Austin-based Tesla appears set to break into Texas retail electricity market

Austin-based Tesla appears to be ready to break into the Texas retail electricity market.

While Tesla has yet to make a formal announcemmtnt, it has posted a job opening describing an "emerging electricity retail business" that it plans to launch in Texas. The post was first reported on by Electrek, a news and commentary site focused on electric vehicles.

Tesla posting calls for a "product operations manager" and says the role will "support the launch and growth of a new electricity retailer in the Texas market." The posting says the product operations manager will be responsible for managing retail electricity products, administering the customer portfolio, coordinating customer support and tracking financial performance.  

Tesla's job description suggests the company is looking to explore a number of options for retail electricity products including traditional approaches and distributed energy sources including solar, storage, electric vehicles and other products.

Details on Tesla's energy business have been scarce, but the company previously took steps with the state of Texas to register as a retail provider. Last year, Tesla created a new business unit and filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to sell electricity on the retail market. The utility commission approved Tesla Energy Ventures in November and the state's list of retailers includes both both Tesla Energy Ventures and Tesla.

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Tesla Energy Ventures' application described it as a subsidiary of Tesla Energy Operations, which is a subsidiary of Austin-based Tesla Inc. Tesla Energy Operations makes photovoltaic solar energy generation systems, battery energy storage products and other solar energy products for residential, industrial and commercial use. 

The filing with the state said Tesla plans to first target existing Tesla customers who use products such as Tesla solar and Tesla automobbiles to market the electric retail offerings through its mobile app and website.

The filing said Tesla aims to build two utility-scale batteries capable of serving wholesale power companies in the state. This would include a 250-megawatt battery near Tesla's Austin-area factory and another battery near Houston.

If the company does become a widespread retail electricity provider in Texas, it won't be able to operate in much of the Austin area, as Texas law stipulates that regions with electricity co-ops or municpally owned utilites did not have to deregulate their retail energy market. With Austin Energy, Pedernales Electric Cooperative and Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative the dominant providers in Central Texas, only a small part of the region has access to the retail electricity market.

Tesla's new venture could potentially add more power supply for the Texas grid at a time when worries about power reliability remain top of mind for many people in the state.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the power grid that the vast majority of Texas relies on, has been the center of controversy since February 2021, when there were prolonged blackouts for days during a severe winter freeze, during which hundreds of people died and there were billions of dollars in property damage. A handful of retail providers have gone bankrupt for left the Texas market ollowing the freeze. ERCOT has also continued to face scrutinity in recent months after it called for conservation on hot days in amid tight grid conditions.

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Tesla has already made its presence felt on high energy usage days this summer, sending out notifications urging its customers to only charge their electric vehicles in non-peak hours to ease the strain on the state's power grid. grid.

Tesla is already making several clean energy products including solar panels, and home and commercial battery systems as part of its energy and storage business. Musk recently said the company planned grow its clean energy business in 2022 and expand the production and deployment of its products.

In Austin, the company is also already helping power a neighborhood through a project called SunHouse at Easton Park, a partnership between Tesla, Brookfield Assett Management and real estate developer Dacra. Last year the companies announced the project, saying it would be the first Tesla solar neighborhood, with each house in the development built with solar-powered roof tiles and battery storage walls.