TVA sets the terms, your utility runs the process
TVA supplies electricity across the state through more than 150 local power companies and cooperatives. The framework for residential solar, including Dispersed Power Production and the avoided-cost purchase of exports, comes from TVA.
The interconnection agreement, however, is with your local power company. It is required in order to participate, and without it there is no route to exporting at all.
That split is why a general answer about Tennessee solar is often useless in a specific case. The statewide framework is uniform; the administration of it is not.
TVA Green Connect exists partly to bridge that, connecting a homeowner with their local power company to establish the agreement and providing access to Quality Contractors trained and approved by TVA.
The process questions worth asking early
Ask your installer how long the interconnection application typically takes with your specific local power company, from signature to permission to operate, and ask them to put that in writing rather than describe it generally.
Ask what the application costs, whether any inspection or meter change is required, and who pays for it. These vary between local power companies and they belong in the quoted price rather than appearing later.
Ask specifically about the gap between installation and permission to operate. Panels on a roof are not a system that is saving you anything, and that gap is where most of the frustration in a solar project lives.
Ask whether the installer has completed projects with your local power company recently, and how many. An installer who works your utility routinely will answer these questions immediately, and hesitation is itself informative.
What your own rate actually is
TVA sets the wholesale rate, but each local power company adds its own distribution charges, so actual per-kilowatt-hour costs can run a cent or more either side of the Tennessee average of about 13 cents per kWh.
Because solar savings are the price of the electricity you no longer buy, that difference flows straight into your payback. A projection built on a state average is using an approximation where a real figure exists.
Ask which rate the projection used and where it came from, and check it against a recent bill of your own rather than accepting the number.
Ask about fixed monthly charges too. They do not fall when your consumption falls, so a household that halves its energy purchase does not halve its bill, and a projection that assumes otherwise is overstating the result.
Costing it out on TVA 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 in Memphis receives no federal tax credit, and Tennessee 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.
What exists is the retail value of electricity you consume as it is generated, the avoided-cost value of what you export under Dispersed Power Production, and your local power company fixed charges, which do not move.
Ask for the projection built from your own rate off a recent bill, with the self-consumption share stated and fixed charges included. Then ask for the interconnection timeline in writing.