Photo: blazejosh, via Pixabay
Texas · Arlington
Arlington solar runs on one permit and a fee schedule worth reading twice
Written by the Solar Learning Lab research deskUpdated August 26, 202612 min read
Arlington did something most Texas cities have not: it wrote its solar process down. Since May 25, 2021, a single Solar Panel permit, record type SOLR, has replaced the old separate residential and electrical applications, and the City publishes a submittal checklist so specific it names UL 1703 modules, UL 1741 inverters and the exact IRC ridge setback section. The permit bulletin and the City's SB 1202 page carry it all.
The economics need the same clear eyed treatment. Texas power is cheap, Arlington's solar resource is the weakest of the three cities we published this week, and there is no net metering to paper over either fact. What Arlington does offer: a state law that puts a three business day clock on backup power approvals, a property tax exemption you claim with one form, and Oncor incentive money that closes November 30, 2026. Payback here is assembled from paperwork, not from an expensive kWh.
Numbers first, contract second
Work through the estimator before any sales visit, and keep the output next to the quote.
Estimate Arlington solarOne permit, one checklist, two final inspections
The application goes through ArlingtonPermits.com as Permit Type Solar Panel (SOLR), Sub Type Residential, Work Type New. The installer needs two active City registrations, New Home Builder or Remodeler plus Electrical Contractor, and the City publishes a registration FAQ for new solar contractors dated March 2024. Both a Building Final and an Electrical Final inspection close the permit.
The checklist is the part worth respecting. Four items, per the City's published list: a scaled roof plan showing panel to roof percentage with ridge pathways and setbacks per IRC R324.6 and IBC 3111, plus an engineer's design if the array exceeds 5 pounds per square foot; a battery cut sheet and site location if storage is included; NRTL listed equipment data sheets; and an engineered, stamped three line diagram from the manufacturer or a TDLR licensed master electrician, down to disconnect sizes, conduit, grounding and the PV output readout. The intake gate is explicit: nothing gets processed until the minimum submittal criteria are in.
In practice that specificity is a gift. A contractor who works Arlington regularly hits the checklist on the first pass. One who mostly works other suburbs learns it on your timeline. Ask the bidder to walk you through their last SOLR submittal before you sign; the answer tells you which kind you have.
The permit says $325. The invoice says more.
The fee schedule effective June 1, 2026, adopted under Resolution No. 26-151, lists the Solar Panel permit at $325. The asterisk on that line is the real story: single and two family residential applications pay a non refundable plan review fee of 35 percent of the building permit fee, due at submittal, and the application does not count as received until it is paid. Walk away mid process and that money stays walked away from.
Electrical lines can stack on top. The schedule carries a $100 per trade electrical permit, kW based equipment charges of $5 up to 15 kW and $7.50 from 15 to 50 kW, service and sub panel fees of $35 up to 200 amps, and a $200 reinspection. The City even posts fee calculators that repeat the non refundable plan review warning. And the direction of travel is documented, not rumored: the Phase 2 fee proposal shows Solar Panel moving from $275 to $325 in the October 1, 2025 adjustment, an 18 percent jump the October 2025 schedule confirmed and the June 2026 schedule holds. Fail to permit at all and the penalty equals the permit fee, on top of paying it anyway.
SB 1202 put a three business day clock on the city, and Arlington priced it
Texas passed two 2025 laws that change residential energy permitting, both effective September 1, 2025. SB 1202 created Local Government Code Section 247.0025 for home backup power installations at 600 volts or less: a city must accept plan review and inspection from an authorized third party, including a licensed master electrician, construction may begin once the approving notice is submitted, and the city must issue the applicable approval no later than the third business day after receiving that notice. The bill's statement of intent says two days; the enacted text says three, so we cite the statute at three.
Arlington did not ignore the law. It stood up a dedicated SB 1202 page and added a $300 Home Backup Power Installations line to its fee schedule for third party plan review and inspections. That makes the fast lane a live, priced option here rather than a statute nobody implemented. Its companion, SB 1252, bars a municipality from adopting any ordinance or electrical code amendment regulating installation or inspection of a residential energy backup system up to 50 kW output or 100 kWh of storage; the exception for municipally owned utilities does not apply in Arlington because Oncor is investor owned.
Translation for a homeowner adding a battery: the city cannot pile local rules onto the system, a master electrician can carry the review, and the approval clock is measured in days. Few sales reps mention any of this. The ones who do have read the same statutes you just did.
There is no net metering. There are plans, and they differ.
