MLGW net metering and solar interconnection in Memphis, TN

What MLGW publishes, in one table

Every row below is quoted or summarised from a page that returned a live response on the date shown. Nothing here is our estimate, and nothing here is rounded.

What the utility requires, in the order it requires it

MLGW describes its distributed generation work as four stages: research, application, construction, then testing. The forms that go with them are listed on the utility's own Green Power Switch document page (checked 2026-08-17), and reading that index in order is the fastest way to understand what is actually being asked of a homeowner.

Research comes before anyone quotes

Two documents sit before the application: the Service Policy Manual and the Distributed Generation System Requirements. They are what a design has to satisfy, and they are published rather than negotiated. A proposal produced without reference to them is a proposal about a generic house. MLGW's own Green Power page is where the summary of both sits.

The application, and which one applies

There are two Applications for Interconnection rather than one: a form for systems at or below 1 MW DC, and a separate form for mid to large scale systems above that connecting to distribution (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17). Effectively every home and most single-building commercial roofs sit under the threshold. A portfolio, a ground array or a large commercial solar installation in Memphis may not, and knowing which form applies changes the timeline before it changes the design.

Approval sits between application and construction

This is the sequencing point that costs people money, and MLGW states it plainly: Be wary of installers who begin construction before MLGW has approved your application, which MLGW does not recommend (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17). The utility also tells customers not to order, purchase or allow installation of equipment until the project has been approved.

What follows approval is a document with a name worth knowing: the Interconnection and Parallel Operations Agreement, which MLGW describes as issued after MLGW and TVA approval and as serving as the notice to proceed. Until that exists, nothing has been agreed, whoever has already been paid a deposit.

Testing, and the form that closes it out

The sequence ends with a Distributed Generation System Acceptance Form, issued on successful completion of acceptance testing (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17). A system that is physically finished and has not been through acceptance testing is not a finished project, and that distinction is worth putting in a contract's payment schedule rather than discovering afterwards. What happens when a completed system later stops working is on solar panel repair in Memphis.

The monthly charge nobody mentions in a sales meeting

Connecting your own generation to the grid changes what you pay to be connected. MLGW bills a monthly Electric Service Availability charge to customers who self-generate: currently $14.40 for residential customers, and for non-residential customers it varies by applicable electric rate, currently beginning at $32.00 for GSA part 1 customers, both described as subject to change (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17).

It is a small number and it behaves in an awkward way: it is a standing line rather than a usage line, so it does not fall when production rises and it does not pause when a system stops producing. On a system that has been down since spring it is the quiet half of what the outage costs.

Where TVA fits, and the one route that does pay

Because MLGW buys all of its power from TVA, the arrangement that pays for customer generation is a TVA arrangement rather than an MLGW one. MLGW describes it as the option to sell all or part of the output under a separate five-year TVA Dispersed Power Production contract, under which TVA pays its avoided cost, which varies monthly, paid via direct deposit, not as a credit on the MLGW bill (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17).

Three things follow from that wording and all three matter to a household budget. Avoided cost is a wholesale idea rather than a retail one. A rate that varies monthly is not a rate you can put in a spreadsheet for a decade. And a payment that arrives by direct deposit rather than as a bill credit is income arriving separately from the bill it was meant to offset.

What solar in Shelby County actually looks like

MLGW also publishes a picture of the local fleet, and it is not the picture a national article implies. Current to 31 December 2024, it states that ninety-nine percent of the systems summarized below are located at individual homes and businesses (mostly on rooftops), which represents 13% of total local generation capacity, and that the vast majority of generation capacity is associated with three solar farms ranging from 997 kW to 68,500 kW (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17).

Read that carefully, because it says two useful things at once. Almost every interconnected system in this county is a roof, so the process described above is a process built for ordinary buildings rather than an exception made for them. And those roofs together are a small fraction of the local capacity, which is why a Memphis homeowner researching this gets search results about power stations: the metro is a genuine utility-scale solar hub, and those projects have nothing to do with a house.

It is also why local knowledge is worth more here than a national quote engine. The rules that decide a Shelby County roof are one utility's rules, published on one page, and they are not the rules the rest of the country runs on.

