Cooperatives and municipals set their own terms
Georgia Power is the largest electric utility in the state but it is not the only one. Electric membership cooperatives serve much of rural and suburban Georgia, and some cities are served by municipal utilities.
The Public Service Commission regulates Georgia Power. It does not set the solar tariffs of a cooperative or a municipal utility in the same way, so the instantaneous netting rules, the Solar Avoided Cost Rate and the 10 kW AC cap are Georgia Power terms rather than Georgia terms.
That means a cooperative may compensate exports differently, may cap system size differently, and may charge different fees for interconnection. Some are more generous than Georgia Power and some are less.
So the utility name on your bill is the first fact to establish, before reading any figure in a quote. A proposal built from a Georgia Power template for a cooperative member is describing someone else tariff.
The questions to put to your own utility
Ask how exported electricity is compensated, at what rate, and whether that rate is fixed or reset annually. That single answer determines most of the economics.
Ask whether netting is instantaneous, monthly or annual. The difference between those is larger than the difference between most equipment choices.
Ask what system size limits apply, what the interconnection application involves, what it costs, and how long approval typically takes.
Ask whether there is a programme cap or a queue, and whether any monthly service charge or minimum bill applies to solar customers specifically. Getting these in writing from the utility is more reliable than getting them from a sales conversation.
The resource is good, whoever bills you
South-west Georgia has a strong solar resource and long summers, which is the part of the calculation that does not depend on your utility.
It also means summer air conditioning is a large daytime load, and under any instantaneous or near-instantaneous netting arrangement a large daytime load is exactly what you want, because it absorbs generation at full retail value.
So a household with heavy summer cooling is in a better position under this kind of tariff than one with a mostly evening load profile, and the design should lean into that rather than ignore it.
Ask for the production estimate in kilowatt hours per year, built from location-specific irradiance for your address, and ask how the model treats high summer module temperatures, which reduce efficiency in exactly the months production peaks.
Costing it out against a capped programme
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 Albany receives no federal tax credit, and Georgia 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.
Then establish your own utility terms rather than assuming the Georgia Power ones. Export compensation, netting method, size limits and any programme cap all come from whoever bills you.
Rebuild the projection from those terms, a production estimate for your address, and your actual daytime load. Ask for it in writing with each assumption named.