Arkansas had 169.2 MW of rooftop solar at the end of 2024 on US Energy Information Administration data, grew 18.7% in the twelve months of that series, and did all of it without a single company offering free panels. It is one of 17 states with no current residential third-party ownership providers, which makes it a useful test of a claim the industry makes constantly: that homeowners need a no-money-down product to go solar. Arkansas homeowners evidently did not.
A Market Built Entirely on Purchase
The two contracts behind almost every free solar advertisement are a power purchase agreement, where a company owns the panels and sells you their output, and a lease, where it owns them and bills you monthly. Both are third-party ownership. Per the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, 23 states either ban residential power purchase agreements or have no known programs, and six of those still permit leases. Arkansas law restricts residential power purchase agreements, and while leases are legal here, no company currently offers either product to Arkansas homeowners.
So every one of those 169.2 MW belongs to somebody. That is the fact to hold on to when a national advertisement reaches you here, because it reframes the question from “how do I get this for free” to “does buying work in Arkansas”, and the answer to the second question is visibly yes for a lot of households.
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The Date on Your Paperwork Beats Any Financing Structure
Here is what an Arkansas household should be optimizing instead of financing type. Act 278 split the state in two by a single date. Systems whose paperwork was in by September 30, 2024 keep one-to-one net metering all the way to June 1, 2040. Everyone after that is on avoided cost.
Which side you are on | What exports earn | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|
Paperwork in by September 30, 2024 | One-to-one against retail, around the 12.81¢ statewide average | Through June 1, 2040 |
Everyone since | Avoided cost, $0.0334 on Entergy Arkansas | Reviewed and refiled periodically |
That is roughly a four-to-one gap on every exported kilowatt-hour, decided by a filing date rather than by equipment or by how you paid. If you are buying a house in Arkansas that already has panels, the interconnection date in the agreement is worth more than the panels are.
For a new system today, the practical consequence is that exports are the weak part of the deal and self-consumption is the strong part. A design matched to what the house uses during daylight will beat a larger one built to send power to Entergy at 3.34¢.
Buying Now Means Buying Without Federal Help
The 2026 change has to be stated plainly, because it cuts against the encouraging market figures above. The federal residential credit under Section 25D is $0 for purchased systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025 under Public Law 119-21. Much of that 169.2 MW was bought while a 30% credit existed. A purchase made today is not.
The credit that survives, Section 48E, is a commercial one. It reaches a residential roof only when a business owns the system, which is precisely the arrangement Arkansas does not currently have providers for. So the state’s absence of third-party ownership, which mattered little while homeowners could claim 25D themselves, matters considerably more now.
Section 48E also carries a construction-start test tied to July 4, 2026 and a shorter deadline to be energized for anything that missed it. The deadline to be energized after a missed construction start is unsettled. If a third-party offer does appear in Arkansas, get the current deadline in writing, and check the escalator clause first: these contracts typically raise your payment every year, often around 2.9%, which compounds across a 25-year term.
Costs That Do Not Appear in a Headline Price
Two Arkansas-specific line items belong in any comparison, and neither shows up in a national quote. Entergy Arkansas charges an interconnection fee of $196.75 under its Schedule 71 tariff for residential-scale systems, payable regardless of how the system is financed. And the avoided cost rate itself moves: it rose to $0.0334 effective March 2, 2026 from $0.0247, an increase of about 35% in a year.
That rise is genuinely good news for anyone exporting today, and it is worth being clear-eyed about the mechanism. A rate that can climb 35% in a year on the back of wholesale prices can fall on the same mechanism. It is not a trend to extrapolate across a twenty-five year model, and any proposal that does so is presenting a guess as a projection.
You Likely Will Not Qualify If
- You are responding to a national free solar advertisement. Arkansas is among the 17 states with no current residential third-party ownership providers, so there is no company here to deliver a lease or power purchase agreement.
- You are counting on the 30% federal credit. Section 25D is $0 for purchased systems whose installation is completed on or after January 1, 2026, and Section 48E is claimed by a business owner rather than by you.
