In this interview, I’m Mike Triem, is joined by our solar and home battery backup expert, Alan Davis, to break down what’s changing in Colorado’s energy landscape — and why solar still makes sense for many homeowners.
Alan explains how Xcel Energy’s time-of-use rates (especially the higher 5–9 p.m. window) are pushing more families to look at alternatives, including a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that can stabilize monthly energy costs with a modest, predictable annual increase. He also walks through how adding a home battery can protect against multi-day outages, improve resale value, and provide peace of mind during Colorado’s
00:00:00 Introduction with Mike Trim and Alan Davis
Well, hey, it’s Mike Trim with Crawford Media Group. We’re joined again today by our solar and battery backup expert, Alan Davis. And Alan, there are opportunities still for solar energy to help our houses, solar panels, and also home battery backups. Tell us about both.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, yes, Mike. Thank you for having me today. I just appreciate you so much. So, uh, very excited to, to share, uh, the power purchase agreement today. That’s what it’s called. And most people don’t know that they have a choice of where they get the power. Now, uh, if, if, if you have Excel energy, you look up Excel energy and look at their ratings on the internet, uh, you’re going to find out that you, the, uh, the power that they deliver is just, uh, it’s not reliable. Uh, it’s not clean. And, uh, It certainly, you know, is the most expensive power. So to summarize right now, what people are paying in Colorado is they pay the regular price, which is around about 13 to 15 cents per kilowatt during the regular hours. But from 5 to 9 p.m., they pay triple that rate, almost exactly triple that rate. And that’s the, it’s also called the smart meter or the time of use. And that’s why that got installed in people’s houses. So what can you as a homeowner do? The first thing is you can look at a power purchase agreement. So let’s just say your power bill is $200 a month and you know that’s going to increase by 5% to 7% or even higher from Xcel Energy or your power company. You can switch over to just getting your power from the roof, from sunlight, and that’s going to be around $195 a month. But That has a locked-in increase of only 2.99% a year. So over time, you know exactly what your power bill is going to be. So that’s the first step. It’s called the power purchase agreement. And if you just want to get power from a different source, that’s what you can do. Now, if you’ve had power outages at your house, and we have had many power outages where I live. I live in the Applewood area, but so is Evergreen, so is Boulder. You know, so it’s Genesee, Lookout Mountain. And if you want to make a plan for that, as a matter of fact, we just recently had a six-day power outage, you can add a battery in to that and get the battery, okay? So the battery, the way it works is you just add it to the power purchase agreement. And I wanted to use that in the same example. If you add a battery now instead of your power bill being $200 a month, okay, You’ve substantially upgraded your house. Houses that have solar and a battery sell for much higher, and they sell faster. You can look it up on Realtor.com and Zillow.com. Or you can just include it in the power purchase agreement. Now, if you pay for it yourself, you get a rebate check if you have Xcel Energy for $5,000, and that’s how it works. But if you choose not to pay for it, your new bill would be around $330 a month. with the battery included, and now you have backup power, you substantially increase the value of your home, and you basically now are covered for anything. Now, here’s the really good news. If you decide to get an electric vehicle, and this is where most of the listeners in this show that don’t seem to know this, okay? If you get an electric vehicle, you now do not have to pay for maintenance in your car because electric vehicles basically have no maintenance, okay? You don’t have that oil change, you know, that fee that you get where you change your air filter and all that. All that, you know, is not included with electric vehicles. And then, of course, you never have to stop at the gas station and you never have to get gasoline. So we can do that at the same time, meaning we can add six or seven, eight solar panels and cover the price of your gasoline by you getting it from your roof. And it’s just exciting. It’s a very exciting thing. You know, a time that we live in, you know, it’s a time where, you know, there’s a lot of opportunity. And this, you know, is truly amazing.
SPEAKER 02 :
So it’s like a lot has shifted. And that’s what you’re saying is the opportunity with solar still there. It’s just changed a little bit. And the fact that we have EVs means you got to think about how much you’re paying for power through Excel for your car.
