Is solar worth it in Arkansas in 2026?

How Arkansas pays for your solar power

Net billing (exports credited below retail). Arkansas systems that applied after September 30, 2024 are billed at retail and paid the utility's avoided cost for exports: 3.34 cents/kWh from Entergy Arkansas from March 2026; older systems keep 1-to-1 netting until 2040.

In the calculator, 40% of your solar output is used at home at the retail price and the rest is exported at about 25% of retail, so each solar kWh is worth 55% of the retail price on average. Change it if your utility pays more or less. Method

How exports are credited

Arkansas net metering comes from the legislature. Act 278 of 2023 changed the rules, and the Arkansas Public Service Commission (APSC) approves each utility’s tariff under them. The split is set by one date: September 30, 2024.

Customers who had submitted an interconnection agreement (or paid for the utility’s interconnection facilities) before September 30, 2024 are “legacy” customers. Act 278 lets them stay on the old terms until June 1, 2040. Everyone who applies later is “non-legacy” and is billed under the new structure.

For non-legacy customers, Entergy Arkansas Rate Schedule 71 meters two flows separately: energy supplied by the utility, and energy fed back from the solar system. Supplied energy is billed at the normal rate, including the customer charge and any demand charge or minimum bill. Exported kilowatt-hours are credited in dollars at the utility’s avoided cost. Any surplus dollar credit carries into the next billing period.

Avoided cost is the prior calendar year’s 12-month average Locational Marginal Price for Entergy Arkansas’s zone in the MISO market. It is refiled by February 1 and applies for 12 months starting with the March billing cycle. The tariff lists:

• March 2024 to February 2025: 2.59 cents/kWh
• March 2025 to February 2026: 2.47 cents/kWh
• March 2026 to February 2027: 3.34 cents/kWh

Against the 13.61 cents/kWh EIA average residential price used on this site, 3.34 cents is about 25% of retail. The credit is a market price that changes every year, so it can fall as well as rise.

This is net billing rather than net metering. See net metering vs net billing for the difference.

State incentives in 2026

No open statewide residential solar rebate, income tax credit, or property or sales tax exemption was found in the primary sources checked, and the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture net metering page lists none. Co-ops and municipal utilities sometimes run their own programs, so ask yours.

The federal residential credit ended for systems installed after December 31, 2025. See the federal solar tax credit has ended.

What it means for payback

With exports worth roughly a quarter of retail, every kilowatt-hour the house uses directly is worth about four times one sent to the grid. That favors a system sized to daytime use rather than to the whole annual bill, and it favors shifting laundry, water heating or EV charging into sunny hours.

Because the rule treats supplied and exported energy as separate flows, the customer charge, demand charges and minimum bill remain whatever the solar output. Solar cuts the energy part of the bill only.

A battery lets a household keep midday output for the evening instead of exporting it at 3.34 cents. Whether that repays its cost depends on the price paid and on how much output would otherwise be exported. See are solar batteries worth it.

Other rules worth knowing

• Residential size limit: the lesser of 25 kW AC or 100% of the customer’s highest monthly usage in the previous 12 months, per Act 278.
• One-time interconnection review fee on Entergy Arkansas: $196.75 per generation meter under 300 kW, plus the customer’s own study and interconnection costs.
• Customers keep any renewable energy credits their system creates (Rate Schedule 71).
• Customers can ask to apply surplus credit to additional meters they own in the same utility’s territory, generally within 100 miles, with 30 days’ notice.
• Municipal utilities may follow their own ordinances but cannot set a rate that pays less than their avoided cost (Act 278).
• Rural electric co-ops and municipal utilities file their own net metering tariffs. If you are not an Entergy Arkansas customer, read your utility’s tariff before comparing quotes.

Berkeley Lab does not publish a Arkansas median from enough systems, so the calculator starts from the U.S. median of $3.60/W. Put your own quote in.