Texas solar buyback plans (no statewide net metering)

No statewide net metering mandate

Texas has no single statewide net metering tariff, as this record states. In customer choice areas, Section 39.916 of the Texas Utilities Code states that a distributed renewable generation owner must sell surplus electricity to the retail electric provider serving the owner's load, at a value agreed between owner and provider. No statewide rate, rollover rule or payout rate is set in that provision.

The older PUCT rule is far narrower. As summarized in the DSIRE record reproduced by OpenEI, Substantive Rule 25.242(h) applies to integrated investor-owned utilities that have not unbundled, for qualifying facilities of 100 kW or less using non-renewable resources and 50 kW or less using renewable resources, and less than 25 percent of Texas was served by such utilities after deregulation. Municipal utilities, river authorities and cooperatives sit outside it.

Buyback mechanics are contract mechanics

Section 39.916 names two pricing forms for a retail plan. The agreed value may be based on the clearing price of energy at the time of day the electricity is made available to the grid, which floats with the wholesale market, or it may be a credit applied to an account during a billing period, at the rate the plan documents print.

Rollover follows the same logic. The Code states that an account credit may be carried over to subsequent billing periods until redeemed. It sets no Texas calendar-year true-up, statewide monthly credit cap or cash payout rate, so any cap, expiration or term-end payout in a buyback plan comes from its Electricity Facts Label and contract. The category itself is capped: distributed renewable generation means not more than 2,000 kilowatts on the customer's side of the meter, and interconnection must be allowed where rated capacity does not exceed service capacity.

Austin Energy: value of solar, not net metering

Austin Energy, a municipal utility, designs its credit in the opposite way. Per its Value of Solar page, it meters all production and credits 100 percent of it, while charging for all consumption, from the system or the grid. Effective October 1, 2026, it lists 12.89 cents per kilowatt-hour for systems under 1 MW-AC and 10.22 cents for systems of 1 MW-AC and over.

The credit applies only to electric charges, excess credit carries over month to month and is non-transferable, per Austin Energy. Its FAQ adds that credits do not expire, have no cash value, and end if the account closes, and that the rate is recalculated every three years as the average of the previous five years' assessments. Systems at or above 1 MW-AC receive no transmission component.

Municipal and cooperative exceptions, and the verification list

Other municipal utilities and cooperatives set their own interconnection and buyback offers, so no Texas address can be priced from a state average. In choice areas the delivery utility still controls metering: Section 39.916 requires metering measuring inflow and outflow at the point of common coupling, consistent with ERCOT settlement requirements, and DSIRE notes ERCOT manages 90 percent of the state's electric load. Verify in writing the buyer, the rate or clearing-price basis, any cap or expiration on banked credits, and treatment at renewal or closure. In Austin, verify the Value of Solar rate in effect at interconnection instead.