Anders Alexander has worked in solar since 2013, from selling residential systems and directing installer sales teams to managing solar analysis software at EagleView and partnering on clean energy financing. He serves on the boards of the Washington Solar Energy Industries Association and Solar Washington.
Kansas has no companies offering free solar panels, and the state’s own rules go a long way toward explaining why. Kansas does not let you choose your system size: it hands you a formula, runs it against your last twelve months of electricity use, and produces the size you are permitted to build. A national leasing company sells one standard product. Kansas does not permit a standard product.
The State Sizes the System, Not the Salesperson
Free solar means a lease or a power purchase agreement, under which a company owns the equipment on your roof. Third-party power purchase agreements are prohibited in Kansas: no company can legally sell you solar power from panels it owns on your roof here. Per the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency, Kansas is among the 17 states with no current residential third-party ownership offerings, and the prohibition is a large part of why. Anywhere these contracts are offered, the monthly payment typically rises 2 to 3% every year for 20 to 25 years; any pitch that reaches you in Kansas carries the same escalator, and the arrangement is not legal here in PPA form anyway.
Before comparing offers beyond Kansas, read our free solar offers nationwide.
Here is the sizing rule those companies would have to work inside. Take your electricity use for the previous 12 months in kilowatt-hours, divide by 8,760, divide that by a capacity factor of 0.144, then round up to the nearest 2 kW increment, capped below 20 kW.
Your last 12 months of use | Divided by 8,760 | Divided by 0.144 | Size you may build |
|---|---|---|---|
9,000 kWh | 1.03 | 7.13 | 8 kW AC |
12,000 kWh | 1.37 | 9.51 | 10 kW AC |
15,000 kWh | 1.71 | 11.89 | 12 kW AC |
Every Kansas household gets a different permitted size, derived from its own billing history. That is close to the opposite of what a no-money-down product needs, which is a repeatable system on a repeatable contract at a repeatable price. It is worth running your own number before any sales conversation, whoever you eventually buy from.
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Surplus Is Cashed Out Monthly, Which Breaks the Model Further
The second structural problem is what happens to power you do not use. Under K.S.A. 66-1266(b), anyone who began operating a system on or after July 1, 2014 has surplus settled at the end of each billing period, credited at the utility’s monthly system average cost of energy. There is no rolling bank. A sunny May does not pay for a dark December.
Within each monthly billing period, every kilowatt-hour a Kansas system exports cancels one you import at your utility’s full retail rate (the Kansas statewide average is 14.84¢ per kWh; your Evergy tariff rate is the number that actually applies), and only the month-end surplus is cashed out at the utility’s monthly average cost of energy, a wholesale-level rate. A power purchase agreement priced per kilowatt-hour has to sit inside that gap, on a system whose size the state already fixed, for a household whose consumption pattern the company cannot control.
None of that makes Kansas a poor state for solar. It makes it a state where the product being advertised nationally does not fit the rules, and where 71.6 MW of installed capacity, up 20.6% in a year, went up on purchase instead.
Buying Is the Route, and It Now Carries No Credit
Section 25D is $0 for purchased systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025 under Public Law 119-21. Section 48E survives but is a commercial credit, claimed by a business that owns the system, which reaches households only through the lease and power purchase arrangements Kansas does not have providers for.
Kansas offers no state income tax credit either. What it does offer is a property tax exemption: the value your system adds to the home is excluded from the assessment for the ten taxable years following installation, for any exemption applied for after December 31, 2016. Guidance from the Division of Property Valuation issued September 17, 2024 concluded that the exemption does not extend to battery storage attached to a renewable system.
There is also a queue question worth asking early. Kansas net metering is first-come, first-served against a capacity cap that reached 4% of the utility’s previous-year peak demand on July 1, 2026, stepping to 5% in July 2027. Ask your utility where it currently sits before you design anything.
You Likely Will Not Qualify If
- You are answering a national free solar advertisement. Kansas is among the 17 states with no current residential third-party ownership providers.
- You want a system larger than your usage history supports. The sizing formula is a requirement, and from July 1, 2026 generating capacity cannot exceed export capacity by more than 50%.
