Original research
The rooftop solar that net metering data cannot see
Residential photovoltaic capacity outside net metering, by state, and why it breaks the standard ranking.
The finding
Key findings
- 1 2,031 MW of US residential PV is not net-metered
5.6% of all reported residential photovoltaic capacity, filed on a schedule most analyses never open.
- 2 Texas is the single biggest distortion
1,748 MW outside net metering against 984 MW inside it, 64% invisible to the standard dataset.
- 3 In 3 states the majority of residential PV is outside net metering
Texas 64%, Tennessee 97%, Alabama 81%. Rankings built on net metering alone are simply wrong about these states.
- 4 Tennessee looks like a state with no solar and is not
18.0 MW of residential PV outside net metering against 0.6 MW inside it. TVA runs distributed generation through its own programmes rather than a net metering tariff.
- 5 7 states have at least 10% outside
Enough to change a ranking position. Below that threshold the omission is real but rarely decisive.
- 6 The schedule reports capacity, not installations
So the gap cannot be closed. There is no household count for this capacity, which is why our penetration study is explicitly labelled net-metered only rather than quietly corrected.
Two schedules, one form, and a very common mistake
EIA-861 has a schedule called Net Metering. It has a second schedule, filed by the same utilities on the same form, called Distributed Generation that is not Net Metered. The first is famous and widely used. The second is not.
A residential solar system lands on the second schedule when the household is not on a net metering tariff: a retail buyback plan, a feed-in arrangement, a utility-owned programme, or a state where net metering was never adopted or has closed to new customers. The panels are on the roof either way. Only the tariff differs.
We publish this page because our own research in this section is built on the net metering schedule, and readers are entitled to know what it omits before they cite it. It is also, as far as we can find, the only free state-level quantification of the gap.
The Texas problem
Texas reports 1,748 MW of residential PV outside net metering against 984 MW inside it. ERCOT’s retail choice market runs on competitive supplier buyback plans rather than utility net metering, so most Texan rooftop solar has never been net-metered and never appears in the file everyone uses.
A ranking that ignores this places Texas far below where it belongs. We flag it on every page in this section that touches Texas, and we would encourage anyone else publishing a state solar ranking to do the same.
Where the gap is
40 states report non-net-metered residential PV capacity. For most of them it is a rounding error. For a handful it is the majority of the fleet, and those are the states where a net-metering-only analysis will mislead.
The pattern is not random. It maps onto two things: restructured retail markets where competitive suppliers rather than utilities set the export arrangement (Texas above all), and federal or municipal power systems that run their own distributed generation programmes outside state net metering rules (TVA territory in Tennessee and Alabama).
The states where net-metering data is actively misleading
7 states have at least 10% of their reported residential PV capacity outside net metering. In 3 of them it is the majority: Texas at 64%, Tennessee at 97%, Alabama at 81%.
Tennessee is the clearest illustration of why this changes an interpretation rather than just a number. On the net metering file, Tennessee looks like a state with essentially no rooftop solar: it reports 86 residential net-metered systems, the lowest household penetration in the country. On this schedule it reports 18.0 MW of residential PV. The Tennessee Valley Authority runs its distributed generation through its own programmes rather than net metering, so the solar is there; the tariff is not.
“Tennessee has almost no rooftop solar” is wrong. “Tennessee has almost no net-metered rooftop solar” is right, and is a statement about policy design rather than about consumer demand. The two claims lead to entirely different stories.
