What the statute actually requires
Iowa Code Section 476.49(4) requires the Commission to develop a value of solar methodology and rate for eligible distributed generation facilities. It is a requirement rather than a discretion.
The trigger has two limbs: statewide distributed generation penetration reaching 5 percent, or a petition from an electric utility after July 1, 2027. Whichever occurs first starts the process.
So the current inflow-outflow arrangement is explicitly transitional. Regulators have ordered modest revisions that broadly continue it in the near term, but the statute contemplates a different methodology arriving.
What a value of solar rate would actually pay is not knowable in advance. It could be more generous than current terms or less, and reasonable people disagree about which.
How a good projection handles it
Ask what the savings model assumes about compensation after the transition. There are only three honest answers: it holds current terms, it applies an assumed future rate, or it stops before the transition.
A model holding current terms flat for twenty-five years is making an assumption the statute itself anticipates changing. That is not necessarily wrong, but it should be stated rather than implied.
Ask for the projection with outflow credits reduced, by a quarter and by half, so you can see how much of the case depends on terms that are scheduled for review.
Ask what proportion of the projected savings comes from avoided inflow rather than from outflow credits. The avoided inflow portion is unaffected by any change to export compensation, so a design weighted toward it is insulated.
Designing to reduce the exposure
The most effective hedge is sizing. A system matched to what your household actually uses during daylight generates less outflow, so less of its value rides on terms that may change.
The second is load shifting. Dishwasher, laundry, pool pump and electric vehicle charging moved into daylight all convert outflow into avoided inflow, which is worth the full retail rate and is not exposed to the review.
Storage does the same automatically and at scale. Under an arrangement where export compensation faces a scheduled review, a battery that keeps generation inside your own consumption is buying certainty as well as value.
Ask whether existing customers would be grandfathered under any new methodology. That answer, if it exists, changes how much the exposure matters, and it should come from the utility or the Commission rather than from a sales conversation.
The pieces to separate in a projection
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, and the Iowa solar tax credit expired for residential installations completed after December 31, 2021.
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 the sales tax exemption, the five-year property tax exemption, avoided inflow at your retail rate, and outflow credits under an arrangement with a statutory review ahead of it.
Ask for the projection with the outflow portion identified separately and stress-tested downward, and with the assumption about the value of solar transition stated on the page.