Four to one, before the capacity charge
Electricity you consume at the moment your panels produce it displaces a purchase at the full retail rate, closer to 16 cents per kWh.
Electricity you export is bought at roughly 3 to 5 cents. So the same kilowatt hour is worth around four times more used than exported.
That ratio alone would make self-consumption the priority. The Capacity Reservation Charge sits on top of it and reinforces the same conclusion, because it penalises capacity rather than consumption.
So annual production is not a useful summary of what an Alabama system is worth. What matters is how much of that production lands inside your own demand.
Raising the share, free and paid
Shifting flexible loads into daylight converts a 3 to 5 cent export into a 16 cent avoided purchase. Dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and pool pump all move easily.
Pre-cooling the house on a hot Alabama afternoon is usually the largest free lever, because air conditioning is the biggest load in the house and it runs hardest when generation peaks.
Charging an electric vehicle during the day rather than overnight is the single biggest shift available to a household that has one.
A battery does the same automatically and at scale. Under a four-to-one gap that is genuine arbitrage, though it needs weighing against whether storage affects the capacity charge, which is a question for the utility.
What the quote needs to show
Ask what self-consumption share the savings model assumed and what it was based on. That assumption drives the savings figure more than any equipment choice.
Ask for the savings split into two lines: avoided purchases at the retail rate, and exports at the buyback rate. A single net figure conceals the ratio entirely.
Ask for the Capacity Reservation Charge shown separately in dollars per year, so all three components of the arithmetic are visible.
Then ask to see the projection at a lower self-consumption share. If the case only works at an optimistic assumption about when you use power, that is worth knowing before you sign.
Costing it out with the recurring charge included
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase in Montgomery receives no federal tax credit, and Alabama has no state solar tax credit.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so ask what a provider claims and what reaches you in the rate.
What exists is retail value for self-consumed generation, roughly 3 to 5 cents per kWh for exports, and the Capacity Reservation Charge of $5.41 per kW per month against the whole thing.
Ask for all three shown as separate lines, with the self-consumption assumption stated and stress-tested.