Rules by state

Solar and battery interconnection rules in Alabama

Alabama Power purchase of alternate energy (Rate PAE). Every threshold below was read out of the document linked at the bottom of this page, and the same rules answer the free screening check.

Who this binds: investor owned utilities. A utility outside that list sets its own terms, so confirm who serves the address first.

Check a Alabama address free
How the size is measured: not published

The published limits here are stated in kilowatts without saying whether that is the inverter rating in alternating current or the array rating in direct current. On a system near a threshold that decides which band it lands in, so the checker asks the question rather than choosing an answer.

Size bands and what each one obliges

25 kW nameplate or less Size 0 to 25 kW

The company may recommend that the customer obtain liability insurance but does not require it at this size. A monthly base charge applies to cover metering and accounting.

  • Written authorization before parallel operation
  • Monthly base charge
  • Insurance recommended rather than required
Above 25 kW to 100 kW nameplate Size 25.001 to 100 kW

Liability insurance of not less than $1,000,000 for each accident or incident is required before any interconnection work begins, with the company and its officers, employees and agents protected. This is the harshest small system insurance requirement found in the southeastern states and it applies to residential customers as well as commercial.

  • $1,000,000 liability insurance before interconnection work begins
  • Company named as insured or endorsed
  • Monthly base charge

The screens that decide it

Ask the utility this, before you sell it

  1. What is the current per kilowatt charge under the supplementary, back-up or maintenance power rider? That standing charge on installed capacity is the dominant economic variable on an Alabama job and its amount is not in the tariff read.
  2. Is this address served by Alabama Power, a Tennessee Valley Authority local power company, a cooperative or a municipal? Outside Alabama Power none of this applies.
  3. What are the review and interconnection timelines? Alabama publishes no day counts at any step, so no defensible schedule can be given from a published source.
  4. The tariff says nameplate capacity without saying alternating or direct current. Confirm which figure will be used.

Worth knowing before you quote

Alabama publishes no application fee and no study deposit, and assigns all system modification cost to the customer without a study deposit structure: any modification of or addition to the electric system made necessary by the customer generation is at the customer expense. Parallel operation requires specific written authorization and equipment and relay settings must be satisfactory to the company, with separation exercisable in its sole discretion. There is no percent of consumption test, no percent of service rating test and no transformer screen.

Source

Alabama Power special rules governing the application of Rate PAE, Alabama Public Service Commission Docket 18005, with Rate PAE as approved 4 March 2025

Read and recorded 2026-09-12. Alabama has no statewide interconnection standard. What is recorded here is one utility tariff approved by the Commission in a single docket. Northern Alabama served by Tennessee Valley Authority local power companies, including Huntsville Utilities and the north Alabama cooperatives, is outside the Commission jurisdiction entirely, and the other cooperatives and municipals set their own terms. As in Georgia and Tennessee, service territory is the first question.

What to do with this

Check a real address

The rules below are the general case. Run the free check to see which utility serves a specific address, which tier the system lands in, and what to ask.

Run the free check
Installers: keep the answer with the job

GridProjeX holds the project from here, with every value tied to the document it came from and the utility and permit tracks run to permission to operate.

How it works for installers
Utilities: see what applicants are told

The same published rules your applicants read here are the ones your queue sees. GridProjeX is the record both sides work from.

How it works for utilities

Also from CivyxIQ, if they fit what you already do: SolarProjeX for running the crews and the jobs, and Solar Home so the homeowner can follow their own project. Neither is needed to use the checker.