In most states, the first question about solar is which utility you have, because the answer changes everything. Louisiana is the opposite. The Public Service Commission sets one rule for fifteen electric utilities, cooperatives included, and the export rate they pay lands between 3.583¢ and 3.990¢. Whichever company sends your bill, the answer is within four tenths of a cent of your neighbor’s. There is one exception, and it is a large one: if you live in New Orleans, none of this applies to you.
Every Louisiana Utility Pays Almost Exactly the Same
Under the Commission’s Distributed Generation Rules, issued as a General Order on September 19, 2019, anyone who applied to interconnect after December 31, 2019 pays the full retail rate for everything the utility delivers, pays nothing for what they generate and consume themselves, and is credited at Avoided Cost for what they export. The Commission then names the Avoided Cost figure for each utility, once a year.
Utility | 2026 export credit | Effective |
|---|---|---|
Entergy Louisiana | $0.0386407 | April 1, 2026 |
Cleco Power | $0.03854 | March 1, 2026 |
Southwestern Electric Power | $0.03656 | April 1, 2026 |
DEMCO | $0.03847 | March 1, 2026 |
SLEMCO | $0.03930 | February 1, 2026 |
Pointe Coupee Electric | $0.03990 | January 1, 2026 |
Northeast Louisiana Power | $0.03583 | January 1, 2026 |
Seven of the fifteen are shown; the rest sit inside the same band. Two things follow. Shopping between utilities is pointless here, which is a relief. And the gap that matters is not between companies but between exporting and consuming: against Louisiana’s statewide average residential rate near 13.07¢, a kilowatt-hour you use yourself is worth about three and a half times one you send away.
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New Orleans Is Governed by a Different Body
Entergy New Orleans is not regulated by the Public Service Commission. It is regulated by the New Orleans City Council, which has held that authority for decades, and the Council’s rules require it to offer net metering to customers generating with solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal or biomass. Residential facilities up to 25 kW qualify.
The Commission rules that took effect on January 1, 2020, and moved the rest of Louisiana to avoided cost, do not reach Entergy New Orleans customers. Orleans Parish kept net metering because it answers to its own regulator.
For a New Orleans homeowner this is the detail a salesperson working a statewide script is most likely to get wrong. If you are inside the city, do not accept a statewide Louisiana number, in either direction: quotes built on 3.9¢ understate what your exports are worth, and the terms you should be asking about are the Council’s, not the Commission’s.
Your Export Credit Floats With the Wholesale Market
Avoided Cost in Louisiana is not a policy judgment. It is arithmetic: the 12-month average Locational Marginal Price for the utility’s load zone in whichever wholesale market it belongs to, either the Midcontinent Independent System Operator or the Southwest Power Pool. Each utility recalculates and refiles it annually.
That makes the number move, and it has just moved a long way. Compare the last two years for the same three utilities.
Utility | 2025 rate | 2026 rate | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
Entergy Louisiana | $0.0259331 | $0.0386407 | Up 49% |
Cleco Power | $0.02592 | $0.03854 | Up 49% |
Southwestern Electric Power | $0.02902 | $0.03656 | Up 26% |
A 49% rise in one year sounds like good news, and this year it is. But the mechanism has no floor and no ceiling, and it tracks wholesale gas and power prices rather than anything about your roof. Anyone showing you a 25-year model built on the 2026 figure is modeling a number that was 2.6¢ eighteen months ago. Ask what their model assumes and ask what happens to it if the rate returns to where it was.
Systems Wired Before 2020 Keep Retail Until 2034
Anyone interconnected before December 31, 2019 continues to have net excess generation credited to the next billing period at retail value, and that runs through December 31, 2034. Fifteen years of protection, of which nine are left.
The practical consequence is the same as in every state with a grandfathered class: an older Louisiana system is on terms worth roughly three and a half times what a new one earns for the same exported power. If you are buying a house with panels, the interconnection date is the number to establish, and 2034 is the date to put in your own calendar.
You Likely Will Not Qualify If
- You are expecting Louisiana’s old 50% state tax credit. It was one of the most generous in the country and it is gone. Nothing has replaced it.
