Louisiana

Louisiana solar in 2026

Louisiana did something easy to miss. It removed the old program capacity cap, then made exported electricity far less valuable for new customers. Since the 2019 order, the central solar question is how much power you will use inside the house. An oversized system is not an investment thesis.

A remarkably tight Louisiana production band

The New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Lafayette runs land close together. The practical variability is more likely to come from load shape, shade, and what the utility pays for excess energy.

Method: PVGIS v5.2 model runs by Solar Learning Lab on August 18, 2026, using the NSRDB radiation database. Assumptions: fixed roof mount, south facing, 30 degree tilt, 14 percent losses. Your roof will differ.

The state credit belongs in the past

How an avoided-cost design changes the Louisiana decision

The decisive split happens after the panels make electricity. A kWh used by an air conditioner, water heater, pool pump, or other active household load avoids a retail purchase. A kWh with nowhere to go becomes an export. Under the post-2019 structure, that export is credited at Avoided Cost, while utility electricity bought by the customer remains at the full retail rate. Those are separate values, even when a sales model collapses them into one line.

Start with an interval of ordinary household use, not just annual consumption. A family that consumes heavily in late afternoon may need a different array size than a household with the same annual total but little daytime demand. The production table is useful for establishing the resource. It cannot tell you how much of that output will remain inside the home. That question belongs in the quote.

Ask for the current avoided-cost table for your electric utility, then have the installer identify the assumed export share in the savings model. The LPSC publishes Avoided Cost Rate by Electric Utility tables for 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, but the published index does not state the per-kWh amounts in its text. A proposal should name the table it relies on instead of filling the gap with a retail-rate assumption.

There is also no reason to repeat an old capacity-cap talking point. General Order R-33929 eliminated the 0.5% program capacity cap, yet it also created the economics that make oversizing risky for newer projects. The plain takeaway: match the array to the home's useful demand, and keep the interconnection paperwork and compensation basis in the file.

Interconnection is handled through the LPSC's Distributed Generation Rules and a Standard Interconnection Agreement process for investor-owned utilities and cooperatives. Large distributed-generation projects receive separate treatment under Section 4.5. That does not tell an owner how quickly a project will move, but it does give the contract review a useful anchor: identify the governing rule, the agreement, and whether the project falls into the separate large-project treatment.

LPSC General Order R-33929; LPSC Net Metering and avoided-cost tables.

Read this calculator as a household-load exercise

This model is strongest when the house is absorbing production during the day. It should not be treated as a forecast of a utility's avoided-cost payment.

New Orleans-area installers to vet

Use these local listings to assemble a short interview list. The conversation should quickly turn to the export assumption and the exact table that supports it.