The state rule does not bind your utility
Rule 25-6.065 establishes the framework for net metering and interconnection in Florida, and the bulk of it applies only to Florida investor-owned electric utilities. Municipal utilities and cooperatives are reached only by the subsection (10) reporting requirements.
Lakeland Electric is a municipal utility owned by the city, so the substantive requirements of that rule do not govern your account. That is a structural difference rather than a variation on the same theme.
Municipal utilities set their own net metering policies and their own credit rates. Some credit exports at the retail rate and others at a lower wholesale or avoided-cost rate, and the difference between those two is the difference between a good project and a poor one.
It also means the terms are decided by a city commission rather than by the Florida Public Service Commission, so ask how long any rate you are quoted is guaranteed for and what process would be followed to change it.
The questions to put to Lakeland Electric
Ask what exported energy is credited at and on what basis that rate is set, since a rate tied to a fuel or avoided cost figure moves while a stated retail credit does not.
Ask whether credits roll over between billing periods and whether they expire, annually or otherwise. An expiry date puts a hard ceiling on how large a system is worth building, because generation beyond it is lost rather than banked.
Ask about the interconnection process itself: what application is required, whether approval must come before installation, whether there is a fee, and how long it takes. Programmes that require approval first are the ones where installing early costs people the whole benefit.
Get the answers in writing and check them against whatever your installer assumed. An installer who works mostly in investor-owned territory nearby may carry the statewide arrangement across without noticing it does not apply here.
What is true regardless of the answer
Self-consumption is worth your retail rate under any arrangement, because electricity used in the moment it is generated avoids a purchase. That is the stable part of the return while you establish the rest.
In central Florida that is a substantial figure. Cooling load runs most of the year and peaks in the afternoon, which lines up reasonably well with when a well-oriented array produces most.
So it is safe to design around your daytime consumption even before the export terms are settled. Sizing against your own daylight draw is the conservative approach and does not depend on the unknown.
Ask for the system modelled two ways, once assuming generous export crediting and once assuming very little. If it only works under the generous assumption, you have learned something useful before signing anything.
The exemptions, and the credit that ended
Florida exempts the added value of a residential renewable energy source device from property tax and exempts the equipment from sales tax. Neither is claimed and neither depends on which utility serves you.
The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after 31 December 2025, so a cash or loan purchase now receives no federal credit.
Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so a provider may claim it and reflect part of the value in the rate offered. Ask them to show the comparison rather than assert it.
With the federal credit gone, the local export terms carry more weight in the arithmetic than they used to. That is the practical reason to get them from the utility in writing rather than from a statewide summary.