TECO solar in 2026: retail net metering, falling bills

Hillsborough and pieces of three neighbors

Tampa Electric is an investor-owned utility, rate regulated by the Florida Public Service Commission, which is why FPSC Rule 25-6.065 governs its solar compensation rather than a city council or an elected utility board. The FPSC's 2025 rate case record describes approximately 844,000 customers across a 2,000 square mile territory covering Hillsborough County and portions of Polk, Pasco, and Pinellas counties. On the residential side, EIA counts 757,280 bundled retail customers for 2024, buying 10,269,013 MWh for $1.51 billion. The tariff's own territory description is a map sheet that names no cities in machine-readable text, so the county list above is the working boundary.

Price context matters because Florida utilities are not interchangeable. TECO's 2024 residential average was 14.670892 cents per kWh, between Florida Power & Light at 13.705465 cents and Duke Energy Florida at 16.627729 cents. The statewide residential average hit 15.17 cents in May 2026, up from 14.97 a year earlier. If you are in St. Petersburg or most of Pinellas, odds are you are a Duke customer and need a different guide; the surcharges, the riders, and the rate case calendar all differ.

Sources: FPSC staff recommendation, May 6, 2025 agenda; EIA Table 6, 2024; EIA Electric Power Monthly, table 5.6.A; and TECO tariff Section 2, territory map.

Net metering: three tiers, monthly rollover, one year-end catch

Florida's FPSC wrote one net metering rule for all its investor-owned utilities, Rule 25-6.065, and TECO implements it as Schedule NM-1. The structure is tiered by system size, and the tier determines your paperwork and cost, not your compensation.

Sources: Rule 25-6.065 and the TECO net metering application page.

Two sizing screens apply before any tier. The system's gross power rating cannot exceed 90 percent of your distribution service rating, and for inverter-based systems the AC rating is computed as DC nameplate times 0.85. So a 10 kW DC array counts as 8.5 kW AC, comfortably Tier 1. Most homes never leave Tier 1, which is the tier with no fee and no insurance requirement.

The billing mechanics under NM-1: TECO installs a single bidirectional meter at its own expense, and the tariff says no additional charge for metering and billing shall be assessed. In a month where you consume more than you export, you pay Schedule RS on the net. In a month where you export more, the net kWh carry into the next month's billing cycle as an energy credit. Credits roll up to twelve months. Then the catch: if you are a net exporter in the last billing period of the calendar year, the leftover kWh are paid out on a later bill at TECO's annual average COG-1 as-available rate for the prior year, which is a wholesale-flavored number far below retail. The same COG-1 cash-out applies when you close the account. Design translation: a system sized past your annual usage donates its surplus at the year-end rate. Size to the roof and the bill, not the ego.

Three smaller NM-1 facts that surprise people. Your basic service charge, 45 cents per day, is due every month no matter how good the sun was. A new occupant at a home with an approved system keeps NM-1 by signing an agreement adopting the existing interconnection agreement, useful when buying a solar home. And the smart meter opt-out rider, NSMR-1, is not available to net metered customers, so a solar home keeps its AMI meter.

Sources: TECO tariff Section 3, Schedule NM-1; Rule 25-6.065; and the TECO incentives page.

Sun Select and Sun to Go: subscriptions, not rebates

TECO offers no upfront rebate for rooftop solar and no residential battery incentive; the research behind this page searched for both and found neither. What it offers instead are two subscription products. Sun Select, tariff rider SSR-1, is community solar from a 17.5 MWac facility: residential customers subscribe to 25, 50, or 100 percent of monthly usage at a fixed 6.3 cents per kWh charge, and the fuel charge is waived on the subscribed portion. Since the fuel charge it replaces runs about 2.9 to 3.9 cents per kWh by TECO's own FAQ, a 100 percent subscription at 1,000 kWh adds roughly $1 per day. The tariff says TECO will seek to hold the rate at 6.3 cents or lower until January 1, 2048, TECO keeps the renewable energy credits, and the program runs first come, first served with a waiting list. The key restriction for readers of this site: SSR-1 is not available to net metering customers. Rooftop or subscription, pick one.

Sun to Go, Schedule RE, is simpler and worse for the wallet: 200 kWh blocks of renewable energy at a $5.00 premium per block on top of standard rates. That is 2.5 cents per kWh of pure premium for a green label. It changes nothing about a rooftop decision except as a benchmark; if someone offers you solar output for less than a Sun to Go premium, the grid version is no bargain.

Sources: TECO tariff Section 3, riders SSR-1 and RE; Sun Select FAQ; and the TECO incentives page.

What is still moving at the FPSC

The 2024 rate case is decided but not finished. Final Order PSC-2025-0038-FOF-EI, issued February 3, 2025 in docket 20240026-EI, approved base increases of about $185.9 million for 2025, $86.6 million for 2026, and $9.1 million for 2027, on a 10.50 percent ROE midpoint. The 2026 step already hit bills: the FPSC approved the $88 million subsequent year adjustment on November 4, 2025, effective January 1, 2026. Still open: two intervening parties appealed the rate case outcome to the Florida Supreme Court in March 2025, with briefs not yet filed as of TECO's third quarter 2025 10-Q, and a loss there could reshape residential base rates in either direction.

Three more dates for the calendar. Storm docket 20240172-EI, which authorized the $463.6 million hurricane surcharge that ended August 1, 2026, remains open for final true-up, meaning a small refund or an additional charge is still possible. The 2027 subsequent year adjustment, the approved $9.1 million step, gets its compliance filing in fall 2026 on the 2026 pattern. And the fuel factors, currently 3.210 and 4.210 cents per kWh, run only through December 2026, so a January 2027 fuel reset is routine and coming. No new general rate case had been filed as of August 27, 2026, though a consumer advocate quoted by WUSF in November 2025 predicted one aimed at 2027 and 2028 rates. No pending change to Rule 25-6.065 or the NM-1 tariff was found, which for a solar buyer is the most important quiet of all.

Sources: TECO Energy 10-Q regulatory note; FPSC staff recommendation, docket 20240172-EI; TECO rates page; and WUSF, November 2025.

What we could not verify

As of August 27, 2026, this research did not confirm TECO's parent company from a page fetched in this session; its regulatory disclosures appear in SEC filings under CIK 96271, but the corporate parent was not stated on a fetched page. The tariff's territory description is a map image with no machine-readable city list, so the county-level boundary comes from the FPSC record rather than the tariff text. The dollar value of a year-end COG-1 payout was not quantified because the annual average COG-1 rate for the prior year was not published on a fetched page. No TECO rooftop solar rebate, no residential battery incentive, no new general rate case filing, and no pending net metering rule change were found; each of those is a searched-and-not-found result, not a guarantee of absence. These stay gaps until a primary source closes them.

Sources: TECO company page; TECO tariff Section 2; TECO incentives page; and Rule 25-6.065.