Is it possible to make money from solar on a rental?

[Calvin Matthews]

Hi everyone.

I'm an out of state investor with one house in New Braunfels, TX. My vague and miniscule understanding is that electricity is handled differently in Texas than other states. That being said, I've been hearing of people who use Tesla solar/power walls to generate electricity and sell excess electricity back to the grid, thereby generating a sort of passive side income. I've included an example of someone from Texas who posted on Twitter selling excess energy at $5.52 per kWh while buying at $0.11 per kWh. The only thing is these results are from personal residences, not landlords.

Has anyone looked into this for their rentals? There's a discount of $500 for a power wall delivery if buying directly from tesla (probably other stipulations too), plus there's probably federal/state incentives, and of course there's the potential to sell back electricity to the grid at really high rates. I was wanting to install solar before seeing this post just because I didn't want our tenant to be without electricity in wacky weather times. It would be great to get this done for our rental but if someone's already doing this on their rentals and have an idea of what to consider (sharing this with the tenant, with the HOA, etc.) and how to get max cash flow then that'll be great. Thanks.