Texas Solar Buyback Plans: How They Work and How to Compare

If you have solar panels on your home in Texas — or you’re considering installing them — understanding solar buyback plans is essential to maximizing your investment. Unlike most states, Texas doesn’t have a uniform state-level net metering policy. Instead, your ability to get paid for excess solar energy depends entirely on which retail electric provider (REP) you choose for your electricity service, and which specific plan you sign up for.

The Texas market is complex, with dozens of REPs offering wildly different solar buyback structures. Some pay generously for your excess solar production. Others pay a fraction of retail rates. A few don’t compensate you at all. Choosing the right plan can make a difference of hundreds — or thousands — of dollars per year in your effective electric bill savings.

This guide walks through how Texas solar buyback works, which REPs offer plans worth considering, how to evaluate them, and how to choose the right one for your specific situation. Have questions about solar or which buyback plan would work best for your home? Contact us for a free consultation.

How Solar Buyback Works in Texas (Quick Overview)

When your solar panel system generates more electricity than your home is using at that moment, the excess energy flows back to the electric grid. In states with traditional net metering, you’d be credited at your full retail electricity rate for that exported power.

In Texas, it works differently. Because Texas has a deregulated electricity market, there’s no statewide net metering law. Instead, retail electric providers (REPs) voluntarily offer solar buyback plans — and the terms vary significantly between providers and even between different plans from the same provider.

The basic structure of any Texas solar buyback plan is:

• Your solar system feeds excess generation back to the grid (your meter is bidirectional)
• The REP credits you for that exported electricity at some rate (which varies by plan)
• The credit either reduces your monthly bill, rolls over to future months, or is paid out as cash, depending on the plan structure

The devil is in the details — and the details matter a lot.

Why Texas Is Different — The Deregulated Electricity Market

Texas restructured its electricity market in 2002. Before that, your local utility handled everything: power generation, transmission, and customer billing. After deregulation, those functions were split:

• The wires utility (TDU or TDSP) delivers electricity to your home and maintains the physical infrastructure
• The retail electric provider (REP) sells you the actual electricity and handles your bill

This split is the root of most confusion around Texas solar buyback. Your monthly electric bill comes from a REP — Reliant, Direct Energy, Green Mountain, TXU, Champion, or one of dozens of others — but the wires bringing power to your home are owned by a TDU like Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP, or TNMP.

Why this matters for solar buyback: Your REP is the one who decides whether and how to compensate you for solar exports. The TDU just operates the meter. So if you’re in Oncor’s service area and want a good solar buyback plan, you don’t ask Oncor — you shop for a REP that offers a buyback plan you like.

TDU vs REP — Why Your Wires Company Isn’t Buying Your Solar

This is one of the most common confusions Texas solar homeowners have. Let’s clear it up directly:

Oncor doesn’t sell electricity. Oncor is the wires utility for most of Dallas-Fort Worth. They own the poles and lines, they read your meter, and they handle the physical delivery of electricity to your home. They do NOT bill you for the electricity itself, and they do NOT buy back your solar generation.

Your REP sells you electricity. Whatever company sends you a monthly bill — Reliant, TXU, Direct Energy, Green Mountain, etc. — is your REP. They buy electricity on the wholesale market (or generate some of it) and sell it to you at retail rates. They’re the ones who decide what your solar exports are worth.

Oncor does offer one solar-related program: the Take A Load Off Texas incentive for solar paired with battery storage. That’s a one-time installation incentive, not a buyback plan. Learn more about the Oncor incentive program here.

If you’re served by a different TDU — CoServ, Tri-County Electric Cooperative, Grayson-Collin Electric Cooperative, or a municipal utility — the answer about buyback is different because those are vertically integrated utilities, not part of the deregulated market. Your wires company and your electricity provider are the same entity, and they set their own buyback policies.

The Main Types of Texas Solar Buyback Plans

Across all the REPs that offer solar buyback, the plans generally fall into one of these structures:

1-to-1 Net Metering (Increasingly Rare)

The gold standard: you get credited at the same per-kWh rate you pay for electricity from the grid. Send 1 kWh out, get 1 kWh of credit. A few REPs still offer this, but it’s becoming rarer as REPs shift toward less generous structures.

Fixed Credit Plans

The REP pays a fixed dollar amount per kWh you export, regardless of what they charge for electricity. The buyback rate might be 5¢, 7¢, or 9¢ per kWh, while your retail rate is something different. Predictable and easy to understand, but you may earn less per kWh than you pay.