Arlington sits in deregulated ERCOT retail territory. Oncor moves the power; the price of energy, and the value of anything your roof exports, is a competitive product sold by a Retail Electric Provider through Power to Choose, the PUCT's official shopping site. No statute guarantees an export rate. There is no single Arlington wide number, and we will not invent one.
| Energy source | Type | Average price | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|
| TXU Solar Buyback System Flex | REP buyback plan | see the EFL plan specific | Marketed as the best buyback rate, variable, no long term contract. |
| TXU Solar Buyback Plus / Saver | REP buyback plans | see the EFL plan specific | Plus pairs a high buyback rate with price protection; Saver takes a lower energy rate. |
| Green Mountain Renewable Rewards | REP buyback plan | not published on page plan specific | Credits apply when you produce more than you use, per the program page. |
| Exported kWh, any plan | bill credit mechanics | dollar credits per the EFL | TXU tracks credits in a dollar denominated Buyback Bank that rolls over, has no cash value and cannot be transferred. |
TXU's buyback page, Green Mountain's program page and Rhythm's Texas buyback page. Actual rates live only on each plan's Electricity Facts Label.
The operational habit that protects you: read the Electricity Facts Label before interconnection, again at every renewal, and treat the buyback plan as a contract you re-shop, not a feature of the house. Meter reads are bi directional and come from the wires company, but the crediting rules belong entirely to the plan you chose.
Oncor is a second process, and its 2026 money has a hard close
The city permit and the utility interconnection are separate tracks, and skipping the second delays your turn on. Oncor requires installers to register and submit projects through its eTRACK portal, per its distributed energy page. The 2025 residential requirements get granular: a customer signed Tariff Application and Interconnection Agreement per single metered premise, one page diagrams as flattened PDFs under 2 MB, and a minimum of five clear inspection photos. A homeowner quoted only the city permit timeline is being undersold the schedule.
The money: Oncor's 2026 Photovoltaic Standard Offer Program budgets $1,774,000 for residential solar, first come, first served, with incentives capped at 50 percent of total project cost and no single service provider allowed more than 15 percent of the residential budget. The production period closes at 5 p.m. Central on November 30, 2026 or when funds run out, residential projects must be inspection ready within 60 calendar days of the Request for Approval, and final project approval cuts off December 7, 2026. The manual computes incentives from energy savings rather than publishing a flat per kW figure, so no honest page can quote you one. Take a Load Off, Texas confirms the residential incentive exists and that most programs run January through November.
Two documents that quietly improve the math
First, the tax form. Tax Code 11.27 exempts from property tax the appraised value a solar device adds, and subsection (a-1) exempts the device itself regardless of who owns it, which reaches third party owned equipment. It is not automatic: the homeowner files Form 50-123 with the appraisal district, and the chief appraiser rules on it under the Comptroller's 96-1569 guidelines, a framework Texans voted into the constitution back in 1978. Compare that with California's equivalent, which needs no application but sunsets January 1, 2027. The Texas version requires ten minutes of paperwork and does not expire on you.
Second, the HOA statute. Property Code 202.010 voids deed restrictions that prohibit solar, while preserving specific limits: roofline conformity, silver, bronze or black hardware tones, and no extension beyond the roof edge. The clause with teeth is the location test. An association can force an alternate placement only if that alternate increases estimated annual production by more than 10 percent using a public NREL modeling tool, and subsection (e) bars withholding approval once the permitted conditions are met. Bring the model output to the architecture committee and the argument usually ends.
Modest sun, cheap power: the honest production picture
Two numbers frame every Arlington proposal. Our PVGIS model run for downtown Arlington, at a 30 degree tilt with 14 percent system losses, comes back at 1,584 kWh per kWp per year, about 7 percent below Vista and the weakest Sun Belt number we published this week outside Northern California. And Texas residential power averaged 14.94 cents per kWh in 2024 per EIA retail sales data, against California's 31.97. Weaker sun, and each captured kWh offsets less than half the value. That is why the exemption, the Oncor reservation and the buyback plan choice carry the payback here.
August models at 149.0 kWh per kW in our fixed 30 degree run. The flat monthly curve, December still at 108.6, reflects North Texas latitude more than cloud cover.
PVGIS v5.2 model run by Solar Learning Lab on August 26, 2026, NSRDB radiation database. Fixed south facing mount, 30 degree tilt, 14 percent losses, downtown Arlington coordinates. Your roof will differ. Details at PVGIS; our fixed tilt run totals 1,584.1 kWh per kW, and a steeper or shallower mount than our 30 degree assumption will move that output by meaningful percentages, so treat any single yield number as a model, not a promise. One more local reality from the Arlington climate record: this is Tornado Alley, with severe weather concentrated in April and May and a 4.66 inch May precipitation peak. Hail and wind, not wildfire, are the property conversation, so ask about panel impact ratings and how the array affects the roof insurance claim process.
