Best Solar Companies in Texas: What the Records Show (2026)

“Best solar company in Texas” is one of the most searched questions about solar in the state, and one of the hardest to answer honestly. Most lists are advertising: companies pay to appear or to rank higher. This one uses public records of who actually installed systems, and it says clearly where those records run out.

Where public records name the installer

Texas has no statewide registry of solar installations. Two sources name the company behind each system:

• San Antonio: CPS Energy, the city-owned utility, reports each interconnected home system with its installer to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Tracking the Sun. Nearly 20,000 home systems from 2021 to 2023 have a named installer.
• Austin: the City of Austin publishes every building permit it issues, with the contractor, on its open data portal. We count residential solar permits from 2023 to 2025.

Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth don’t publish solar permits with the contractor’s name, and the installation records don’t cover them, so nobody can rank installers there from public data. We explain below how to vet a company in those cities.

San Antonio: the installers with the most home systems

Home solar systems installed in San Antonio from 2021 to 2023, by installer:

The market is spread out: 139 companies installed at least one system, and the leader holds only about a tenth of it. The typical San Antonio system was 8.8 kW, larger than the national median of about 7 kW, and about 7% included a battery. Full details, including companies that closed, are on our San Antonio ranking.

Freedom Solar Power, a Texas company, is not the same business as Freedom Forever, the California-based installer that went into liquidation in 2026.

Austin: the companies pulling the most solar permits

Residential solar permits issued by the City of Austin from 2023 to 2025, by the company that filed them:

A permit is filed by the licensed company doing the electrical work, which is usually but not always the company that sold the system, and a few permits never turn into finished installations. Austin’s permits have fallen from about 1,870 in 2021 to about 830 in 2025, a sign of how much the market has slowed. See the full Austin ranking.

Two companies appear in both cities’ top ten: TriSMART Solar and ION Developer, which sells as ION Solar.

San Antonio and Austin: two different markets

The two cities’ lists barely overlap, and the reasons say something about how Texas solar works.

• Different utilities. San Antonio is served by CPS Energy and Austin by Austin Energy, both city-owned. Each sets its own rules for connecting solar and paying for exported power, and each has run its own incentive programs. Installers tend to specialize in one utility’s paperwork and rules.
• Local companies lead. In both cities the top spot belongs to a Texas company (Greenstar Power in San Antonio, Horus Partners in Austin), not a national brand. Sunrun, the largest installer in the country, is sixth in San Antonio and not in Austin’s top ten.
• Bigger systems. San Antonio’s median home system in 2021–2023 was 8.8 kW, among the largest of any city we rank, reflecting large homes and heavy air-conditioning use.
• A shrinking market in Austin. Austin’s solar permits fell by more than half between 2021 and 2025. Fewer installers competing for fewer jobs is one reason several well-known names dropped out of the city’s records in 2024 and 2025.

If you live between the two, in New Braunfels, San Marcos or the Hill Country, check which utility or electric cooperative serves your address first: it decides the rules, and it narrows down which installers have experience with them.

Texas installers that closed

Several large installers that sold in Texas no longer exist. In the Texas installation records:

In San Antonio alone, Freedom Forever installed 1,804 systems and ADT Solar 1,226. Austin’s permits add ADT Solar (127 permits), Titan Solar (52), Freedom Forever (32) and Vision Solar (26). If one of them installed your system, our guides on what to do when your solar company goes out of business and on the Freedom Forever bankruptcy explain what still works and who to call.

What solar costs in Texas

In the Texas records that include a price (2,447 systems bought outright in 2021–2023), homeowners paid a median of $3.83 per watt before incentives, below the national median of about $4.22 in 2023. The typical Texas system in the records was about 8.6 kW, which puts a typical purchase around $33,000.

The payback math is harder than the price suggests. Texas residential electricity averages about 16 cents per kWh (EIA, 2026), close to the national average and less than half of California’s. One kilowatt of panels in Austin produces about 1,480 kWh a year (PVWatts). At those numbers, a typical system takes roughly 16 years to pay for itself in the best case, assuming every kilowatt-hour is worth the full retail rate. Our solar cost guide shows the same calculation for other cities.

There is no federal credit to subtract for a purchase: the 30% homeowner credit ended on December 31, 2025. Local programs change often; CPS Energy and Austin Energy have both run their own solar programs, so check your utility’s current terms before signing.

Texas rules that matter when you go solar

No statewide net metering. How much you are paid for power you send to the grid depends on your utility or, in areas with retail competition such as Houston and Dallas, on the electricity plan you pick. Some retail plans credit exports; many credit them at much less than you pay. Ask any installer to base the savings estimate on a specific plan or utility tariff, in writing.

A new solar sales law. Senate Bill 1036 created rules for companies that sell or lease home solar systems. According to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation:

• Since September 1, 2025, contracts must include the name and license number of the electrical contractor, and you can cancel until the fifth business day after signing.
• From September 1, 2026, solar retailers and salespeople must be registered with TDLR to sell or lease systems.

Ask for the company’s TDLR registration and the electrical contractor’s license number before you sign.

Property taxes. Texas exempts the value a solar system adds to a home from property taxes (Tax Code section 11.27). You typically need to file the exemption form with your county appraisal district.

Homeowners associations. Texas law limits an HOA’s ability to ban solar panels, though it can impose some conditions on placement (Property Code section 202.010).

Storms and outages. After Winter Storm Uri in 2021, many Texans added batteries for backup. Remember that grid-tied solar without a battery shuts down during an outage.

How to vet a solar company in Houston, Dallas or anywhere without public records

Without records that name installers, you have to do the checking yourself:

1. Ask how many systems the company installed in your county last year, and ask for addresses you can drive by.
2. Check the TDLR registration for the retailer and the electrical contractor’s license.
3. Compare the price per watt, not the monthly payment: divide the total before incentives by the system size in watts, and compare with the $3.83 Texas median above.
4. Get the export credit in writing for your utility or retail plan, and a production estimate for your roof.
5. Reject any quote that subtracts a 30% federal credit from a purchase in 2026.
6. Check the company hasn’t failed elsewhere. Several companies that sold heavily in Texas have closed in the past two years.

About 81,600 Texas homes have solar enrolled in net metering or a similar export program, according to utility reports to the EIA (Form EIA-861M, July 2026). Because much of Texas buys power from retail providers without net metering, that count likely misses many solar homes. Our Texas page keeps these numbers up to date.

Sources

• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Tracking the Sun, 2024 edition (CC BY 4.0): San Antonio and other Texas home systems, 2021–2023.
• City of Austin, Issued Construction Permits: residential solar electrical permits, 2023–2025.
• Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Residential Solar Retailers: what’s in effect when.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly and Form EIA-861M; National Laboratory of the Rockies, PVWatts.
• Company closures: see our list of solar companies that went out of business.