- Your provider is a cooperative or a city utility. K.S.A. 66-1264 defines “utility” as investor-owned electric utility, so the state rules reach Evergy and the other investor-owned companies and nobody else.
- You are counting on the 30% federal credit. Section 25D is $0 for purchased systems from January 1, 2026, and Section 48E is claimed by a business owner rather than by you.
- You expected the property tax exemption to cover a battery. September 17, 2024 guidance found that it does not apply to storage attached to a renewable system.
Run Your Own Number First
The single most useful thing a Kansas household can do costs nothing and takes a minute. Find your last twelve months of kilowatt-hours on your bills, divide by 8,760, divide by 0.144, round up to the nearest 2 kW increment, capped below 20 kW. That is roughly the system the state will let you build, and it is the number every quote you receive should be close to.
If a proposal comes back materially larger, that is a question to ask on the spot rather than after signing, because it is a permitting issue rather than a preference. And because surplus settles monthly at wholesale, a system matched to your own daytime consumption will beat an ambitious one on economics as well as on paperwork. Our Kansas incentives guide covers the rules in full and the Kansas installer list covers who does the work.
Kansas Solar FAQs
Can I get free solar panels in Kansas?
No company currently offers them, and for the power purchase agreement version there is a harder reason: PPAs are prohibited in Kansas, so no company can legally sell you power from panels it owns on your roof. Kansas also sits among the 17 states with no current residential third-party ownership providers, and the state’s own rules are part of the reason: Kansas sets your permitted system size by formula from your billing history, which is close to the opposite of the repeatable product a national leasing company sells.
How do I work out what size system Kansas will let me build?
Take your electricity use for the previous 12 months in kilowatt-hours, divide by 8,760, divide that result by a capacity factor of 0.144, then round up to the nearest 2 kW increment below 20 kW. A home using 12,000 kWh a year lands at about 10 kW AC. Run it before any sales conversation, because a proposal materially larger than your number is a permitting problem rather than a preference.
Why would a leasing company avoid Kansas?
Start with the law: power purchase agreements are prohibited in Kansas outright. Beyond that, two structural reasons. Every household has a different permitted system size derived from its own billing history, so there is no repeatable product. And under K.S.A. 66-1266(b) surplus is settled at the end of each billing period at the utility’s monthly system average cost of energy rather than banked, so the revenue a company could count on is both wholesale and unpredictable.
Is there any state help for solar in Kansas?
No income tax credit and no rebate. Kansas offers a property tax exemption, so the value the system adds does not raise your assessment, running for the ten taxable years after installation for any exemption applied for after December 31, 2016. Guidance issued September 17, 2024 found the exemption does not extend to battery storage attached to a renewable system.
Could Kansas net metering close before I install?
It is capped and first-come, first-served. Under K.S.A. 66-1265 the cap reached 4% of the utility’s previous-year peak demand on July 1, 2026 and steps to 5% of its highest annual peak since 2014 in July 2027. Ask your utility where it currently sits against that figure before you design a system, because it decides whether the arrangement is available to you at all.
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Run the formula on your own usage
References & Research Sources
The legality, formula and settlement terms above come from the records below. 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 17-state count including Kansas, and Kansas’s 71.6 MW installed residential base at the end of 2024 with 20.6% twelve-month growth. Dated July 22, 2025. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- Kansas Legislature. K.S.A. 66-1266, billing and settlement. Monthly one-to-one netting with month-end surplus settled at the utility’s monthly system average cost of energy for customers operating from July 1, 2014. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- Kansas Legislature. K.S.A. 66-1265, capacity caps and metering. The sizing formula inputs (0.144 capacity factor, 2 kW rounding, the sub-20 kW residential cap), and the first-come capacity cap reaching 4% on July 1, 2026 and 5% from July 1, 2027; K.S.A. 66-1264 defines “utility” as investor-owned. Accessed August 17, 2026.
- US Energy Information Administration. Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers. The Kansas statewide average residential rate of 14.84¢ 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 under current deadlines. Accessed August 17, 2026.
