Settle the windstorm certification question before you sign
The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association provides wind and hail insurance for properties in the fourteen coastal counties of the default catastrophe area, and Nueces County is one of them. TWIA states that Texas Insurance Code Chapter 2210 requires your property to be certified as meeting windstorm building code requirements in your area.
The consequence of not having that certification is stated plainly: without it, TWIA lacks evidence that the structure conforms to applicable building codes, and it may be considered uninsurable and ineligible for coverage. That is a far larger financial exposure than anything else in a residential solar decision.
A WPI-8 is a Certificate of Compliance issued by the Texas Department of Insurance for new and ongoing improvements. TWIA's published examples of work requiring certification include new structures, building additions and enlargements, windows, entry doors and garage doors, patio covers, decks, roof replacements and re-siding work. A rooftop solar array is an alteration to the roof, which is why this needs an answer rather than an assumption.
So call the Texas Department of Insurance and ask directly whether your specific installation requires a WPI-8, and what the inspection involves, before work begins. TDI has a windstorm field office in Corpus Christi, and as of June 1, 2020 all Certificates of Compliance are issued by TDI as part of its Windstorm Inspection Program. Get the answer in writing and keep it with your policy documents.
What to ask an installer about coastal work
Ask, in the first conversation, whether the installer has taken a project through windstorm certification in a coastal county before, and what it involved. An installer who works the Coastal Bend regularly will have a straightforward answer. One who has not will often tell you it does not apply, which is a conclusion they are not the right party to reach.
Ask who is responsible for arranging any required inspection and certification, and get that allocated in writing rather than left implied. Then ask what happens to the schedule and the price if certification requires changes to the mounting or attachment specification.
Talk to your own insurer as well, separately from the installer. Ask whether a rooftop array is covered under your policy, whether it changes your premium or deductible, and what documentation they want to see after installation. Do this before installation, because the answers occasionally change the decision.
Keep every document the process produces. On the coast, the paperwork proving what was installed and that it was certified is part of the asset, and it is what a future buyer's insurer will want to see.
Your export credit comes from a plan you choose
Texas has no statewide net-metering mandate. Corpus Christi is in the deregulated ERCOT market, so compensation for exported solar depends on the retail electricity provider and the specific solar buyback plan you select. Not every plan buys back exports at all.
AEP Texas is the transmission and distribution utility for the Corpus Christi and Coastal Bend area. It owns and maintains the poles, wires and meters, but it is not who sells you electricity and it is not who sets your export credit. That is your retail provider, and you can change it.
So there are two separate questions. Which plan and provider will you be on when the system is switched on, and what does that plan pay for exports. Ask any installer which specific plan their savings projection assumes, and ask to see the same system modelled under a plan with no export credit.
Compare the export rate and the plan's energy rate together, never separately. A generous buyback attached to an expensive energy rate can leave you worse off than a modest buyback on a cheap one, because you will buy far more electricity across a year than you export.
The exemption you must file for, and the credit that ended
Texas Tax Code Section 11.27 exempts 100 percent of the appraised home value added by an installed solar energy device from property tax. It is not automatic: Form 50-123 must be filed with your county appraisal district, and the deadline for the current tax year is generally April 30.
Ask whether your installer assists with the filing and diarise the deadline yourself regardless. An exemption you qualified for and never claimed is the most avoidable cost in a Texas solar project.
The federal position has changed. The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase now does not receive it. A quote that still applies it is overstating your return substantially, and that is worth checking line by line rather than trusting a summary figure.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so such a provider may claim it and reflect part of the value in the rate they offer you. What they claim and what actually reaches you are separate questions, so ask both and confirm with a tax advisor rather than with the sales material.