Wholesale Rate Plans (Real-Time Wholesale)

You’re credited based on the wholesale spot price of electricity at the moment you export. Rates fluctuate by the minute — during high-demand summer afternoons, your exports can be worth a lot. During low-demand overnight hours, less. Requires comfort with variable income.

Avoided Cost Plans

The REP pays you what they would have paid to acquire that electricity elsewhere. Usually the lowest payment structure, but some REPs use this approach.

Rollover Credit Plans

Your solar exports generate kWh credits that roll over month-to-month to offset future consumption. If you generate more than you use in summer, those credits help cover winter usage. Some REPs allow unlimited rollover; others cap it or expire credits annually.

Bill Credit (Capped) Plans

You earn credits, but if your monthly credits exceed your monthly charges, the surplus is forfeited or capped. Not as generous as plans with unlimited rollover.

The plan type matters as much as the headline rate. A 7¢/kWh plan with unlimited rollover often outperforms a 10¢/kWh plan with monthly cap.

Major Texas REPs Offering Solar Buyback

The Texas REP landscape changes frequently, but as of 2026 these are the providers most consistently offering solar buyback plans worth considering. Always verify current plan details on PowerToChoose.org (the state-run comparison site) before signing up.

Chariot Energy

Solar-focused REP with strong renewable energy positioning. Their GreenVolt plan offers a fixed buyback credit and unlimited month-to-month rollover. Chariot tends to be a top choice for customers prioritizing buyback specifically.

Reliant Energy

One of the largest Texas REPs. Offers solar buyback plans (Simple Solar Sell-Back and similar). Plan structures and rates vary; some plans have monthly credit caps where surplus credits beyond monthly usage are forfeited.

Direct Energy

Major national REP active in Texas. Has historically offered solar buyback plans. Current plan availability varies — check Power To Choose for current Direct Energy solar plans in your area.

Green Mountain Energy

Renewable energy-focused REP with multiple solar buyback offerings under their Renewable Rewards program. Often has plans with both fixed credit rates and different rollover structures.

TXU Energy

Large incumbent REP. Has offered solar buyback plans in various forms over the years. TXU also offers free nights and free weekends plans that interact with solar in specific ways (more on that below).

Champion Energy

Has historically offered solar buyback. Plan availability varies by season.

Shell Energy

A more recent entrant to retail buyback offerings. Worth comparing.

Constellation, Pulse Power, Gexa Energy, and others

Several other REPs offer solar buyback plans intermittently. Many are best discovered through Power To Choose.

Important caveat: Plan availability and rates change frequently in the Texas market. A REP that offers a great plan one year may discontinue it the next. The list above represents REPs currently active in solar buyback, not a recommendation of any specific REP.

We help our customers navigate the buyback selection process as part of our installation service. We don’t sell electricity service, but we know which REPs are currently offering competitive plans for our typical customers.

Free Nights and Free Weekends Plans — The Battery Strategy

A uniquely Texas category of plans deserves its own discussion: promotional plans that offer free electricity during certain hours. Examples include:

• TXU Free Nights and Reliant Truly Free Nights — free electricity from typically 8pm or 10pm until 5am or 6am
• TXU Free Weekends and Direct Energy Free Power Weekends — free electricity from Friday or Saturday evening through Sunday or Monday morning
• 4Change Energy Cash Money Nights and similar variants

These are not solar buyback plans — they’re a different concept. You pay nothing during the free hours and a higher rate during the non-free hours. The non-free rates are typically higher than standard plans to subsidize the free hours.

How these plans work with your solar setup depends heavily on whether you have battery storage. Three scenarios:

Scenario 1: Free Nights + Solar & Battery Storage (one of the best setups we install)

This is one of the most effective configurations available to Texas homeowners. Here’s how it works:

• Your battery system charges from the grid during the free overnight hours, when grid power costs nothing
• During the day, your home runs from solar power and the battery (charged up with free power overnight) instead of buying expensive daytime grid power
• Net effect: most, if not all, of your daytime electricity costs are eliminated, because you’re powering your home with electricity you bought for $0

For this to work, your solar and battery system needs to:

• Be sized large enough to cover most of your typical daytime usage
• Support grid charging on a programmable schedule (Tesla Powerwall 3, Enphase IQ Battery, EG4, and Sol-Ark all support this)
• Be commissioned correctly to charge from grid during free hours and discharge during expensive hours

The savings can be significant. If your plan has 25¢/kWh daytime rates and you’d otherwise use 25 kWh during expensive hours, that’s roughly $6 per day in avoided costs — around $180/month — if your battery covers your full daytime usage. Pair that with solar generation reducing grid draw further, and many homes can effectively eliminate the variable portion of their electric bill.

