Coming from a background of working at NASA and experiencing weather delays for launches, you’d think I’d have a Zen-like attitude towards such things, but I don’t.

In what can only be described as still suffering the domino effects of 2021’s Winter Storm Event, the Tesla Solar install scheduled for this Friday – 2/4/2022 – has been delayed. Why? Because of another Winter Storm Event.

I started this process with Tesla back in August 2021, only to learn that the soonest they could do the coordination with the Austin Energy utility was February 2022. Apparently AE has been slammed with solar and backup generator installs since the 2021 snow storm, and as of today, they are scheduling new customers as far out as 6 months.

When this week’s weather was shaping up to be a shitter, I bitterly succumbed to reality on Tuesday and called Tesla about rescheduling the Friday installation. But Tesla pushed to keep the scheduled install for 2/4, precisely because of the huge utility backup. Their reasoning was that even if the weather wouldn’t allow them to install the panels on the roof, they could still get the Tesla-to-Utility Meter hookup done – a process that took all of ~45 minutes – and then the utility scheduling was no longer an issue and we could reschedule the rest of the install within a couple of weeks. While I wasn’t thrilled about the power being shut off on a day where the high is supposed to be 34*F, it was going to be off for only a short amount of time. Okay, Tesla and I decided to stick with Feb 4th.

Today, Wednesday, Tesla just called me and said that Austin Energy cancelled their part for this Friday.

Tesla said they have me scheduled now for March 14th, but also said it remains to be seen if that is when Austin Energy can meet that schedule. I expressed concern that it would be a six month delay, to which the Tesla representative replied that since this was a utility request for reschedule, they should accommodate a faster schedule.

We shall see.

To be honest, I feel relieved that this isn’t happening this Friday. Not just for me, but for those installers involved. It’s not looking pretty for Texas this week.