I am considering installing a solar electric system at my home and would like to know if I will be credited for excess power returned to the grid.

What in all the world does the title of your question have do with the question inside the post?

You can't just throw in solar panels and expect them to work and to back feed the grid. The system needs to be engineered. It's not nearly as easy as you are assuming it is.
Also, Unless you are literally using next to nothing most of the time I would not expect you to be selling anything back to the utility.

I am bored again tonight, LaBron James is going back to Cleveland and restricted free agency ends tonight sometime I think. The US is out of the world soccer championship and TV is mostly reruns. So here goes. Sorry guys!

If you are going to install solar for cost savings, I doubt that you will ever come out on the savings part. If you are doing it to be green, or to be self sufficient, then you put your own value on it. It is somewhat viable in places like Phoenix where they get a lot of solar days in a year, but the maintenance and life of the product make it hard to compete with the power companies rates. I have a son who is sold on saving the planet and he lives in Phoenix. He leases his solar system and the company he leases from maintains the cells and the inverter in the lease agreement. His roof is pretty much covered with solar panels. I monitored the output of his inverter and on a hot sunny day he gets between 5000 watts/hour and 8000 watts/hour out of his system. On a cloudy day it drops down to more like 2000 watts per hour. I don't know what his power costs him, but at $.10/KWH, that averages about $.50/daylight hour. In the summer months guess 12 hours of useable daylight or $6.00/ day assuming everyday is sunshine, which of course it is not. That brings in about $180/ month during the hottest months of the year. I don't know what his lease costs him, but when all is said and done it probably is just about a wash when it comes to money, but if your intentions aren't to save money, you can recoup some of your cost by using solar. I live up north and solar is a hard sell here. It is mostly used by people who need remote power for a small well pump to water cattle or power up a sign. We have some big wind farms in some areas, but the cost is close to $.50/ kilowatt for the power that comes from them. Oh yes, and to answer your question, no you just can't back feed the meter without the proper equipment and the power company you are with must be willing to go along with you. So if you think you are going to buy a $600 solar setup and start getting rich from the sun, don't hold your breath! I would love to do it just for the fun of it because it intrigues me somewhat from a technology standpoint, but it would never pay itself back. If you are using it as a backup, unless you get into battery storage units, the power you generate is shut off when the power companies power goes off for safety reasons and synchronizing reasons, so you are still without power unless you go into the battery storage route, and then it is still more a lot more $$$$. If you want to have fun and can afford the money, then go for it.