- You are counting on the 30% federal credit. Section 25D is $0 for purchased systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025 under Public Law 119-21.
- You assumed you could join the pre-2020 class. That closed on December 31, 2019 and its protection ends for everyone on December 31, 2034.
- You are in New Orleans and reading statewide Louisiana figures. Entergy New Orleans answers to the City Council, and the avoided cost rules on this page are not yours.
- You are being sold on export income. At about 3.9¢ against the 13.07¢ statewide average residential rate, exports are the least valuable thing a Louisiana system does.
Sizing a System Against Four Cents
Once exports are worth less than a third of retail, the design question answers itself. The value in a Louisiana system is in the power you consume as you generate it, which in a Gulf Coast climate means air conditioning through long, humid afternoons. That is a genuinely favorable match: peak generation and peak cooling load arrive at the same time of day for months on end.
Which argues for sizing to your own daytime consumption rather than to your annual total, and for treating any surplus as a rounding error rather than a revenue line. Our Louisiana cost guide covers pricing and the Louisiana installer list covers who does the work.
Louisiana Solar FAQs
Not for new systems outside New Orleans. Anyone who applied to interconnect after December 31, 2019 pays full retail for everything the utility delivers, pays nothing for what they generate and use themselves, and is credited at Avoided Cost for exports, which runs between 3.583¢ and 3.990¢ across the fifteen utilities the Commission covers. Entergy New Orleans is regulated separately and still offers net metering.
Because Entergy New Orleans answers to the New Orleans City Council rather than the Public Service Commission. The Council’s rules require it to offer net metering for solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal and biomass, with residential facilities up to 25 kW eligible. The Commission rules that took effect January 1, 2020 and moved the rest of the state to avoided cost do not reach Entergy New Orleans customers.
It is the 12-month average Locational Marginal Price for the utility’s load zone in its wholesale market, either the Midcontinent Independent System Operator or the Southwest Power Pool, refiled annually by each utility. Because it tracks wholesale prices it moves: Entergy Louisiana went from $0.0259331 in 2025 to $0.0386407 in 2026, a rise of 49% in a single year, and the same mechanism can carry it back down.
No. Louisiana once ran a 50% residential credit that was among the most generous in the country, and it has ended with nothing replacing it. Combined with Section 25D falling to $0 for purchased systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025, there is no percentage-based subsidy available to a Louisiana homeowner who buys a system today. A third-party owner (the lease company) can still claim the business-side 48E credit, which reaches you only as lease pricing.
Considerably. Systems interconnected before December 31, 2019 keep net excess generation credited to the next billing period at retail value through December 31, 2034, which is worth roughly three and a half times what a new system earns for the same exported power. If you are buying a house with panels, establish the interconnection date from the agreement itself.
Daytime use is where the value sits here. Enter your ZIP code to see what Louisiana installers are quoting.
Get quotes sized to daytime use
References & Research Sources
EcoGen America reviewed the Louisiana Public Service Commission’s net metering record and avoided-cost schedules, Entergy New Orleans’ own net metering documentation, federal energy data, and IRS guidance for this page. Sources accessed between June 10 and August 20, 2026.
- Louisiana Public Service Commission. Net metering record and Avoided Cost Rate schedules, 2025 and 2026. The General Order of September 19, 2019 establishing the Distributed Generation Rules, the December 31, 2019 line, the per-utility 2026 rates from $0.03583 to $0.03990 with effective dates, and the definition of Avoided Cost as the trailing 12-month average Locational Marginal Price in each utility’s MISO or SPP load zone. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- Entergy New Orleans. Net metering documentation. The New Orleans City Council rules requiring net metering for residential facilities up to 25 kW, outside Commission jurisdiction; monthly offset with excess credited forward. Re-verified August 20, 2026.
- Louisiana Public Service Commission. Grandfathered treatment records. The December 31, 2034 end of the pre-2020 full-retail treatment. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Electric Power Monthly. The Louisiana statewide average residential price used for scale. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS). One, Big, Beautiful Bill Provisions. Guidance on the Public Law 119-21 termination of the Section 25D residential credit for systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025. Accessed August 20, 2026.
