Your plan matters more than your panels
Texas has no statewide net-metering mandate. In deregulated areas like Houston, compensation for exported solar depends on the retail electricity provider and the specific solar buyback plan selected. Some plans buy back exports generously, some modestly, and some not at all.
That puts an unusual amount of control in your hands, and an unusual amount of responsibility. Two identical houses on the same street with identical arrays can see very different results purely because of the plans they are on, and the one who did the comparison did better.
PowerToChoose.org is the state-run comparison site and it is the right starting point, because it is not selling you anything. Work out which plans available at your address buy back exports, and on what terms, before you accept a savings projection from anyone.
Then ask each installer which specific plan and provider their projection assumes, and ask them to model the same system under a plan with no export credit at all. If they cannot name the plan, the projection is not about your house, and you have learned something about how much work went into it.
Compare the buyback rate and the energy rate together
The most common error in Texas solar shopping is choosing the plan with the highest advertised buyback rate. It sounds like the obvious move and it is frequently the wrong one.
The reason is arithmetic. Across a year most households buy considerably more electricity from the grid than they export to it, so the rate you pay for energy usually moves your annual bill more than the rate you are credited for exports. A generous buyback attached to an expensive energy rate can leave you worse off than a modest buyback on a cheap plan.
So compare the two together. Take your own annual consumption, an honest production estimate for the proposed system, and run both plans through the same arithmetic. That is a spreadsheet exercise, not a sales conversation, and it is worth an evening.
Watch how credits accumulate too. Some plans credit exports without a cap and roll credits over, while others cap what can accumulate, after which further exported generation earns nothing. A cap changes the right size of system, because production beyond it is worth zero to you.
Solar alone will not keep your lights on
This is the point most worth being blunt about in Houston. A grid-tied solar array without battery storage shuts down during an outage. It is a safety requirement, so that the system does not energise lines that crews believe are dead, and it applies no matter how bright the day is.
If resilience during storms is part of why you are considering solar, and in this city it usually is, then battery storage has to be designed in rather than added to the conversation later. That changes the budget materially, and it is better understood at the start.
Ask any installer to be specific about what a proposed system does during an outage: which circuits stay live, for how long, and under what conditions it recharges. A vague answer about backup capability is not an answer.
CenterPoint Energy is the transmission and distribution utility for the Houston area. It owns and maintains the poles, wires and meters and restores power after outages, but it is not who sells you electricity and it does not set your export credit. Knowing which company does what saves time when something goes wrong.
The exemption you have to claim, 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 put the deadline in your own calendar regardless. An exemption you qualified for and never claimed is the most avoidable cost in a Texas solar project, and unlike the rest of the arithmetic it is entirely within your control.
The federal position has changed and a great deal of published material has not caught up. 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.
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 that value in the rate they offer. 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.