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Net Metering Program
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Austin Energy net metering in Texas

Austin and parts of Travis and Williamson counties. Not part of retail choice. Austin Energy is the provider, and it uses a Value of Solar tariff rather than net metering, which works differently from both.

Type
Municipal
Accounts
560K

What they credit you

9.91 cents on everything you generate

Published terms

Austin Energy pays a Value of Solar credit of $0.0991 per kilowatt hour on the metered output of your whole system, not on what you export, and bills everything you consume separately at the retail rate. Production and consumption are two independent lines rather than one net figure.

Month to month
Credit above the month’s electric charges is carried forward to future billing periods.
Once a year
None. The credit is non-refundable and non-transferable, and unused credit is forfeited when service ends.
System size
Systems under 10,000 kW AC measured at the inverter output, interconnected behind the meter.

Published terms · checked 2026-09-06 · source

Installers serving Austin Energy customers

Pick one. Only the company you choose receives your details, and only that company calls you.

Not sure which to choose?

These are real companies operating in Austin Energy territory. Bold Energy is listed first because it is the company we introduce first. That order is our choice, not a score. The other companies are ordered by reviews, years trading and BBB grade. None of them pays us for placement. Pick the one you want and we will call you to arrange it.

Ordering combines three things we read from primary sources: Google review count and rating, years trading taken from the company’s Better Business Bureau profile rather than its own marketing, and its BBB letter grade. BBB accreditation is shown but never scored, because it is a paid membership rather than a mark of quality.

Check any contractor license yourself at the state register. Do that before you sign anything, with any company, including ours.

What this looks like on a Austin Energy bill

An average Texas household, against a system sized to cover its year. The energy charge is the part that goes to zero. The fixed monthly charge underneath it is the part that never does, and it is the number that decides whether a system pays for itself.

Meter readingkWh
Energy charge$174.70
$174.70
We have read this provider’s own tariff. What it still bills you at zero is set out below, with the sheet it came from. The energy line above uses the statewide average. See what they still bill
DirectionReading…

Meter reading falling from 41926 to 41620 kilowatt hours. A 1,096 kilowatt hour month against 1,402 kilowatt hours produced leaves 0 kilowatt hours billed and 306 banked for next month, so the energy charge falls from $174.70 to $0.00 at 15.94 cents per kilowatt hour.

Texas average household use, 1,096 kWh a month, at the current published residential price of 15.94¢ per kWh. Your utility still bills a fixed monthly customer charge that no system offsets, so this is the energy part of the bill, which is the part that goes away.

Austin Energy requirementRequired

Battery backup is mandatory
in Austin Energy territory.

Austin Energy does not credit the power you send back at the rate it charges you to take it.

That does not make solar a bad idea in Austin Energy territory. It changes what you should build. When exports are worth a fraction of retail the credit stops being the return, and the job becomes using more of your own production inside the house, which usually means a larger array than a one for one utility would need.

Sizing is where that gets decided, so ask about it directly. Texas has no statutory size cap. Your delivery utility, Oncor, CenterPoint, AEP Texas or TNMP, sets the interconnection limits, and your retail provider separately decides whether its buyback plan caps system size or export volume. Austin Energy sets its own limits. Ask Austin Energy what it allows before you accept that a bigger system is off the table.

A battery then does two separate jobs. It moves daytime production into the evening so you use it instead of selling it, and it keeps the house running when the grid goes down. That second job is not a bonus. Panels on their own shut off in an outage, by design, so a roof full of them powers nothing during a storm. That is the part we will not refer around.

So we treat it as a requirement, not an upgrade. We will not refer you for a panels-only system in Austin Energy territory, and you should be skeptical of anyone who quotes you one without raising storage first.

Our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement

What your installer should be telling you

Two things the rate alone does not tell you. The credit can never exceed your electric charges in a month, so it cannot produce a payment. And Austin Energy keeps the renewable energy credits for everything you export, retiring on your behalf only the ones for power you use on site.

What Austin Energy bills you anyway

In a month when your production covers everything you use, the energy charge can reach zero. This does not. It is the floor under every bill, and it is the number that decides whether a system pays for itself.

