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Texas · Plano
Solar in Plano: the wires bill is climbing either way
Written by the Solar Learning Lab research deskUpdated August 29, 202610 min read
In June 2025, Oncor asked regulators for roughly $834 million more per year, a 12.3 percent residential increase worth about $7.90 a month on an average home. Plano's city council voted to suspend the effective date and fight it alongside dozens of other cities. Whatever number finally sticks, the direction of delivery charges in this town is not a mystery, and delivery charges are the part of the bill no retail plan can shop away.
That is the frame for Plano solar in 2026. There is no local rebate, no state credit, and the federal homeowner credit died last December. What a rooftop system does here is structural: it shrinks the kWh volume that both the rising Oncor delivery charge and your chosen supply rate apply to. Boring, durable math. This page walks through all of it with sources.
See what shrinking the bill is worth
The estimator below models system sizes and payment paths against North Texas production data.
Try the Plano estimatorOne bill, two businesses
Every Plano electric bill quietly settles accounts with two separate companies. Oncor Electric Delivery owns the poles and meters under a franchise the city granted in Ordinance 2020-1-12, first read in December 2019, and pays Plano a quarterly fee on every kWh it delivers inside city limits, plus 4 percent of gross revenues from discretionary service charges. The city projected about $11.2 million of franchise revenue from that arrangement in FY 2019-20, which gives you a sense of how much electricity this city of 110,522 households actually moves.
The other business is whichever retail electric provider you picked, and that choice sets both your price per kWh and whether your solar exports earn anything. The city's own franchised utilities page confirms the split: Oncor handles the infrastructure, streetlight outages route to oncorstreetlight.com, and supply is yours to shop.
Why belabor this? Because solar sales pitches in deregulated Texas routinely blur it. There is no such thing as Plano's net metering rate. There is a delivery tariff you cannot avoid and a supply contract you renegotiate at will. A proposal that quotes one blended savings number without naming your current plan has skipped the actual homework.
The rate case Plano is actively fighting
The details, straight from the council agenda item: Oncor filed a system-wide rate change on or around June 26, 2025, seeking approximately $834 million, about 13 percent above present revenues. The residential class faces a 12.3 percent increase, roughly $7.90 monthly for an average customer. Plano moved to suspend the July 31, 2025 effective date for the maximum 90 days allowed, buying time for the Steering Committee of Cities Served by Oncor to evaluate and contest the filing.
I would not build a solar quote on the assumption that the full 12.3 percent survives review. Cities coalitions regularly negotiate these filings down. But the filing itself tells you where Oncor believes its cost base is heading, and delivery charges are non-bypassable. They hit every kWh you import whether your supply plan is cheap or expensive. The one lever a homeowner controls is the import volume itself, which is precisely what rooftop production plus daytime self-consumption reduces.
The mirror image is worth stating too. Exported kWh do not avoid delivery charges you never incurred; they earn only what your retail plan pays. So the rate case strengthens the argument for sizing to your own load, and does nothing for the fantasy of profiting as a miniature power plant.
Buyback shopping is a skill, and it is renewable
With no statewide export mandate, a Plano solar owner's export income lives entirely in the retail contract. The official comparison venue is Power to Choose, run by the Public Utility Commission. For context on the price level you are shopping against, EIA's 2024 retail sales data put the Texas residential average at 14.94 cents per kWh across 12.5 million customers. Oncor does not appear in that bundled table at all, because it sells delivery, not electricity.
Three habits separate people who get value from buyback plans from people who get burned. Read the electricity facts label, not the ad headline, because export credits often apply only up to your monthly import volume. Recheck the market every renewal, since buyback plans get repriced quietly and loyalty is not rewarded. And model your system's summer export surge against the plan's specific credit rules before you sign, not after.
In practice, the households that do best in Oncor territory treat the retail plan as a component of the solar system, revisited annually like a filter change. The ones who struggle picked a plan in 2024 and never looked again.
Permitting: conventional, organized, no shortcuts
Plano runs a traditional counter process from Building Inspections at 1520 K Avenue, Suite 140. Per the Customer's Guide to the Building Permit Process, revised October 8, 2024, an application packet needs the completed forms, a plan review deposit, two copies of scaled and dimensioned plans, and supporting documents. Staff run a completeness check at intake and reject incomplete packets outright, and all fees must be paid before a permit issues.
There is no dedicated solar fee line on the city's residential permits page, no published SolarAPP+ or instant issuance program, and contractors must be registered with the city on form FM624MP022 per the registration form. Inspections schedule through E-Trakit, the SelecTXT text line, or 972-941-7140. None of this is hostile to solar. It is just a process that rewards installers who submit clean, complete packets and punishes the ones who treat intake as a formality. Ask your bidder how many Plano packets they filed in the last year and what their rejection experience was.