SPEAKER 01 :
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That’s right. And so, you know, and everybody’s at a different stage of their journey. Some people, you know, have done nothing. So their power bill increases 5% to 10%, 5% to 7% every year. And, you know, that’s the lowest level. Now, some people have solar, but now they’re not protected for a power outage because they don’t have a backup power. They don’t have a battery. And then some people have both. They have solar and backup power. And then they’re able to add, you know, a new system if they’re going to get a hot tub or an electric vehicle. And they’re actually able then, you know, not only to increase the value of their house, but have free gasoline and never have to stop at a, you know, basically a service station ever again. Every time I drive by one, I just smile, you know. So anyway, so that’s how it works. And, you know, if you want to get in touch with me, my phone number is 303-378. You can send me an email at davis.omnipower.solar. And I’ve just got a few questions for you, and then I can tell you how many batteries you need, and I can tell you this for your house. Now, the one caveat is that your house has to have good sunlight. So if you don’t have good sunlight to your roof, or if you have a roof that won’t last for at least 10 years, then that’s a problem. You know, we have to, we may not be able to do it, but pretty much everybody else can. To qualify for the power purchase agreement, you have to have at least a 625 FICO score. And that’s, you know, most of the KRKS listeners, that’s us. I mean, KLT listeners, that’s a, you know, that’s a given, you know, for them. They pay their bills and they’re financially responsible. So anyway, Uh, that’s how it works. Um, the other day, I want to give a case example. A man was about to sell his house. He’s, he’s going to sell his house in probably three to five years. Uh, he’s in his eighties and, um, he had some roof damage, that sort of thing. And what we’re able to do, we’re able to fix his roof, uh, uh, install solar and backup power. And now his house is going to sell for about, uh, 6% more than it was, um, with that and it’ll probably sell faster too. You know, the homes are starting to sell again here in Colorado, but now when the house comes up for sale, he won’t have to do all of those maintenance items. Those things will just all be taken care of. You know, they won’t come out as inspection items because we replaced his main panel. He had the very old Edison panel, you know, which probably the worst electrical wiring you can have in your house. We replaced that, we replaced this roof. And then when the roof was finished, we then put the solar and the backup power in his house. So now in the next five years, during the time he lives in the house, if he has a power outage, he’s taken care of. And he knows exactly how much power he has too. So when the power goes off in his house, he knows that he’s got, like in his case, it’s about 12 hours of power And then within 12 hours, if we get four hours of sunlight, which means the solar panels will charge up the battery, or we get the grid to come back on, then his battery is charged back up again and he’s ready to go again. But it’s just a wonderful time, Mike, because, you know, all these things are happening and all these things are, you know, they’re truly, you know, truly a… You know, a great time to be, you know, to look at your situation and see if, you know, benefit from any of these upgrades to your house. And it’s just like, you know, a kitchen. When you put a kitchen in your house or you put an open space floor plan or whatever, you know, you’re able to, you know, really increase the value of your house and make your house a much more desirable asset for the people who are looking at it. And, you know, if we do get a couple of rate cuts and people start, you know, trying to upgrade their home and everything, you know, your home is going to be a lot more valuable and you’re going to be able to, you know, you really benefit from that. So, you know, it’s just an exciting time. And this is called the power purchase agreement. It takes no money up front. You pay nothing. Your power bill is zero after You sign up for this, except for the connection fee to the grid, which is hot for Xcel Energy. It’s about $9 a month. They have a connection fee that you still would pay. But anyway, that’s how it works. And you get the $5,000 rebate check in the mail from Xcel Energy. Because what are you doing? You’re upgrading their infrastructure at the same time that you do this. So this is money that Xcel knows. They’re not going to have to spend, so they’re going to give you some of that money back that you pay for your battery. That’s good.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s really good. We’re speaking with Alan Davis. Alan’s our solar and battery, home battery backup expert. And, Alan, you told me before opportunities for our power to go out, those are increasing. Tell us about why real quick before we close up.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, so in Colorado, we really only had power outages due to the weather. And very often that’s the wind. So the history on that, if you look at the history on those power outages, you know, what you’ll see is that, you know, basically a wind came up, the wind knocked over trees, the power lines, power went out. Two years ago, it was for about four days in some areas. And then just recently, about a month ago, it was for six days. And that for some people can be life changing. You know, if you’re lucky, the best thing that can happen is that, you know, you lose what’s in your refrigerator and your freezer. But, you know, the worst thing is that, you know, your family can be in danger or you not be able to work or whatever those things, you know, look like. But it’s hard to live life with no power. And we want our family to be safe, warm and dry. So just by adding one of these batteries, which you can, easily do, you can protect your family. So what are other things that cause power outages? Which was to your point, Mike, we have solar flares, terrorist attacks, we have fires, haven’t really had as many fires as they’ve had like in California, but all those things can cause major power outages. caused them for a long time. But right now in Colorado, we’ve just been having power outages due to the weather and the wind. Now, Xcel Energy has said, look, if there is a power outage, we will not turn back on the grid until we’re sure that we will not cause a fire. And the reason was, is they had a lawsuit against them and they lost that lawsuit. And that’s what happened. But anyway, so if you want to protect your family, get backup power, you want your power bill to be lower, you know, I’d just love to help them. My name’s Alan Davis. My phone number is 303-378-7537. Or you can email me, davis at omnipower.solar.
SPEAKER 02 :
Great. It’s not often we get to talk to you and you get to do a workout at the same time. So it’s such a blessing to work with you. You’ve helped dozens and dozens of our listeners. So again, Alan Davis, Alan, give them the contact info one more time.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, 303-378-7537 or davis at omnipower.solar. Okay, Alan, thanks for joining us.
