How the Solar Export Rate Works in Arizona

Last updated July 2026. Utility export rates change annually, so the figures below point you to the current source rather than quoting a number that will be stale by next year.

Any electricity your solar array produces that you do not use that month is sent back to the grid and credited to you on a monthly basis. How much that credit is worth is the part most Arizona homeowners misunderstand.

Net metering is gone. Net billing replaced it.

Excess solar used to fall under Tucson Electric Power’s net metering plan, which returned a full one-to-one credit on everything sent to the grid. That is no longer how it works.

TEP now operates under a net export plan, sometimes called net billing. Instead of a one-to-one swap, you receive a set credit per kilowatt-hour exported, and that rate is lower than the retail rate you pay to buy power back. The credit appears on your bill each month and is applied against future consumption, a bit like rollover minutes on an old cell plan.

Any unused credits worth more than $10 are paid out to you during TEP’s annual True Up in October.

You can find the current export rate on TEP’s Residential Comparison Program page. Trico Electric Cooperative operates under its own export rate plan, published on Trico’s rates page.

Why the export rate matters for system design

Because exported power is worth less than power you consume directly, the economics have shifted. Under one-to-one net metering, it made sense to oversize a system and bank the surplus. Under net billing, the goal is to reduce what you pull from the grid rather than to maximize what you push back onto it.

That changes two things:

• Sizing. A system matched to your actual consumption usually beats an oversized one, because the marginal panel is only earning you the lower export rate.
• Batteries. Storing your excess and using it yourself in the evening is worth more than exporting it, which is why battery storage has become a bigger part of the conversation in Arizona than it was under net metering.

Your rate is locked for 10 years

This is the part worth acting on. Rules approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission can and do change the export rate over time, but those changes do not apply retroactively to systems already installed.

Once you go solar, you are grandfathered into the export rate in effect at the time of your interconnection for 10 years. The rate has stepped down over successive years, and each annual reduction is capped, but every step down applies only to new customers from that point forward.

In practice that means the rate available today is the rate you keep for a decade, and it will not get better by waiting.

What this means for you

If you are weighing solar in Tucson, the export rate should factor into how the system is designed, not just whether to install one. A design built around self-consumption, right-sized to your usage and paired with storage where it pencils out, performs better under net billing than a design that assumes the old one-to-one credit.

Want to know what your specific usage and utility would produce? Call (520) 704-6868 to schedule a complimentary consultation, or request a free estimate and we will model it against your actual bills.