Even as state regulators mull a market redesign to clean up that mess, companies like Tesla see opportunities. Thirteen different companies have submitted applications to sell power in Texas since the blackouts, according to a tally given to me by a Public Utility Commission analyst.

Tesla said in the filing it made with the PUC that it plans to drum up business among existing Tesla customers, targeting them through its mobile app and website. The company, with its all-electric branding, does seem well positioned to tap into a loyal customer base that’s interested in moving past fossil fuels. On top of that, plenty of Texans already seem to be the kind of electricity buyers and sellers that Tesla’s new energy venture could serve. As of June, Texans had installed more than 1 gigawatt of personal solar panels, according to federal energy data. That trails only Arizona and California. (By comparison, the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station’s two nuclear reactors can each generate 1.28 gigawatts of power.) With all those new solar panels and Tesla’s Powerwall batteries being controlled by Tesla-managed algorithms, Texas homes could conceivably use Tesla to become their own power plants operating on an interconnected grid.

That could fatten the bottom line for Musk’s company, and would be in keeping with where he expects Tesla to go. In 2020, Musk told investors that he believed Tesla’s energy business could one day rival its electric-vehicle manufacturing operations. “I think long-term Tesla Energy will be roughly the same size as Tesla Automotive,” he said.

For Musk, the benefits of Tesla’s foray into the Texas power market may also be personal. He could have the chance to drive a vehicle made in Texas by one of his companies and fill it with electricity sold by another of his companies, as he motors through Boca Chica—sorry, Starbase—to watch rockets made by one of his companies take off. At this rate, Tesla might want to rename itself Texla.

Still, while Tesla could be a welcome addition to the state’s troubled power grid, Musk has promised plenty of things he’s yet to deliver on. (When’s that hyperloop coming?)

But anyone who can launch a sports car into space because of, well, reasons, seems like a pretty good fit for the wild west of deregulated power markets. So, welcome to Texas, Elon. Stay a while. Something interesting is bound to happen before long.

SOURCE: TexasMonthly
 
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Elon, you super-genius......Another "game changer" for Tesla.

I wonder what Cathie Wood @Ark Invest will value TSLA now? $10,000.00?? ? (y)
 

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Elon Musk Wants to Sell Texans Electricity
Tesla has filed to become a Texas power retailer in a move that could shake up an already fast-changing market.

By Russell Gold
August 26, 2021

mpress&crop=faces&fit=fit&fm=jpg&h=0&ixlib=php-1.2.jpg

Illustration by Texas Monthly; Musk: Win McNamee/Getty; Lightbulb: Getty

Elon Musk is about to become a Texas power broker—literally.

The idiosyncratic serial entrepreneur who reinvented rocketry and juiced up the electric-car business has established a new subsidiary of Tesla, called Tesla Energy Ventures, that filed in mid-August with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to sell electricity on the retail market.

Details of the move are scant, and Tesla isn’t talking, but if the filing is approved this November, people involved with the state’s power market say that the new Tesla Energy Ventures could stand out in a crowded, deregulated retail market where 120 other companies are already hawking kilowatts.


Tesla, which markets itself as a premium brand, isn’t expected to be among the bargain-basement retailers fighting to sign up customers by running interstate billboards offering free power on nights and weekends. Tesla could sell kilowatts that are either drawn from the grid—when it is working—or pulled from Tesla-made home batteries when the grid goes down. Importantly, Tesla could also let individual Texans with solar panels earn money by sharing their excess power with the grid. That’s something that, today, only large commercial customers can do easily.

Tesla also told the state’s grid operator that it wants to build two giant utility-scale batteries that will serve wholesale power companies in the state. A 250-megawatt battery would be located near its under-construction Gigafactory outside Austin, where it plans to build Cybertrucks and Model Y SUVs. Another massive battery would be located outside Houston, according to Bloomberg.

All of this would be a significant expansion of Musk’s growing ambitions in Texas, to which he recently moved after abandoning California. Although Tesla didn’t respond to requests to talk about its new business, one executive affiliated with Tesla Energy Ventures told me to try tweeting at chief executive Elon Musk for comment. Musk, who has more than 59 million followers, didn’t immediately respond.

People aware of Tesla’s strategy tell me the company had hoped to enter the state’s deregulated power market earlier. Then came the widespread blackouts due to February’s winter storms, which ripped through the power markets like an EF5 tornado, leaving over a hundred dead and the state on the hook for more than $10 billion in costs that providers such as Brazos Electric Power Cooperative couldn’t pay.

