Use your solar, don’t sell it
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Once your panels are on, the money question flips from “how much do I make?” to “how much do I actually use myself?” In Texas that distinction is everything — and it decides which appliances are worth pairing with solar, and which loads to leave on gas.
The one idea: a kWh you use beats a kWh you sell
Most Texas buyback plans credit your exported solar at less than the retail rate you pay to buy power back (Module 2). So every kWh you consume while the sun is up is worth full retail, while a kWh you export is often worth a fraction of that. The goal isn’t to make more solar — it’s to use more of the solar you already make. Two levers do that: run flexible loads in daylight, and be deliberate about what you electrify.
Shift big, flexible loads into the sun
Anything you can schedule is a chance to spend free midday solar instead of pulling from the grid at night:
- EV charging — the biggest opportunity by far. A scheduled charger set for late morning to afternoon can soak up most of your excess. This is the single highest-value “solar appliance.”
- Pool pump — run it midday, not overnight. Large, shiftable, and a common Texas load.
- Laundry & dishwasher — delay-start timers move them into daylight for free.
- Pre-cool the house — a smart thermostat can cool harder at midday (on solar) and coast through the expensive evening peak.
- Mini-split / heat-pump AC — cooling demand rises with the sun, and inverter-driven units modulate to match variable solar. A near-perfect Texas pairing.
Electrify — or leave it on gas? The honest fork
There are two valid philosophies, and the right one depends on your setup and goals — not on dogma.
- Electrify it (grid-tied, chasing ROI or lower carbon). Replace gas loads with efficient electric ones and feed them with midday solar. The standout is a heat-pump water heater: it’s 3–4× as efficient as resistance heating, and its tank doubles as thermal storage you can heat on free solar at noon and draw on all evening. Induction cooking and heat-pump space heating fit the same idea.
- Keep it on gas (off-grid, rural, or resilience-first). Using propane or natural gas for water heating (and cooking) keeps a huge heat load off your electrical system — so a smaller solar array covers a bigger share of what’s left, and on a battery system you’re not forcing kilowatts of heat through your inverter. It also keeps hot water flowing during an outage. In much of rural Texas, propane is the practical choice where there’s no gas line.
One clear warning either way: an electric-resistance tankless water heater is the worst of both worlds for solar — it draws 18–36 kW in short bursts, often at dawn before the sun is up, and stores nothing. If you want electric, choose a heat-pump water heater with a tank. If you want on-demand, a gastankless is the sensible route.
Off-grid changes the math
On a standalone (battery) system, every watt of load costs you battery capacity and inverter headroom. That’s why off-grid homes overwhelmingly run water heating, cooking, and sometimes clothes drying on propane — it reserves your panels and battery for lighting, electronics, pumps, and refrigeration. If you’re designing off-grid, treat gas for heat as the default, not the exception.
Try it in the editor
Run a free estimate to see your self-consumption — how much of your solar you’d use versus export. Then picture shifting an EV or pool pump into daylight, and you’ll see why “use it, don’t sell it” is where the savings really come from in Texas.
That wraps Homeowner 101. Ready to go deeper? Start the System Design track.
This is general education, not financial or tax advice. Always get quotes from licensed installers and confirm incentives with a tax professional and your utility.