El Paso Electric net metering in Texas
El Paso and far west Texas, plus southern New Mexico. Outside ERCOT and outside retail choice. El Paso Electric is a traditionally regulated utility, so the Public Utility Commission approves its rates the way regulators do in most other states.
- Type
- Investor owned
- Accounts
- 460K
What they credit you
Real net metering, on a rate with a demand charge
Published termsEl Paso Electric sits outside ERCOT and outside retail choice, and is regulated like a traditional utility, so unlike the rest of Texas it runs an actual net metering program. A system of 50 kW or less using a renewable resource can take rollback net metering, where one meter runs forward and backward, provided the system is rated to produce no more than the owner consumed in the year before it went in. Only the net production left at the end is bought, under Schedule 48, at the lesser of the company’s fuel and purchased power cost for the month or its avoided energy cost.
- Month to month
- With rollback metering the meter does the netting inside the billing cycle, so there is no bank of credits to carry. What is left over is purchased rather than banked.
Published terms · checked 2026-09-19 · source
Installers serving El Paso Electric customers
Pick one. Only the company you choose receives your details, and only that company calls you.
- Bold EnergyLocal installerBatteryBBB B+, accredited4.948 GoogleMulti-state installer working from a Texas base and publishing 84 licenses across 31 states, with battery storage, repairs and panel removal alongside new installs.All of TexasSelect this installer
- SunrunLocal installerBattery19 years tradingBBB A+, accreditedThe largest residential solar and home battery company in the United States, trading since 2007 and operating in twenty states.All of TexasSelect this installer
These are real companies operating in El Paso Electric 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 El Paso Electric 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 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.
Battery backup is mandatory
in El Paso Electric territory.
El Paso Electric 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 El Paso Electric 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. El Paso Electric sets its own limits. Ask El Paso Electric 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 El Paso Electric 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
Ask for a bill modeled on the Distributed Generation Rate rather than on your current one. Going solar moves you onto a schedule that adds a demand charge of $5.65 per kW, set by your single highest hour of draw in the month, and no amount of generation reduces it. Its energy rates are lower than the standard ones, so whether you end up ahead turns on how peaky your usage is rather than on how much you produce.
What El Paso Electric 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
- $13.71 a month, plus a demand charge of $5.65 per kW once you go solar
- How it is set
- Schedule 01 sets the Customer Charge at $13.71 per meter per month and states that the monthly minimum charge is "the Customer Charge, Other Applicable Riders, and Tax Adjustment", so that is the floor for an ordinary household. A solar household is not an ordinary household here: all non-grandfathered distributed generation customers are placed on the Distributed Generation Rate, which keeps the $13.71 and adds a Demand Charge of $5.65 per kW applied to the highest sixty minute interval of draw in the billing period. Energy on that schedule is cheaper than standard, 9.564 cents for the first 600 kWh in summer against 12.897 cents, but a demand charge is not something generating more can reduce. A Low Income Rider waives the Customer Charge entirely for customers who qualify.
Schedule No. 01 Residential Service Rate, Section 1 Sheet 4 Revision 22 · checked 2026-09-19 · source
El Paso Electric net metering questions
- Does El Paso Electric offer one for one net metering?
- No. El Paso Electric sits outside ERCOT and outside retail choice, and is regulated like a traditional utility, so unlike the rest of Texas it runs an actual net metering program. A system of 50 kW or less using a renewable resource can take rollback net metering, where one meter runs forward and backward, provided the system is rated to produce no more than the owner consumed in the year before it went in. Only the net production left at the end is bought, under Schedule 48, at the lesser of the company’s fuel and purchased power cost for the month or its avoided energy cost.
- What does El Paso Electric pay for power sent back to the grid?
- Real net metering, on a rate with a demand charge. With rollback metering the meter does the netting inside the billing cycle, so there is no bank of credits to carry. What is left over is purchased rather than banked.
- Do I need a battery with El Paso Electric?
- Yes, and we treat it as mandatory. Because El Paso Electric 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 El Paso Electric territory. This is our referral policy, not a legal or utility requirement.
- How do I find my El Paso Electric bill?
- Sign in at epelectric.com. Open My Account, then Billing. 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 El Paso Electric?
- Ask for a bill modeled on the Distributed Generation Rate rather than on your current one. Going solar moves you onto a schedule that adds a demand charge of $5.65 per kW, set by your single highest hour of draw in the month, and no amount of generation reduces it. Its energy rates are lower than the standard ones, so whether you end up ahead turns on how peaky your usage is rather than on how much you produce.