Five electric retailers have exited the market since February, including train wrecks like Griddy, as well as others forced to purchase electricity on the spot market for $9,000 per megawatt hour and then sell it to customers who’d locked in prices below $50. Even as state regulators mull a market redesign to clean up that mess, companies like Tesla see opportunities. Thirteen different companies have submitted applications to sell power in Texas since the blackouts, according to a tally given to me by a Public Utility Commission analyst.

Tesla said in the filing it made with the PUC that it plans to drum up business among existing Tesla customers, targeting them through its mobile app and website. The company, with its all-electric branding, does seem well positioned to tap into a loyal customer base that’s interested in moving past fossil fuels. On top of that, plenty of Texans already seem to be the kind of electricity buyers and sellers that Tesla’s new energy venture could serve. As of June, Texans had installed more than 1 gigawatt of personal solar panels, according to federal energy data. That trails only Arizona and California. (By comparison, the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station’s two nuclear reactors can each generate 1.28 gigawatts of power.) With all those new solar panels and Tesla’s Powerwall batteries being controlled by Tesla-managed algorithms, Texas homes could conceivably use Tesla to become their own power plants operating on an interconnected grid.

That could fatten the bottom line for Musk’s company, and would be in keeping with where he expects Tesla to go. In 2020, Musk told investors that he believed Tesla’s energy business could one day rival its electric-vehicle manufacturing operations. “I think long-term Tesla Energy will be roughly the same size as Tesla Automotive,” he said.

For Musk, the benefits of Tesla’s foray into the Texas power market may also be personal. He could have the chance to drive a vehicle made in Texas by one of his companies and fill it with electricity sold by another of his companies, as he motors through Boca Chica—sorry, Starbase—to watch rockets made by one of his companies take off. At this rate, Tesla might want to rename itself Texla.

Still, while Tesla could be a welcome addition to the state’s troubled power grid, Musk has promised plenty of things he’s yet to deliver on. (When’s that hyperloop coming?)

But anyone who can launch a sports car into space because of, well, reasons, seems like a pretty good fit for the wild west of deregulated power markets. So, welcome to Texas, Elon. Stay a while. Something interesting is bound to happen before long.

SOURCE: TexasMonthly
Well, I knew Lora Kolodny couldn't write an entire article about Musk or Tesla without taking an irrational dig and I was right. She had to go all the way back to Q2 2020 to pull out a juicy regulatory credit sales number and make it sound like Tesla was unfairly working the system (in fact, regulatory credits are traded between companies for market value). There's nothing unsavory about it. If anything, she should be chiding Ford and GM for buying them instead of just making their fleet clean enough to not need additional credits.

Then, I thought the Texas Monthly article by Russel Gold was going to make it to the end with no unfair digs. But I was wrong. Promising things he's failed to deliver on like Hyperloop?

Please, Elon never promised anyone Hyperloop. He wrote a whitepaper saying he thought it was feasible and then put the concept out for anyone to develop further without royalties or ownership of the concept. He said he didn't have time to do it himself. But now this journalist, who hasn't accomplished even 1% of what Elon Musk has accomplished, is acting like Musk has let us down by not delivering a fully functional hyperloop at his own expense?

Wow! The stupidity and sense of entitlement is just unreal! Who are these people who call themselves journalists?
 
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Well, I knew Lora Kolodny couldn't write an entire article about Musk or Tesla without taking an irrational dig and I was right. She had to go all the way back to Q2 2020 to pull out a juicy regulatory credit sales number and make it sound like Tesla was unfairly working the system (in fact, regulatory credits are traded between companies for market value). There's nothing unsavory about it. If anything, she should be chiding Ford and GM for buying them instead of just making their fleet clean enough to not need additional credits.
You seem a bit thin-skinned here, as if Lora attacked you personally, haha!

"She had to go all the way back to Q2 2020" Q2 2020 wasn't that long ago. Geez.

I didn't see it as an "irrational dig" pointing out that CNBC had previously reported on sales of green credits.


Then, I thought the Texas Monthly article by Russel Gold
Texas Monthly is a liberal rag that I quit reading a long time ago, back when paper magazines were still a thing anyway. I think I did come across an article that I liked once!

What I did find interesting in the TM article was about the 250-megwatt battery to be located near Giga Austin.

Joe Tegtmeyer will probably be reporting about it in his next video.
 
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You consider a report "a complaint"?
It's not 'a report' when it's cherry-picking a quarter from six quarters ago. And it's a fallacy to even bring them up, since the company could have sold their products at a higher price.

Reports should show the most up to date context. That's neither up to date nor context.

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It's not 'a report' when it's cherry-picking a quarter from six quarters ago.
Yes it is a news report just like CNBC does. Why does it give you such a red ass? I don't understand...... That one item out of the whole article, and it was factual, gives you the red ass.....

I could understand if it was false but it wasn't.