The tax story: one door closed, one stays open
Closed door first. The 25D federal homeowner credit is over for systems finished after December 31, 2025, per the Congressional Research Service, and completion date is what counts. A 2026 Plano purchase gets no federal credit, and any quote claiming otherwise is either stale or dishonest.
The open door is state property tax law. Tax Code Section 11.27 exempts the appraised value attributable to an on-site solar device that primarily serves the property's own energy use. In Collin County, where home values and tax bills are both substantial, shielding a five-figure improvement from the appraisal roll is a benefit that recurs every single year the system operates. With median household income at $108,649 here, plenty of Plano buyers can carry a system purchase; the exemption is what keeps the asset from taxing itself.
What a Plano roof actually produces
Our PVGIS run models 1,566.9 kWh per year per installed kW downtown. August tops the chart at 149.6 kWh per kW and December brings up the rear at 105.8. Respectable, but North Texas cloud cover keeps this comfortably below what West Texas roofs produce, so be wary of proposals importing sunnier assumptions from other markets.
August models 149.6 kWh per kW, right when Collin County air conditioning peaks. Alignment between production and load is Plano's quiet advantage.
PVGIS v5.2 model run by Solar Learning Lab on August 29, 2026, NSRDB radiation database. Fixed south facing mount, 30 degree tilt, 14 percent losses, downtown Plano coordinates. Your roof will differ. Methodology at PVGIS. The number is a standardized model input, not a promise. Tree lines, roof azimuth and equipment choices routinely move real systems 10 percent either direction from it, which is exactly the range the calculator's slider covers.
The bidder pool is deep here
Five companies with substantial review histories serve this market, three based in Plano itself and two in neighboring Richardson. Ratings spread from 3.8 to 5.0, which is a wider quality signal than most cities show and a good reason to collect three bids instead of settling for the first door knock.
RISE Power LLC
Richardson, TX
4.2(137 Google reviews)
Inspire Solar
Plano, TX
3.8(77 Google reviews)
Solar Connect
Plano, TX
4.7(59 Google reviews)
My Roof Solar
Plano, TX
3.9(57 Google reviews)
Ratings snapshot: Google Maps, August 2026, via the DataForSEO SERP feed. Zero companies paid us and none are endorsed by us.
Useful Plano filters: which retail buyback plans have they modeled for past customers, do they handle the city's packet and registration requirements in-house, and will they show the production model behind the savings claim. Vague answers on the first question matter most, because plan modeling is where deregulated-market savings estimates go wrong.
Model a system before anyone models you
This tool pairs the statewide EIA rate with Plano-specific production. It cannot know your retail plan or the rate case outcome, so read its result as a directional comparison of sizes and payment structures rather than a bill prediction.
Slider top is our downtown Plano PVGIS figure of 1,567 kWh per kW. The 1,332 setting is an 85 percent case for shading or orientation. North Texas cloud cover keeps this below West Texas yields.
Cash quotes in Plano 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
- $163/mo
- Payback
- 9 years
- 20 year net position
- $30,713
Plano economics split into Oncor delivery charges you cannot escape and retail supply you shop for. A purchased system offsets both sides on every self-consumed kWh, which matters more with a double digit delivery increase pending.
Solar loan
$233/mo 15 yr payment
- Year 1 net
- -$70/mo
- Upfront
- $0
- 20 year net position
- $5,580
This model uses the EnergySage Texas cash benchmark plus the documented loan spread. In a market with no rebate to chase, an inflated dealer fee is the most common way a good Plano project turns mediocre.
Lease / PPA
$0 down you buy the power
- Year 1 net
- -$75/mo
- Upfront
- $0
- 20 year net position
- -$18,514
Whatever a third party provider claims about its own tax position, your escape hatch is the contract: rate, escalator, buyout schedule and how exports flow under the retail plan you hold at the time.
Estimates, not quotes. Inputs use the EIA Texas average rate, our Plano PVGIS run and EnergySage Texas cost data. Retail plan pricing, buyback terms and the pending Oncor rate case outcome are not modeled. 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.
Plano solar FAQ
Who is my utility in Plano, Oncor or my provider?
Is my Oncor delivery charge really going up?
Does Plano offer a solar rebate?
What does a solar permit cost in Plano?
How do I get paid for exported solar power?
Will panels increase my property tax appraisal?
Where each fact on this page lives
All documents reviewed August 29, 2026.
- Plano Ordinance 2020-1-12, Oncor franchise and 2025 rate case suspension item
- Customer's Guide to the Building Permit Process, contractor registration form, and residential permits page
- Franchised utilities serving Plano and Power to Choose
- Texas Tax Code 11.27 and CRS IN12611 on the federal credit
- EIA Texas retail sales data, Plano background, and PVGIS
Get a Plano estimate that names your plan
Share your bill and roof details. A serious quote here starts from your retail plan and your Oncor delivery charges, not a statewide average.
What does your monthly electric bill look like?
Plano average is $167 per month (EIA, 2024).