The charge
$16.50 a month, and solar does not reduce the usage you are billed for
How it is set
The Residential Service schedule sets a Customer Charge of $16.50 a month, inside and outside the city limits alike, for bills rendered on or after 1 November 2025. There is no separate minimum clause. Households enrolled in the Customer Assistance Program are exempt from it altogether — they pay no Customer Charge, and get 10 percent off the kilowatt-hour charges — the only full exemption from the fixed charge found anywhere on this site. Read the next sentence before any solar quote, because it changes the arithmetic more than the fixed charge does. For a customer on the Value of Solar rider, “usage that is billable under the residential rate schedule is the sum of (1) the energy produced by the solar installation and consumed on-site, and (2) the energy delivered to the customer by Austin Energy.” Power your panels make and your house uses at the same moment is still billed to you as consumption; your whole output is credited separately at the Value of Solar rate. That matters twice over in Austin, because the energy charge is steeply tiered and the tiers apply to that gross figure: inside the city 4.640 cents a kilowatt hour for the first 300, 5.138 cents to 900, 7.525 cents to 2,000 and 10.884 cents above. A system does not move you down a tier. On top of the energy charge sit a Power Supply Adjustment of 4.118 cents, a Regulatory Charge of 1.338 cents and Community Benefit Charges of about 1.3 cents, all per kilowatt hour billed.

City of Austin Fiscal Year 2026 Electric Tariff, approved by the Austin City Council, Residential Service, effective for bills rendered on or after 1 November 2025 · checked 2026-10-01 · source

Applying to Austin Energy

What Austin Energy itself requires, as distinct from what the state rule requires. Read from its own published guidelines on the date shown.

Value of Solar is not net metering, and the difference matters
Austin Energy credits you for 100% of what your system generates, at a Value of Solar rate, and bills you separately for 100% of what you consume. Production and consumption are two independent lines rather than one net figure.
9.91 cents, and the tariff shows how it is built
The Value-of-Solar Rider prices the non-demand residential rate as two components: an Avoided Cost of $0.0761 per kWh and a Societal Benefit of $0.023 per kWh, both recovered in the Power Supply Adjustment. They add to $0.0991.
The credit cannot exceed your bill in any month
The rider is explicit: the total credit applied "cannot exceed the total electric charges" for that month. Anything above it is carried forward to future billing periods rather than paid.
It applies to everything you generate, not just exports
Because the credit is on total generation rather than net exports, self-consumption and export are worth the same under this tariff. That is unusual, and it changes whether a battery pays.
The rate is reviewed, and the RECs are not yours
The rider says the rates, methodology and inputs "will be re-assessed and updated during the budget process", so this is a council decision rather than a statutory figure. It also aggregates the renewable energy credits to Austin Energy; only the RECs for what you consume on site are retired on your behalf.

From Austin Energy’s published guidelines · checked 2026-09-06 · source

Austin Energy net metering questions

Does Austin Energy offer one for one net metering?
No. Austin Energy pays a Value of Solar credit of $0.0991 per kilowatt hour on the metered output of your whole system, not on what you export, and bills everything you consume separately at the retail rate. Production and consumption are two independent lines rather than one net figure.
What does Austin Energy pay for power sent back to the grid?
9.91 cents on everything you generate. None. The credit is non-refundable and non-transferable, and unused credit is forfeited when service ends.
Do I need a battery with Austin Energy?
Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because Austin Energy does not credit exports one for one, the return has to come from using your own production rather than selling it, which after dark means storage and usually a larger array than a one for one utility would need. The other half is backup: panels alone shut off in an outage, so a battery is what keeps the house running in a storm. We do not refer panels-only systems in Austin Energy territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
How do I find my Austin Energy bill?
Sign in at coautilities.com. Open Billing and Payments. Open the latest bill and save the PDF. Or screenshot the summary page. If you cannot get to it, a rough guess at your average monthly amount is enough to start.
What is the catch with Austin Energy?
Two things the rate alone does not tell you. The credit can never exceed your electric charges in a month, so it cannot produce a payment. And Austin Energy keeps the renewable energy credits for everything you export, retiring on your behalf only the ones for power you use on site.