Solar Panel Cost in Kansas (2026)

Net metering: Net metering with a 150% sizing rule and March 31 credit expiry

Kansas requires its two investor-owned utilities, Evergy and the Empire District Electric Company, to offer net metering. The programme size ceiling for residential customers was raised from 15 kW to 150 kW AC in 2014, so it is not the practical constraint. What binds instead is a sizing rule expressed against your own usage: systems must be sized at or below 150 percent of average annual consumption to qualify for full retail-rate credits. That is a generous allowance by national standards, and it means the design conversation is about your consumption rather than about a fixed kilowatt ceiling. The rule to design around is the annual expiry. Leftover bill credits carry forward from month to month, which lets a summer surplus offset a winter deficit, but they expire annually on March 31 and nothing is paid for what is left. March is an awkward date for a Kansas household, falling after a winter has drawn credits down but before spring generation has fully recovered. The practical consequence is the same one Washington and Oregon customers face: a system generating more than the household consumes across a year donates the difference. Build from your last twelve months of bills. Kansas is also unusual in having successfully resisted a solar-specific monthly fee: the Kansas Supreme Court struck down Corporation Commission approval of additional Evergy charges on solar owners in early 2020, which is the opposite of what happened in Alabama in 2026. HB 2527 of 2024 changed the monthly billing calculation methodology, so confirm which rules apply to a new system.