Contractor snapshot: a metroplex market, not a hometown one
Arlington is a city of 402,134 people per Census QuickFacts, with 54.3 percent owner occupancy and a $304,700 median owner occupied home value, yet most firms serving it base out of Grand Prairie, Fort Worth or Cedar Hill. That is normal for the metroplex. What you should still demand is Arlington specific competence: current City registrations, a recent SOLR permit they can point to, and a plan for the Oncor eTRACK submittal running parallel to the city process.
Texas Solar Professional
Cedar Hill, TX
4.9(158 Google reviews)
V3 Electric
Grand Prairie, TX
4.8(110 Google reviews)
Energy Defense Systems
5.0(103 Google reviews)
Ratings snapshot: Google Maps, August 2026, via the DataForSEO SERP feed. Zero companies paid us and none are endorsed by us.
One filter question does a lot of work: which buyback plan do you recommend for my usage, and why. An installer who answers with a named plan and its EFL logic is thinking about your bill. One who answers with a payback percentage is thinking about their close rate.
Model an Arlington system yourself
The calculator uses the statewide average rate and our Arlington production run. It cannot read an Electricity Facts Label, price the Oncor incentive or file your Form 50-123. Its job is scale: what a sensibly sized system costs and produces, so an oversized quote has to justify itself against your own baseline.
The upper bound is our downtown Arlington PVGIS run at a fixed 30 degree tilt. The lower bound is 85 percent of it, a discount for imperfect roofs, not a forecast.
Cash quotes in Arlington cluster near $2.21 per watt, against a $3.50 national 2024 median (LBNL). Use your quote.
Assumptions you can change
Use the rate on your actual lease or PPA quote. There is no published statewide average we trust enough to hardcode.
Cash purchase
$16,796 after state credit
- Year 1 benefit
- $165/mo
- Payback
- 8 years
- 20 year net position
- $31,234
Texas has no state income tax credit and the federal homeowner 25D credit ended December 31, 2025. An Arlington cash purchase earns its keep through avoided kWh, the Tax Code 11.27 property tax exemption and whichever buyback plan you choose.
Solar loan
$233/mo 15 yr payment
- Year 1 net
- -$68/mo
- Upfront
- $0
- 20 year net position
- $6,101
The loan figure uses the Texas cash cost plus the national loan-over-cash spread already built into TX_CALC. Dealer fees hide inside financed pricing, so demand the cash price on its own line before comparing offers.
Lease / PPA
$0 down you buy the power
- Year 1 net
- -$76/mo
- Upfront
- $0
- 20 year net position
- -$18,717
A lease or PPA provider builds its own tax position into your rate. In Arlington the contract still has to beat cheap Texas retail power and a buyback plan you pick yourself, which is a hard test. Read the escalator and transfer terms first.
Estimates, not quotes. Production is our Arlington PVGIS run and costs are Texas market inputs. Export value depends entirely on a retail plan's Electricity Facts Label, which this tool cannot read. We are a solar installer and we also partner with other solar companies. See our disclosures.
We are a solar installer and we also partner with other solar companies.
Arlington solar, the short answers
What permit does rooftop solar need in Arlington?
What will the city actually charge me?
Is there a faster path than the standard queue?
Does Texas have net metering?
Will panels raise my property taxes?
Is there incentive money left in 2026?
The Arlington filing cabinet
Primary records behind every claim on this page, reviewed August 26, 2026.
- Solar Panel permit bulletin, contractor registration FAQ, ArlingtonPermits.com and the City SB 1202 page
- Fee schedule effective June 1, 2026, Phase 2 fee proposal, 2025 fee adjustment announcement, October 2025 schedule and permit fee calculators
- SB 1202 enrolled text, SB 1202 analysis, SB 1252 enrolled text and Property Code 202.010
- Tax Code 11.27, Comptroller exemptions and Form 50-123 and Publication 96-1569
- Oncor distributed energy page, 2025 residential interconnection requirements, 2026 Solar Program manual and Take a Load Off, Texas
- TXU buyback plans, Green Mountain Renewable Rewards, Rhythm Texas buyback and Power to Choose
- IRS 25D guidance, EIA retail sales API, EIA Table 6, Census QuickFacts, Arlington reference page and PVGIS model run
Start an Arlington estimate with the full picture
Bring twelve months of bills and your current plan's EFL. The quote conversation goes better when you already know what an exported kWh is worth to you.
What does your monthly electric bill look like?
Arlington average is $164 per month (EIA, 2024).