Residential PV outside net metering, every reporting state, 2024
| # | State | Non-net-metered (MW) | Net-metered (MW) | Total reported (MW) | Share outside net metering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | 1,748.2 | 984.0 | 2,732.2 | 64.0% |
| 2 | Hawaii | 90.3 | 531.7 | 622.0 | 14.5% |
| 3 | Massachusetts | 45.7 | 1,304.6 | 1,350.3 | 3.4% |
| 4 | Rhode Island | 43.2 | 106.0 | 149.2 | 29.0% |
| 5 | Tennessee | 18.0 | 0.6 | 18.6 | 96.8% |
| 6 | California | 11.5 | 12,701.6 | 12,713.1 | 0.1% |
| 7 | Iowa | 11.3 | 136.5 | 147.8 | 7.6% |
| 8 | North Carolina | 11.0 | 424.4 | 435.4 | 2.5% |
| 9 | Indiana | 9.2 | 96.0 | 105.2 | 8.8% |
| 10 | Oregon | 8.0 | 333.5 | 341.5 | 2.4% |
| 11 | Illinois | 6.9 | 798.2 | 805.1 | 0.9% |
| 12 | Connecticut | 5.1 | 800.6 | 805.7 | 0.6% |
| 13 | Alabama | 3.7 | 0.9 | 4.6 | 80.8% |
| 14 | Georgia | 2.5 | 128.8 | 131.3 | 1.9% |
| 15 | Colorado | 2.5 | 927.5 | 930.0 | 0.3% |
| 16 | Kentucky | 2.4 | 77.7 | 80.1 | 2.9% |
| 17 | Michigan | 2.2 | 155.4 | 157.6 | 1.4% |
| 18 | Mississippi | 2.1 | 9.8 | 11.9 | 17.9% |
| 19 | Wisconsin | 1.5 | 134.6 | 136.1 | 1.1% |
| 20 | Florida | 1.0 | 2,572.1 | 2,573.1 | 0.0% |
| 21 | Nebraska | 0.7 | 22.5 | 23.2 | 3.1% |
| 22 | Washington | 0.6 | 428.0 | 428.6 | 0.1% |
| 23 | South Carolina | 0.5 | 302.0 | 302.5 | 0.2% |
| 24 | Arizona | 0.4 | 2,277.7 | 2,278.1 | 0.0% |
| 25 | New Jersey | 0.4 | 1,380.7 | 1,381.1 | 0.0% |
| 26 | Louisiana | 0.3 | 187.8 | 188.1 | 0.2% |
| 27 | Minnesota | 0.3 | 190.0 | 190.3 | 0.1% |
| 28 | South Dakota | 0.3 | 3.6 | 3.9 | 6.5% |
| 29 | Utah | 0.2 | 481.0 | 481.2 | 0.1% |
| 30 | Virginia | 0.2 | 513.8 | 514.0 | 0.0% |
| 31 | Kansas | 0.2 | 66.1 | 66.3 | 0.2% |
| 32 | Ohio | 0.1 | 204.6 | 204.7 | 0.1% |
| 33 | North Dakota | 0.1 | 1.0 | 1.1 | 10.4% |
| 34 | Montana | 0.1 | 67.0 | 67.1 | 0.1% |
| 35 | New York | 0.1 | 1,572.5 | 1,572.6 | 0.0% |
| 36 | Missouri | 0.1 | 274.8 | 274.9 | 0.0% |
| 37 | Alaska | 0.0 | 14.2 | 14.2 | 0.3% |
| 38 | Nevada | 0.0 | 1,020.8 | 1,020.8 | 0.0% |
| 39 | Oklahoma | 0.0 | 123.6 | 123.6 | 0.0% |
| 40 | West Virginia | 0.0 | 31.5 | 31.5 | 0.0% |
All 40 states reporting non-net-metered residential photovoltaic capacity, ordered by that capacity. HyreSolar calculation from EIA-861 2024.
Figures labelled HyreSolar calculation are computed by us from the EIA source files named below. EIA publishes the inputs; it does not publish these ratios.
What the gap does to a ranking
The practical consequence is easiest to see in capacity terms, where both schedules are directly comparable. On net-metered residential capacity alone, Texas reports 984 MW. Add the capacity on the other schedule and the total is 2,732 MW, 2.8 times larger.
Tennessee moves from 0.6 MW to 18.6 MW, a factor of 31. Alabama, Rhode Island and Massachusetts all move by more than a quarter.
For most states the correction is negligible and the net metering file is perfectly adequate. The point is not that every ranking is wrong: it is that a handful of specific states are wrong by a lot, and they are predictable in advance: restructured retail markets and federal power territories.