Scenario 2: Free Nights + Battery (no solar)

You don’t actually need solar for the free-nights-charging-batteries strategy to work. Some homeowners install battery storage specifically to take advantage of free nights plans without going solar at all. The economics depend on:

• Whether your battery system has enough capacity to cover full daytime usage
• The spread between the free overnight rate and the high daytime rate on your specific plan
• Battery cost vs. the avoided daytime costs over the battery’s lifespan

This is a legitimate stand-alone strategy that’s gaining traction in Texas because it captures much of the financial benefit of solar without the solar installation itself. Worth modeling for any homeowner considering battery storage but not solar.

Scenario 3: Free Nights + Solar (no battery)

Without batteries, your solar offsets some of your high daytime grid usage but you can’t time-shift consumption to take full advantage of free hours. The math:

• Solar covers some of your daytime usage at the time it’s produced
• Any usage above solar production gets billed at the high daytime rate
• Solar exports typically aren’t compensated on a free nights plan (no buyback)
• You still get free nights for any nighttime usage

This works moderately well if your daytime usage closely matches your solar production curve and you have minimal nighttime usage. But for most homes, adding battery storage to this setup (moving to Scenario 1) is a meaningful upgrade.

Important caveats:

• Not all free nights plans are the same. Some have hidden usage caps or other restrictions that can void the free promotion. Always read the Electricity Facts Label (EFL) carefully.
• The daytime rate matters as much as the free hours. A “free nights” plan with very high daytime rates only pays off if you can cover most of your daytime usage with battery (or solar + battery).
• Battery sizing is the critical variable. An undersized battery that runs out at 2pm leaves you paying high daytime rates for the rest of the afternoon. Proper sizing is everything in this strategy.

We model these scenarios for customers during the design phase based on their actual usage patterns and the plans currently available in their area.

How to Compare Texas Solar Buyback Plans

When evaluating buyback plans, look at these factors — in this order:

1. Buyback rate (¢/kWh)

What does the REP pay per kWh of solar export? Compare against the retail rate you pay for grid power. A 9¢ buyback rate paired with an 11¢ retail rate is much better than a 7¢ buyback rate paired with a 13¢ retail rate, even though the gross numbers look similar.

2. Rollover policy

Does the credit roll over month-to-month? Forever, or only for a year? Are excess credits paid out in cash, or forfeited at year-end? Unlimited rollover is usually best, especially for systems that overproduce in summer and underproduce in winter.

3. Plan length and rate stability

Are the rates locked for 12 months, 24 months, or variable? Texas REPs love to advertise low introductory rates that jump after 6-12 months. Read the EFL (Electricity Facts Label) carefully.

4. Monthly base fees and TDU charges

Some plans have low rates but high monthly base fees. For lower-usage homes (which solar customers often become after installation), high base fees can wipe out most of the savings.

5. Whether the plan supports your system size

A few REPs cap the system size they’ll work with for buyback. Verify your system size fits before switching.

6. Customer service reputation

Solar billing is more complex than standard electricity billing. A REP with weak customer service can be frustrating when something goes wrong with your monthly statement.

Where to compare: PowerToChoose.org is the state-mandated comparison site. Filter for “renewable” or “solar buyback” plans, then drill into the EFL for each plan you’re considering. The EFL has the actual contract terms.

How Battery Storage Changes the Buyback Equation

If your solar system includes battery storage (or you’re considering adding it), the buyback math shifts:

With battery storage, you can:

• Store solar during the day, use it at night. You consume more of your own production rather than exporting it. This is valuable on plans with low buyback rates (you avoid selling at a low rate and buying back at a high rate).
• Time-shift to peak rate periods. Use battery power during expensive grid-rate hours instead of buying from the grid.
• Qualify for the Oncor Take A Load Off Texas incentive. This program requires battery storage paired with solar and provides a separate financial benefit beyond the REP buyback. Learn more.