- You assumed you could still join one-to-one net metering. That closed to applications after September 30, 2024. Only existing systems carry it, and only until June 1, 2040.
- You are expecting an Arkansas state solar tax credit. There is not one.
- You left the interconnection fee out of your budget. Entergy Arkansas charges $196.75 whether you buy, finance or lease.
What 169 Megawatts of Neighbors Already Decided
The useful way to read Arkansas is that the absence of free solar is not the obstacle it would be elsewhere. This is a state where a large number of households have already concluded that buying a system, at Arkansas prices and Arkansas sunshine, makes sense on its own terms.
What has changed for anyone joining them now is the federal credit, and the honest response is to redo the arithmetic rather than to assume the same conclusion holds. Size to daytime consumption given what exports are worth, budget the interconnection fee, and if you are buying a house with an array, find the interconnection date before you find anything else. Our Arkansas incentives guide covers the policy detail and the Arkansas installer list covers who does the work.
Arkansas Solar FAQs
No company currently offers them here. Free solar means a lease or a power purchase agreement where a company owns the panels, and Arkansas is among the 17 states with no current residential third-party ownership providers. Notably, federal energy data still puts the state at 169.2 MW of installed rooftop solar at the end of 2024, up 18.7% in a year, all of it purchased rather than leased.
It split the state by one date. Systems with paperwork in by September 30, 2024 keep one-to-one net metering against the retail rate (around the 12.81¢ statewide average), through June 1, 2040. Everyone after that receives avoided cost, currently $0.0334 on Entergy Arkansas. That is roughly a four-to-one gap decided by a filing date rather than by equipment or financing.
Not for a homeowner who buys. Section 25D is $0 for purchased systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025. Section 48E survives but is claimed by a business owning the system, which reaches a household only through a lease or power purchase agreement. Since Arkansas has no such providers, that route is not currently open here.
Yes. The avoided cost rate rose to $0.0334 effective March 2, 2026 from $0.0247, about 35% in a year. That is good for anyone exporting now, but the same mechanism that lifted it can lower it, since it tracks wholesale prices. Treat any twenty-five year model that extrapolates the increase as presenting a guess rather than a projection.
Entergy Arkansas charges a $196.75 interconnection fee, payable regardless of how the system is financed, and it rarely appears in a national quote. The other omission is the export rate itself: at $0.0334 against a retail price near the 12.81¢ statewide average, power sent to the grid is worth roughly a quarter of power you use yourself, which should shape the system size.
Buying is the route that works here. Enter your ZIP code to see what Arkansas installers are quoting.
Check which side of the date you are on
References & Research Sources
The program terms and figures above come from the records below. The energize-by deadline for 48E projects that began construction after July 4, 2026 is still unsettled; require any provider to state a project’s deadline in writing. Capacity figures are 2024 data. Sources accessed between June 10 and August 17, 2026.
- pv magazine USA. States without residential solar third-party ownership may become holes in the market after 2025. Analysis drawing on DSIRE and US Energy Information Administration data: the 23-state and 17-state counts and Arkansas’s 169.2 MW installed residential base at the end of 2024 with 18.7% twelve-month growth. Dated July 22, 2025. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- Arkansas General Assembly and Public Service Commission. Act 278 of 2023 and the PSC net metering rules. The September 30, 2024 application cutoff, the grandfathering of one-to-one net metering through June 1, 2040, and the restriction of residential power purchase agreements. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- Entergy Arkansas. Schedule 71, Docket 23-070-TF. The $0.0334 per kWh avoided-cost rate effective March 2, 2026 (up from $0.0247) and the $196.75 interconnection fee for residential-scale systems. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- US Energy Information Administration. Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers. The Arkansas statewide average residential rate of 12.81¢ per kWh used on this page as labeled context. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. One, Big, Beautiful Bill provisions. The Public Law 119-21 termination of Section 25D for purchased systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025, and the availability of Section 48E to business owners of residential systems, including its construction-start test tied to July 4, 2026. Accessed August 17, 2026.