Reported residential PV capacity with and without the second schedule
| State | Net-metered only (MW) | Both schedules (MW) | Multiple | Share outside |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 984.0 | 2,732.2 | 2.8× | 64% |
| Hawaii | 531.7 | 622.0 | 1.2× | 15% |
| Rhode Island | 106.0 | 149.2 | 1.4× | 29% |
| Tennessee | 0.6 | 18.6 | 31.0× | 97% |
| Alabama | 0.9 | 4.6 | 5.1× | 81% |
| Mississippi | 9.8 | 11.9 | 1.2× | 18% |
| North Dakota | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.1× | 10% |
The 7 states where at least 10% of reported residential PV capacity sits outside net metering. HyreSolar calculation from EIA-861 2024.
Capacity only. There is no installation count on the second schedule, so an equivalent correction to system counts or household penetration is not possible.
Texas: the most sales oversight, the least measurement
From 1 September 2026, Texas requires residential solar retailers and salespersons to register with the Department of Licensing and Regulation under SB 1036, the Residential Solar Retailer Regulatory Act: the first US regime aimed specifically at the solar sales channel.
It arrives in the state whose rooftop solar market is least visible in federal data: 64% of Texan residential PV capacity never appears in the dataset most analysts use. Any evaluation of whether that new regime works will have to contend with the fact that the standard measurement misses two-thirds of the market it governs. More on the licensing landscape here.
If you are publishing a state solar ranking
- Say which schedule you used
Net Metering and Non-Net-Metered Distributed Generation answer different questions. Naming the schedule lets a reader judge what your ranking covers.
- Check Texas before you publish
If Texas looks small in your output, the net metering file is the likely reason. 64% of its residential PV capacity is on the other schedule.
- Do not describe TVA states as having no rooftop solar
Tennessee and Alabama have low net-metered counts because of tariff design, not absence of installations.
- Do not add the two schedules to get an installation count
The non-net-metered schedule collects megawatts only. There is no household or installation count for it, so the two cannot be summed into a system total.
- Do not treat a blank as a zero
A state that filed nothing on a schedule is not a state with none of that thing. Show absence as absence.
Methodology
Source
EIA-861 2024, “Distributed Generation that is not Net Metered”, utility-level sheet, residential photovoltaic capacity column, summed to state level. Compared against residential photovoltaic capacity from the Net Metering schedule for the same year and the same states.
Both figures are capacity in megawatts as filed. No conversion or adjustment is applied.
The comparison is capacity, not installations, deliberately
The non-net-metered schedule collects megawatts. It does not collect a count of installations. That is why this page compares capacity and does not offer a corrected installation count or a corrected household penetration figure: the input to do so does not exist.
Producing one would require assuming an average system size for the missing systems, and an assumption presented inside a table of measurements is how a study stops being a measurement. It is also why our household penetration study is explicitly labelled net-metered only rather than quietly corrected.
What the schedule includes
Residential-sector photovoltaic capacity reported by utilities under arrangements other than net metering. It includes utility-owned residential installations and back-up-only capacity, both of which EIA reports separately within the same schedule; we use the residential PV column as filed and do not net those out.
That inclusion means the figure is an upper bound on genuinely customer-owned rooftop solar outside net metering, in the same way the net metering figure is a lower bound on all rooftop solar.
Under-reporting is likely, and runs one way
A utility with no tariff relationship to a household’s solar system may not know it exists. Systems on retail buyback plans in restructured markets are filed by whichever entity has the obligation, and coverage is less complete than on the net metering schedule.
The 2,031 MW figure should therefore be read as a floor, not a total. The direction of the bias is knowable even though its size is not: under-reporting understates the gap, so the true share of residential PV outside net metering is probably above 5.6%.
Terms used on this page
- Net metering
- A tariff crediting exported electricity at or near the full retail rate. The arrangement counted by the schedule most solar analyses use.
- Buyback plan
- A competitive retail supplier’s offer to purchase exported solar, common in Texas. Not net metering, and filed on the other schedule.
- Distributed generation
- Generation located at or near the point of consumption. EIA reports the non-net-metered portion of it separately.
- Retail choice
- A market structure in which households buy energy from a competitive supplier and delivery from the incumbent utility. ERCOT is the largest US example and the reason for the Texas gap.
- TVA
- The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal power corporation whose distributed generation programmes sit outside state net metering rules: the reason Tennessee and Alabama report so little net-metered solar.