What the utility asks you to think about before applying

MLGW does not only publish a process. It publishes a warning about sizing, and it is the most practical sentence on its page. Because excess generation earns nothing, the utility says it is vital to size the generation capacity carefully and/or to include battery storage, and it gives the benchmark it works from: the average home uses about 60% of instantaneous solar output, while the average business uses about 80% (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17).

That is the whole design brief for a Memphis system in two sentences, written by the organisation that will be metering it. An array sized against a year's consumption, which is how most proposals are built, produces a great deal of output at times the building is not using it, and every one of those kilowatt hours leaves for nothing. An array sized against what the building draws in daylight produces less and keeps more of it.

Storage is the other half of the utility's own sentence, and what it does and does not change under these rules is set out on solar battery installation in Memphis.

Two questions this market asks constantly, and nobody answers

Across 36 Memphis solar search results, the most frequently returned question was not about price. It was about a rule.

What is the 33% rule in solar panels?

There is no rule called the 33% rule. It is not a term in MLGW's documents, not in TVA's, and not a named provision in the codes adopted locally. Every page answering it in search is a battery or portable power station vendor's blog, which is exactly why this page will not join them.

Two real provisions do sit under the phrase. One is the rooftop coverage threshold above which fire code access pathways widen. The other is the allowance for sizing an array above its inverter's rating. Both are real, both have numbers, and both numbers depend on the edition of the code that has actually been adopted here. Shelby County's Building Code Board names the Joint Technical Codes and the National Electrical Code as what is adopted, and names no edition on that page (checked 2026-08-17). So no figure is published here. Ask the office enforcing the adopted edition, and be suspicious of any site that gives you a number without naming which edition it came from.

What is the 20% rule for solar?

The same answer, with less traffic behind it. It is not a named provision either, and the things people usually mean by it are ordinary design limits rather than a rule with a number attached. If a proposal cites a percentage rule at you, the useful response is to ask which document it is in. The documents that actually govern a Memphis system are the ones on MLGW's document index and the codes the county has adopted.

Why are people getting rid of their solar panels?

This was the second most returned question in the market, and in a place with MLGW's rules it has a straightforward answer. A system sized on the assumption that surplus output would be bought produces the output and receives nothing for the surplus, so the saving lands well under what was modelled. Add a standing monthly charge, an inverter that fails somewhere in year eight or ten, and a roof that reaches the end of its life while the array is still under warranty, and the disappointment is arithmetic rather than technology.

None of that is an argument against solar in Memphis. It is an argument against the version of it that was sold to those owners. The version that works here consumes its own output rather than exporting it, which means honest sizing, a daytime load, and storage where the numbers justify it. That case is made in full on solar battery installation in Memphis.

Across the state line, the answer changes

The Memphis metro crosses into Mississippi and Arkansas, and the utility rules change with it. Entergy Arkansas operates a net metering tariff with a residential system limited to the lesser of 25 kilowatts or capacity representing the customer's highest residential usage in the previous twelve months (Entergy Arkansas, checked 2026-08-17). Entergy Mississippi operates one under which Level 1 customers cannot install a system that offsets more than 110% of the customer's prior year annual energy (kWh) usage at that location (Entergy Mississippi, checked 2026-08-17).

The same roof, fifteen miles apart, gets a materially different deal. What each of the three states does and does not offer is set out side by side on Tennessee solar incentives and what is left in Memphis. This site serves Memphis and the surrounding Shelby County area, so the neighbouring rules are here as context rather than as an offer.

What to do with all of this if you are getting quotes

Four questions separate a proposal written for this market from one written for a net-metered one:

• Does the model assume anything is paid for exported power? If it does, ask which tariff.
• Does it include the monthly availability charge as a cost line?
• Which Application for Interconnection applies, and has it been submitted?
• Is any construction scheduled before the utility has approved the application?

MLGW also points homeowners toward a credential when choosing who does the work: it says to look for credentials from the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP), which is the industry gold standard for solar installers (MLGW, checked 2026-08-17). You can check that credential yourself at NABCEP. This site claims no certification of its own and makes no claim about anyone else's; it passes a request to one local solar contractor, and verifying credentials is a question to put to whoever quotes.

If you would rather start from the whole picture than from the utility's rules, the arithmetic on one page is at solar installation in Memphis, TN.