And it's a fallacy to even bring them up, since the company could have sold their products at a higher price.
But they didn't.
Reports should show the most up to date context
Ok, that is your criteria. And how many news reports fit your criteria?

I don't find anything wrong with the CNBC article, but it's my opinion. Now the Texas Monthly article has issues but hey, it's TM!
 


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Future is Near
No home will ever be connected to the grid.
What thats Crazy
Look
BEV can and will power any home for 4-5 days. This is TVs Frige AC heat Hot water Internet lights camera action everything an entire home can be powered by 1 BEV for 4-5 days.
Next
Free BEV Charging
Work provides free BEV charging
Shopping provides free BEV charging
Dinner & Movie provides free BEV charging
Malls provide free BEV charging
Down town Dallas Fort Worth all free BEV charging
Las Vegas gaming shopping a meal and a show. Yes they will even change their name from Las Vegas to Las Vexgas or Las Nogas
Free Free Free all for shop eat play work here and our perk is we will provide you with free BEV charging.
Why?
Today and in the future no one can afford expensive solar roof tiles (my home $180,000). Things will not get better they will get worse and expendable money has or will dry up.
but
We all still need cars. ICE will be out lawed. BEV is the only car you can buy and we still need BEVs and maybe two or 3 BEVs per family home.
With a BEV acting like 5-6 power walls that would make $8.5 Billion Solar City worthless.
Today
BEV plug in where you can completely cut your electric power utility use with a car that we all have to own is a winner.
But in the short run today BEV plug in can be used by the eclectic power utilities for battery back up and to smooth out power need surges (battery electric storage acts like capacitors). That is why Tesla needs to apply and to act as a electric power company. It is a buy low sell high game today near future when America is 100% BEV probably not as much.
 
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Elon better not tap into Texas state grid where designers forgot that it needs sweater, err, insulation if it gets too cold.:eek:
 

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You seem a bit thin-skinned here, as if Lora attacked you personally, haha!

"She had to go all the way back to Q2 2020" Q2 2020 wasn't that long ago. Geez.

I didn't see it as an "irrational dig" pointing out that CNBC had previously reported on sales of green credits.
You completely missed the point here.

A journalist is supposed to provide the reader with a greater understanding of the story and do it in an unbiased way. The story was about Tesla becoming an energy provider in Texas. If she wants to give the reader a better understanding of how regulatory credits impact Tesla's auto business she would have provided the numbers for the entire last year because she knows (and Tesla has emphasized) that regulatory credit sales are very unpredictable and "lumpy" from quarter to quarter. Instead of either using the most recent quarter or averaging four quarters together, she cherry-picked the quarter from over a year ago that made Tesla's auto business seem most dependent upon regulatory credits. The truth of the matter is that regulatory credits are legitimate earned revenues but they are a drop in the bucket and will continue to decline as other automakers become less dependent upon them. However, Lora Kolodny has numerous articles on Tesla trying to make Tesla's business seem heavily dependent upon the credits. And this was another example of this that didn't belong in a story on Tesla entering the Texas energy market.

A journalist isn't supposed to create the news, they are supposed to report the news. If this explanation doesn't help you understand how this is terrible reporting, not due to incompetence but, due to willfully cherry-picking a number to tell her own story then I can't help you.
 

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Yes it is a news report just like CNBC does. Why does it give you such a red ass? I don't understand...... That one item out of the whole article, and it was factual, gives you the red ass.....

I could understand if it was false but it wasn't.
It doesn't have to be false to be purposefully misleading. All of Tesla's quarterly reports are equally easy to access, and this goes for their annual reports too. You don't cherry-pick a quarterly report from over a year ago if you are trying to be an unbiased reporter.

It's apparent to me that you are unfamiliar with Lora Kolodny's reporting over the last several years. It's laughable. She is one of the biggest jokes of the body of people that call themselves news reporters. And that's saying a lot when the average news reporter is not exactly a shining star.
 
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You completely missed the point here.
I don't think so.


A journalist is supposed to provide the reader with a greater understanding of the story and do it in an unbiased way.
Thats why I don't watch/read CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and other MSM. And yes even CNBC is biased most of the time.


It's pretty rare to find unbiased journalism. Why? Because humans.


However, Lora Kolodny has numerous articles on Tesla trying to make Tesla's business seem heavily dependent upon the credits.
Really?


A journalist isn't supposed to create the news, they are supposed to report the news.
True, but again it's kinda rare.


If this explanation doesn't help you understand how this is terrible reporting, not due to incompetence but, due to willfully cherry-picking a number to tell her own story then I can't help you.

LK didn't make anything up or "create it" in this article. She reported it and it irks you that she did.
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