The 45 day rule is a scheduling constraint, not a formality
Cobb EMC requires that the interconnect agreement be completed at least 45 days prior to the date the member intends to interconnect the distributed generation facility to the cooperative distribution facilities.
Read that as six weeks of lead time sitting between paperwork and switch on. If the agreement is started late, the panels can be on the roof and the system still cannot legally connect, and the delay is not something the installer can compress.
So ask at the quote stage when the interconnect agreement will be submitted, not whether it will be. A schedule that has installation before agreement is a schedule with six weeks of dead time hidden in it.
Ask who submits it as well. Contractors ordinarily handle the application, including the technical specifications of the system, but responsibility for the timing is worth pinning down in writing rather than assuming.
The fee, and the schedule that sets your credit
Cobb EMC bills a $100 interconnection fee to your account. It is a modest figure against the cost of a system, but it is exactly the kind of item that turns up after the quote, so confirm whether yours includes it.
Compensation for energy you send back is made in accordance with the cooperative Distributed Generation Rate Schedule. That document, rather than any general statement about Georgia solar, is what governs your credit.
Reported figures put the Cobb EMC export credit at 5.121 cents per kWh on an avoided cost basis under its DG-1 schedule, with the cooperative able to revise it annually. We are giving that as reported rather than asserting it, because the rate schedule is the authority and an avoided cost figure that updates annually is a moving number.
Ask Cobb EMC for the current Distributed Generation Rate Schedule, and ask when it was last revised and when it is next reviewed. A credit that resets each year is a different thing to plan around than a fixed contractual rate.
Your rate plan interacts with your solar
Members with rooftop solar remain eligible for the cooperative rate options with one exception: Even Bill is not available to them. That is worth knowing in advance if levelised billing is how your household currently manages cash flow.
Even Bill style plans smooth payments across the year, which is convenient and which conflicts with an arrangement where your bill is supposed to reflect what you generated. Losing it is a reasonable trade, but it is a change to how your bills behave.
Beyond that exclusion, the rate plan you sit on still matters, because the value of self-consumed electricity is your retail rate under that plan. A higher retail rate makes every self-consumed kilowatt hour worth more.
Ask which rate option the projection assumed and whether a different available option would improve it. That is a comparison the cooperative can help with and it costs nothing to run.
A cooperative sets its own terms, and they vary widely
Georgia has 42 electric membership corporations, and each sets its own distributed generation terms. The Public Service Commission has full rate-making jurisdiction over the investor-owned utilities but only limited authority over cooperatives, who must file their rates with the Commission rather than have them set by it.
The spread between cooperatives is real. Published figures for Georgia cooperatives include export credits around 4 cents and around 5 cents per kWh, and at least one cooperative applies a recurring monthly charge to net metering customers on top of its export rate.
So a figure quoted for a neighbouring cooperative tells you nothing reliable about yours, and neither does a general article about Georgia solar. The rider for your own supplier is the only document that answers the question.
The federal position is uniform whoever serves you. The 30 percent Section 25D credit expired for property placed in service after 31 December 2025, so a cash or loan purchase receives no federal credit, while Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under a lease or power purchase agreement.