Buying a home with active Tesla PPA
My wife and I are in the process of buying a house that has panels installed. I've recently learned the panels are actually in the form of a PPA. Of course they're trying to transfer the agreement over to us (another 18 years give or take). The owner claims the agreement has reduced overall bills from 400-600 to 200-400 a month, which sounds great on paper, however I can't account for those savings.
I've got access to bills prior to the installation and afterward and I'm looking at the rates and it seems like the PPA rate is almost identical to the power company rate. The most recent total rate I could find via the power company website (Recent bills seem to lack any rate values outside generation so I can't compare accurately) saved a whole $11 a year at 6000 kWh consumed. What I'm trying to find is the disconnect. If the generation + tax + distribution rates combined is what I should be comparing, or if there is something I'm missing that's making the real change.
At the moment it seems to me the current owners got roped into paying a solar company for power, often in excess of what they used, then had it sold back to them later from the utility at a lower rate. Further issue I have with it is the up to 2.9% annual increase on solar. So far the Tesla person hasn't provided me with ANY information outside just "look at bills" as though having a utility bill with only a customer charge matters when the electric portion is just paid to Tesla instead. I would've thought that hard numbers would've been the type of thing available for these kinds of sales but I can't seem to get anything useful from them at all. I can't get them to acknowledge that in the bill they showed me prior to the panels the difference for an 1800 kwh month would've been roughly $20 between the utility and their service.
It's my understanding that Tesla gets all the benefits from panels in a PPA so the only benefit we'd be getting is the lower power rate, and from what I can see, it's hardly a benefit and stands an extremely good chance of becoming a malus in coming years.
Am I missing something?
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