Without battery storage:

• Your solar exports flow to the grid whenever production exceeds usage
• You’re more dependent on a generous buyback plan to capture the value of those exports
• Choosing the right REP becomes more important

For homes that plan to add battery storage later, buyback plan selection can be temporary — you optimize for export rates now, then re-evaluate after batteries are installed.

Learn more about our battery backup services.

Common Mistakes Texas Solar Customers Make

A few patterns we see repeatedly:

1. Choosing a REP based on advertised rate without reading the EFL. The headline rate is rarely the full story. Monthly fees, TDU pass-through charges, usage tiers, and buyback structure all matter.

2. Signing a 12-month contract for an introductory rate that jumps in month 6. Read the contract terms carefully.

3. Not factoring in their changed usage pattern post-solar. After installing solar, your grid usage drops significantly. Plans optimized for high-usage homes become bad deals.

4. Assuming the wires utility offers buyback. Repeating because it’s so common: Oncor doesn’t offer buyback. Your REP does.

5. Switching REPs without consulting their solar installer. Some REPs have specific solar interconnection requirements or compatibility considerations. Worth a quick conversation before signing up.

How North Texas Solar Helps With Buyback Plan Selection

We don’t sell electricity service, but we work with Texas solar buyback plans every day. As part of our installation process, we:

• Review the current buyback landscape for plans that fit your usage profile
• Help you understand the EFL fine print before signing any contract
• Coordinate the REP switch and meter setup to ensure your buyback plan activates correctly
• Re-evaluate periodically since plans change and your needs may shift over time

We don’t tell you which REP to choose — that’s your decision based on your priorities. But we’ll make sure you have the information you need to choose well.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Texas have net metering? Not at the state level. Texas’s deregulated market means net metering (or its equivalent) is offered voluntarily by retail electric providers (REPs), with widely varying terms. Some REP plans are functionally equivalent to net metering; others are not.

Can I get a good buyback rate without changing REPs? Maybe. Check whether your current REP offers a solar buyback plan you can switch to — some REPs have separate solar plans alongside their standard plans. If your current REP doesn’t, you’ll need to switch.

How do I switch REPs after installing solar? After your system is installed and granted Permission to Operate (PTO) by Oncor, you can shop and switch through PowerToChoose.org or directly with your chosen REP. The switch typically takes one billing cycle.

Will switching REPs cause my solar to stop working? No. Your solar system is independent of which REP bills you. The TDU (Oncor) handles the physical interconnection and meter. Switching REPs is purely a billing change.

What happens if I generate more solar than I use in a month? Depends on your plan. Some plans roll the excess credit to next month. Some convert it to dollars. Some cap or forfeit it at the end of the month or year. Read your plan’s specific terms.

Are buyback rates higher in summer when solar produces more? On wholesale rate plans, yes — peak summer demand pushes prices higher. On fixed credit plans, no — the rate is the same year-round.

Can I get buyback if I’m not in Oncor’s territory? Yes, but the dynamics are different. If you’re in another deregulated TDU’s territory (CenterPoint, AEP, TNMP), the same REP-based approach applies. If you’re in a cooperative or municipal utility area (CoServ, Tri-County, GCEC, Brazos, Bryan TU, Austin Energy, etc.), buyback is set by that utility directly and varies widely.

Do buyback plans require minimum solar system sizes? A few REPs have minimum or maximum system size limits for their solar plans. Most accept residential systems in the typical 5-15 kW range. Verify before signing up.

Should I sign up for a solar buyback plan before my system is installed? No. Wait until your system has Permission to Operate (PTO) from Oncor. Some REPs require proof of installation before adding you to a solar plan. We coordinate this timing as part of our installation process.

How often should I re-evaluate my buyback plan? Annually, or whenever your plan contract is up. Texas REP plans change frequently, and what was the best deal last year may not be this year.

Get Help Navigating Texas Solar Buyback

Texas solar buyback is genuinely complex, and the landscape changes year to year. Whether you have an existing solar system and want to optimize your buyback plan, or you’re considering solar and want to understand what you’ll earn from your exports, we’d be glad to walk you through it.

Call us at (940) 387-2716 or request a free consultation online.

We’re a locally-owned solar installer based in Fort Worth, serving Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners since 2015. We help our customers understand their buyback options as part of our installation process, and we work with the major Texas REPs offering solar plans.