Municipal utilities set their own terms
The Kentucky Public Service Commission oversees compensation for investor-owned utilities and electric cooperatives. A municipal utility is governed by its own local authority.
So the full retail net metering LG&E customers receive, and the NM II avoided cost rate Duke Energy Kentucky moved to, are both terms of other utilities rather than statewide rules.
A municipal utility may compensate exports more generously than either, or less. It may cap system sizes differently, charge different interconnection fees, and run programmes of its own.
What it always means is that the terms have to come from your utility rather than from a statewide guide. That is a phone call, and it is the most important one in the project.
The questions worth putting in writing
Ask how exported electricity is compensated and at what rate, and whether that rate is fixed or reset periodically. If reset, ask whether existing customers move to the new rate.
Ask whether generation is netted across a billing period or measured instantaneously, and whether excess credits carry forward or expire on a set date.
Ask what system size limits apply, what the interconnection application involves, what it costs and how long approval typically takes.
Ask whether the utility runs any programme of its own for solar or storage customers, and whether any solar-specific charge or minimum bill applies.
Reconciling the quote with the answers
With those answers in hand, ask which export arrangement the projection assumed and which retail rate it applied, then check both against what the utility told you and against a recent bill.
Ask what self-consumption share the model assumed. If your utility credits exports below retail, that assumption drives the savings figure more than anything else.
Ask whether the installer has completed projects on your specific utility recently, and how many. Interconnection practice varies and recent local experience is what actually moves a project along.
If the quote cannot be reconciled with what the utility told you, ask for it to be rebuilt rather than explained. That discrepancy is the most useful thing you will find at this stage.
Rebuilding the arithmetic on Kentucky terms
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 receives no federal tax credit, and Kentucky 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.
Everything else comes from your own utility: the retail rate, the export compensation, the netting method, the size limits and the interconnection process.
Ask for the projection rebuilt from those answers, with your rate taken from a recent bill and fixed monthly charges included, since they do not fall when consumption does.