The assumption the projection rests on
Two identical systems on identical roofs can deliver very different savings under this arrangement, depending only on when each household uses power.
A household with someone home during the day, or with heavy daytime cooling through an Arkansas summer, consumes a high share of its generation directly. That is the favourable case.
A household that leaves at eight and returns at six exports most of its midday production at avoided cost. Same roof, same panels, materially worse result.
So the self-consumption share is not a modelling detail. Ask what it is, ask what it was based on, and ask to see the projection at a lower share so you can judge how sensitive the case is.
Raising the share at no cost
Every kilowatt hour you shift from evening to daylight moves from avoided cost to a full retail offset. That is free value and it needs no equipment.
Dishwasher, washing machine and dryer are the easy ones. So is a pool pump on a midday schedule, and so is charging an electric vehicle during the day rather than overnight.
Pre-cooling the house on a hot afternoon is usually the largest free lever, because air conditioning is the biggest load in the house and it can be run harder while the sun is up.
Ask your installer to show what the projection looks like with and without those changes. If shifting load meaningfully improves the case, that is worth knowing before you decide on system size.
And where storage fits
A battery does automatically and at scale what load shifting does by hand: it captures generation that would have been exported at avoided cost and releases it when the household is drawing power.
Under a schedule where the gap between retail and avoided cost is wide, that arbitrage is genuine rather than marginal. It is a stronger economic argument than storage has in a one-to-one net metering state.
Ask for the system priced and modelled with and without the battery so the incremental cost and the incremental value both appear as numbers.
Ask what round-trip efficiency the model assumed, since a battery does not return everything put into it, and ask which circuits it would back up during an outage if resilience is also part of your reasoning.
What the number should be built from
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase in Fayetteville receives no federal tax credit, and Arkansas has no state solar tax credit.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so ask what a provider claims and what reaches you in the rate.
What exists is full retail value for self-consumed generation, avoided cost for exports, and the electricity you stop buying at around 14.2 cents per kWh.
Ask for the self-consumption share stated, the projection shown at a lower share, and the system modelled with and without storage. Act 278 requires the proposal to state expected monthly and annual output, so that figure should already be on the page.