Citation, reuse and corrections
How to cite this study
Full citation. HyreSolar Research, “The rooftop solar that net metering data cannot see”, September 2026. Analysis of US Energy Information Administration Form EIA-861, 2014–2024. Available at https://hyresolar.com/research/net-metering-coverage-gap/
In text. “according to a HyreSolar analysis of federal utility filings” — with a link to this page.
In a chart or table. “Source: HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 (2024)”.
What you may reuse
The underlying data is a public US government dataset and carries no restriction. The analysis, rankings, derived ratios and charts on this page are ours, and you are welcome to reproduce them — including the charts — for editorial, academic and non-commercial purposes with attribution and a link to this page.
We ask for the link rather than a bare mention because the methodology and the limitations live here. A figure quoted without them is easy to misread, and several of the numbers on this page carry conditions that change what they mean.
Who produced this
The HyreSolar research desk. We do not attach an individual byline to these studies, because the work is a scripted analysis of a public federal dataset rather than an authored opinion, and a personal byline would imply a kind of authorship that is not what happened here. What is accountable instead is the method: the source files are named, the arithmetic is stated, the extraction is scripted, and the validation is published.
HyreSolar is an independent analysis and matching service. We are not an installer, a lender or a utility, and no installer pays for placement, ranking or mention in this research. See the editorial policy.
How this study is built
Annual Form EIA-861 workbooks for 2014–2024 are downloaded from EIA and parsed by script into a single dataset. Every figure on this page — in the prose, in the tables and in every mark on every chart — is read from that dataset at build time. Nothing is typed by hand.
That is not a stylistic preference. It means a number in a sentence and the same number in the table beneath it cannot drift apart, a chart cannot disagree with its own caption, and next year's EIA release updates the entire study by regenerating one file rather than by someone editing 4,000 words and hoping they caught every instance.
The workbooks are not consistent between years — sheet names change, header rows move, a measure is renamed, a column appears in one year only, and one large utility is filed under two different spellings. The extraction addresses columns by their header meaning rather than their position, and keys utilities on their EIA number rather than their name, because every one of those inconsistencies silently produces wrong output if ignored.
Corrections
If you find an error, tell us and we will fix it on the page with a dated note rather than silently. That includes disagreements about method: the inputs are public and the arithmetic is stated, so the argument can be had on the evidence.
Update schedule
EIA publishes final Form EIA-861 data for a year in approximately October of the following year. This study is rebuilt against the new release and republished at the same URL, so links do not break and the accumulated citations stay attached to the current numbers.
Questions
Is all rooftop solar net-metered?
Why does Texas rank low in solar adoption studies?
Does Tennessee have rooftop solar?
Can you just add the two numbers together?
How much rooftop solar is missing from the usual statistics?
Which states are most affected?
Why do utilities report some solar on a different schedule?
Is the gap growing or shrinking?
Which is the "right" number to quote for a state?
Does this affect your other research?
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HyreSolar Research
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is the reason the rest can be trusted.
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Data as of EIA-861 2024 final release. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
- US EIA, Form EIA-861 — Net Metering (annual files, 2014–2024) — Utility-level net-metered capacity, installations and energy sold back by state and customer sector, plus PV-paired battery capacity and installations from 2023. Downloaded as the published annual ZIP archives. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
- US EIA, Form EIA-861 — Sales to Ultimate Customers (annual files, 2014–2024) — Utility-level residential revenue, sales and customer counts by state, used to derive the average residential price and to count the households a state actually meters. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
- US EIA, Form EIA-861 — Distributed Generation that is not Net Metered (2024) — Residential photovoltaic capacity served under buyback, feed-in and utility-owned arrangements rather than net metering. Capacity only; this schedule collects no installation count. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
- US EIA, Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector — EIA’s own published state price series, used only to validate our derivation. Agreement across all 357 overlapping state-years is within 0.005¢/kWh, i.e. EIA’s own rounding. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
What does your utility actually pay for exports?
Net metering, net billing and buyback plans produce very different payback. Start with your own tariff.
HyreSolar is an independent analysis and matching service. We are not an installer, lender or utility. When a reader asks to be introduced, installers may pay us a referral fee. That fee never buys ranking, scores or placement in research. Our editorial policy sets out the rules.