The ZIPs around Aledo and Annetta hold about 3,000 home lots of an acre or more, and about 350 of five acres or more.
The ground around town is mostly thin clay on limestone.
Whether the city permits your array depends on its jurisdiction map, not the town printed on your mail.
Find the name on your electric bill first.
Inside Aledo it is usually a retail provider, with Oncor owning the lines and the meter.
Outside town it is often Tri-County Electric: the co-op's own district map covers the land around Aledo on every side out to about four miles.
One lets you shop the buyback; the other sets it.
Oncor delivers the power in Aledo and owns the meter, but it buys nothing back.
The retail plan you choose decides what an exported kilowatt hour is worth, and that can change every time a contract ends.
On Oncor lines, build for the house's own use and count any buyback as extra.
Since March 1, 2024, Tri-County has paid new solar members an avoided-cost rate for exported power, set month to month and published by the co-op.
It is settled up every March, and leftover credit comes as a check.
Solar members carry a monthly minimum, a customer charge plus a distributed generation charge, that credits cannot touch, and each connected meter needs its own application fee.
Exports earn less than power costs to buy, so on co-op lines we size to what the house uses.
Every North Texas provider's terms are on one page: what each utility pays for exported solar
Inside the city, permits, contractor registration, plans, fees and inspections all go through the city's online portal, GovWell.
Before any of that, the city asks you to check its jurisdiction map, because an Aledo mailing address does not necessarily mean the property is inside the city's jurisdiction.
We found no solar page, so we read the city's development code and fee schedule for your address before we draw.
If the map puts you outside the city, you are on Parker County land, and Parker County issues no building permits.
Septic rules and your utility's approval still apply.
The jurisdiction map is the first thing we check, because it decides whether there is a city permit at all.
Aledo sits on the limestone.
We ran 113 points of the USDA soil survey within six miles of town: 85 percent have dark clay topsoil, and only 2 percent are sandy.
Under that clay the rock is close.
Fifty-eight percent of the points reach bedrock inside three feet, and on the Aledo-Bolar soils, a third of all the points, it is about sixteen inches down.
North and east of town it is over six points in ten.
West of town is the easiest side, under half, and the only side with any sand.
Rock that shallow is the line that moves an Aledo quote.
A driven post can stop short of depth, so the foundation may change, and the trench goes slower through limestone than through dirt.
We read your parcel's soil map before we price either one.
An array facing south at thirty degrees makes about 1,564 kWh a year per kW in Aledo, or roughly 15,600 kWh a year from a 10 kW system.
Our five points, the middle of town and three miles out in each direction, came in within about one and a half percent of each other.
South was the highest and north the lowest.
So the sun is not the variable here.
The rock is, and the design tool runs your own coordinates for the rest.
Texas law stops an HOA banning solar outright, but lets it keep a ground mount inside a fenced yard and no taller than the fence. What an HOA can and cannot do
If your lot is in a subdivision, read its dedicatory instrument before anything else.
On unrestricted acreage outside town there is often no association at all.
Where a fence line does govern, we bring the tilt down on the same frame until the array fits under it — about fourteen degrees puts four modules below six feet.
No holes in your roof, panels aimed south instead of wherever the house faces, and room to add panels when the load grows. Ground mount vs rooftop
Only if the property is inside the city's jurisdiction, and the city warns that an Aledo mailing address does not settle that.
Its jurisdiction map does.
Inside, the permit goes through the city's GovWell portal.
Outside, you are on Parker County land, and the county issues no building permits.
Rockier than most of the places we work.
More than half of the points we checked within six miles reach bedrock inside three feet, and on the most common soil it is about sixteen inches down.
That can change the foundation and slow the trench, so we price it from your parcel's soil map, not after the machine finds it.
An avoided-cost rate the co-op sets month to month and publishes, for members who went solar from March 2024 on.
There is a monthly minimum that export credits cannot cover.
That is why we size an array on Tri-County lines to the house, not to the land.
West of town has the least rock of the four sides.
Under half the points there hit bedrock inside three feet, and it is the only side with any sandy ground.
North and east run over six in ten.
Your own parcel can still differ, which is why the soil map comes first.
The towns nearest yours with a page of their own.
No salesman. No home visit to get a number.
