Willow Park sits on I-20 in Parker County, about thirty minutes from Fort Worth.
The city has its own permit checklist for solar, and it treats a ground mount as building work as well as electrical work.
Under most of the land around town, the rock is close.
Before we size anything, check who sends your bill.
Inside Willow Park it is usually a retail provider, with Oncor on the poles and at the meter.
Out on the acreage north and west of town you may well be on Tri-County Electric instead.
The two treat exported power differently, and that sets how big the array should be.
Oncor owns the wires and the meter in Willow Park and pays nothing for power you send back.
Your retail plan decides that, and the plan can change when its contract ends.
A retail buyback is a plan term, not a promise.
We size the array to what the house uses.
For members who went solar on or after March 1, 2024, Tri-County credits exports at an avoided-cost rate it sets and publishes each month, below what you pay for power.
The credits are squared up every March, and anything left over comes as a check.
Solar members pay a monthly minimum, a customer charge plus a distributed generation charge, and export credits do not count against it.
There is an application fee for each meter the system connects to.
With exports earning less than retail, an array on Tri-County lines is built to cover the house, not to sell power.
Every North Texas provider's terms are on one page: what each utility pays for exported solar
Willow Park has its own solar permit checklist.
For a ground mount it calls for a building permit and an electrical permit, with a site plan that shows property lines, easements and setbacks, and a line diagram of the wiring.
Nothing gets switched on until the city's building inspector and fire marshal have done the final inspection.
Applications go to the city by email, and permits are tracked online.
The checklist does not say how high or how far back a ground mount may sit, so we ask the city about your lot before we draw.
Outside the city limits you are on Parker County land, and Parker County issues no building permits.
The county does permit septic systems and regulates building in mapped flood zones, and the utility's approval still applies.
Inside the city it is two permits and two inspectors at the end.
We file both and meet both.
Plan on rock in Willow Park.
We ran 113 points of the USDA soil survey within six miles of town, and 61 percent of the 112 on mapped land reach bedrock inside three feet.
Every side of town is over 40 percent.
The most common soil is the same Aledo-Bolar clay that sits under Aledo, with the rock about sixteen inches down.
What sets Willow Park apart is how much of the ground around it is thin soil over rock, the Brackett and Maloterre soils: about one point in five, three times what we found around Aledo.
West of town is the only side with much sand, about three points in ten.
About one point in ten sits on flood-plain soil.
Rock that close can stop a driven post short and slows a trench, so we read your parcel's soil map before we price the foundation or the run to the meter.
In Willow Park a south-facing array at a thirty-degree tilt makes about 1,561 kWh a year for each kW.
For a 10 kW system that is roughly 15,600 kWh a year.
We checked five points, the middle of town and three miles out in each direction.
North came out best and the middle of town lowest, about two percent apart.
That gap is smaller than what shade or a long trench can do to a project, and the design tool runs your own coordinates anyway.
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
More than half the houses in the ZIPs around Willow Park went up in 2000 or later, so a lot of land here sits in newer subdivisions.
If yours does, read its dedicatory instrument before we draw.
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
It has its own permit checklist.
For a ground mount it asks for a building permit and an electrical permit, a site plan with your property lines and setbacks, and a wiring diagram.
The system stays off until the building inspector and the fire marshal pass the final inspection.
We handle the filing.
Your bill will say.
Inside the city it is usually a retail provider on Oncor's lines.
On acreage north and west of town it may well be Tri-County, which pays an avoided-cost rate for exports and charges solar members a monthly minimum.
Either way, we size the array to what the house uses.
Probably.
Six of every ten points we checked around town reach bedrock inside three feet, and no side of town is under four in ten.
Some of the ground is mapped as steep, shallow-rock soil.
That can change the foundation and slow the trench, so we price both from your parcel's soil map.
Only if your parcel is in a mapped flood zone.
About one point in ten we checked around Willow Park is flood-plain soil.
Inside the city there is a separate flood plain development permit; outside it, Parker County regulates building in flood zones.
We check the flood map for your parcel first.
The towns nearest yours with a page of their own.
No salesman. No home visit to get a number.
