Is solar worth it in Indiana in 2026?

How Indiana pays for your solar power

Net billing (exports credited below retail). Indiana closed net metering to new customers on July 1, 2022; the big utilities now credit exported solar at 1.25 times their wholesale energy price, a rate reset every year (AES Indiana: 5.4325 cents/kWh).

In the calculator, 40% of your solar output is used at home at the retail price and the rest is exported at about 32% of retail, so each solar kWh is worth 59% of the retail price on average. Change it if your utility pays more or less. Method

How exports are credited

Indiana does not have net metering for new solar customers. Under Indiana Code chapter 8-1-40, which became law in 2017, each investor-owned utility had to keep its net metering tariff open until July 1, 2022 or until net metering capacity reached 1.5% of its summer peak load, whichever came first. After June 30, 2022, utilities may not offer net metering to new customers.

Customers with a qualifying system now fall under the Excess Distributed Generation (EDG) rule. The utility measures two flows separately: electricity it supplies to you, and electricity you send back. Everything you draw from the grid is billed at your normal retail rate. Every kilowatt-hour you export is credited at the EDG rate, which the statute defines as the utility’s average marginal price of electricity during the most recent calendar year multiplied by 1.25. The marginal price is the hourly market price set by the regional grid operator. The utility files an updated rate with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) by March 1 each year.

The credit appears on your monthly bill. Any unused credit carries forward to later bills for as long as you take service at that address, according to IC 8-1-40-18. AES Indiana’s tariff adds that leftover credit is not transferable to another account or location, and that unused credits are flowed to other customers when you end service.

A qualifying system must be owned by you, located on your premises, and sized at no more than 1 megawatt or your average annual consumption, whichever is lower. That covers essentially every home.

AES Indiana’s Rider 16 lists an EDG rate of 5.4325 cents per kWh in the version effective July 27, 2026. Against the 17.04 cents/kWh EIA average residential price used on this site, that is about 32% of retail. The statewide retail price is only a yardstick, because each utility has its own rates. Duke Energy Indiana, CenterPoint Energy, NIPSCO and Indiana Michigan Power each file their own EDG rate under the same formula, and their figures can differ from AES’s. CenterPoint’s page confirms the 125% formula and the March 1 reset but does not print a rate, so check the current Rider EDG for your utility.

Municipal utilities and electric membership cooperatives are not covered by this chapter. Ask yours what it offers.

State incentives in 2026

No open statewide residential solar rebate, income tax credit or sales tax exemption was confirmed.

Indiana law has long allowed owners to deduct the value of a solar energy system from a home’s assessed value (IC 6-1.1-12-26.1, claimed on Form SES/WPD with the county auditor, per the Department of Local Government Finance). Reports on Senate Enrolled Act 1 (2025) say that deduction was eliminated beginning with the 2025 assessment year. The state’s own deduction forms page still lists the form, so its 2026 status could not be confirmed and it is not listed above. Ask your county auditor before counting on it.

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

What it means for payback

The gap between what you pay for grid power and what you earn for exports is large in Indiana. A kilowatt-hour used in the house avoids the full retail price. A kilowatt-hour exported earns roughly a third of that on AES’s current rate. Savings therefore come mostly from self-consumption, and a system sized to your daytime load pays back better than one built to export.

Shifting dishwasher, laundry and EV charging into sunny hours helps. A battery stores midday output for the evening instead of exporting it at the low credit, but the added cost has to be weighed against that gap. See are solar batteries worth it and net metering vs net billing.

The EDG rate follows wholesale energy prices, so it moves every year in either direction. Treat the current credit as an estimate, not a 25-year guarantee.

Other rules worth knowing

Customers who installed a net metering system before January 1, 2018 keep their net metering terms until July 1, 2047, or until they remove or replace the system, whichever comes first (IC 8-1-40-14). A buyer of that home may choose to take over the same terms. Systems installed from 2018 until the tariff closed are also grandfathered, and a successor owner of that property may stay on net metering until July 1, 2032 (IC 8-1-40-13). Replacing or removing a grandfathered system ends the older terms, so ask the utility before changing one.

You must sign an interconnection agreement and carry liability insurance, as required by the IURC’s interconnection rules (170 IAC 4-4.3), which AES’s tariff cites. The utility can inspect the system and disconnect it during a system emergency.

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