Solar Energy Consulting
An independent solar energy consultant in Kentucky helps you decide whether, when and on what terms solar fits your home, farm or land, before anyone hands you a contract.
Before you can judge a solar proposal, you need to see your own roof the way the sun does.
Solar energy consulting is the work that happens before anyone quotes you a system or names a rent per acre. As an independent solar energy consultant in Kentucky, our job is to tell you whether solar fits your property and your plans, when it makes sense, and whether the terms in front of you are worth taking. We don’t sell panels and we don’t install, so the answer can honestly be “not yet.”
This discipline covers two very different decisions. A homeowner asks whether to put panels on the roof. A landowner asks whether to let a developer put thousands of panels on the back 200 acres. Both come down to timing, terms and what you give up.
Three things changed the ground under Kentucky solar decisions.
The federal homeowner credit is gone. The residential clean energy credit ended for expenditures after December 31, 2025, and the IRS treats an expenditure as made when installation is complete. A homeowner who buys a system today carries the full price.
Exports earn less than imports. Kentucky’s 2019 net metering law moved new customers to a dollar-denominated bill credit set by the Public Service Commission. In the 2026 LG&E and KU rate cases, the PSC kept the newer NMS-2 export credit at $0.07534 per kWh for KU and $0.07089 per kWh for LG&E. Kentucky Power and Duke Energy Kentucky have also moved new customers to export credits below retail, and many co-ops set their own terms.
Rates went up. LG&E and KU raised rates in January 2026 under a PSC rate-case decision. That makes each kilowatt-hour you avoid buying worth more, and each one you export worth comparatively less.
Put together, these produce the non-obvious insight at the center of this discipline: a solar kilowatt-hour now has two prices. One kWh used in your kitchen saves the full retail energy charge. The same kWh sent to the grid earns the export credit. The old rule of thumb, size the array to zero out your annual bill, can now mean producing a summer surplus and banking it at the lower price. Sizing to the hours you actually use power often matters more than sizing to the year.
Meanwhile, Kentucky farm families are receiving utility-scale lease offers measured in decades, often with option periods and extensions that stretch the commitment well past the headline term.
| Solar Readiness Consultation | Land Lease Offer Review | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it’s for | Homes and small buildings, before quotes | Landowners holding a developer’s offer |
| Core question | Is this property ready, and is now the time? | What is this offer worth, and what’s unanswered? |
| What we read | Bills, roof age, photos, tariff, your plans | Offer letters, draft leases, maps, farm income |
| What you get | Go, wait or skip, plus an installer brief | Side-by-side offers, plus attorney questions |
| Timeline | 75-minute session, summary in 3 business days | 7–10 business days |
If you already hold an installer’s proposal, you’ve moved past readiness. A Proposal Second Opinion is the better fit. Farm families can see how the lease decision plays out in our Christian County poultry farm scenario.
We compare, organize and explain. We don’t do engineering, structural review or electrical work, and we never interpret lease language or recommend signing. When a question belongs to a licensed roofer, electrician, attorney or tax adviser, we say so and hand you a written list to take with you. Our independence pledge explains why those limits are the point, and our net metering explainer covers the tariff details in full.
In this practice
75-minute session; written summary within 3 business days
A 75-minute session and written summary that tells you whether your home or small building is ready for solar now, what to sort out first, and what to ask installers.
Explore Solar Readiness Consultation
7–10 business days from complete documents
A commercial and financial comparison of utility-scale solar lease offers for Kentucky landowners, with organized questions for your attorney and tax adviser.
Explore Land Lease Offer ReviewWhat you walk away with
You learn whether your roof, your tariff and your plans line up now, or exactly what has to change first.
You walk into installer meetings, attorney visits and family conversations knowing what to ask and why it matters.
Quotes and lease offers arrive in different formats. We put them on one page, in the same units, over the same years.
Roof timing, export credits, ownership transfer and decommissioning terms get flagged before they cost money, not after.
How it works
Solar Readiness Consultation: 75-minute session, written summary within 3 business days. Land Lease Offer Review: 7–10 business days from complete documents.. You'll know the scope and the fee before any work begins.
A free 20-minute call. We learn the situation, say honestly whether we can help, and list the documents we'll need.
You receive the scope, deliverables, timeline and a fixed fee in writing before any work starts.
We work from your bills, photos, offers and drafts, plus your utility's published tariff and public data for your location.
You get a written summary with an assumptions page and a recorded call. Family members, partners and advisers are welcome.
Deliverables
Where our work stops
FAQ
Sometimes. The 30% residential clean energy credit ended for expenditures after December 31, 2025, so the answer now leans harder on price, on how much of your production you use yourself, and on your utility's export credit. A readiness consultation tells you which side of the line you're likely on before you collect quotes.
We can meet in person anywhere in Kentucky when it helps, but we don't climb on roofs or open electrical panels. We work from your bills, photos, documents and public data, and we list what a licensed roofer or electrician should look at.
An installer's consultation is the first step of a sale, and that's fine as far as it goes. We're paid a flat fee by you and nobody else, so the answer can be wait, or no, without costing us anything.
Not always. Kentucky's net metering statute applies to retail electric suppliers, including co-ops, but it excludes distributors whose power comes primarily from a federal agency, a carve-out generally understood to include TVA-served utilities in western Kentucky. Each utility's own tariff controls the details, and reading it is part of our work.
Related
Policy & Incentives
The 30% homeowner solar credit ended with 2025. How to judge Kentucky solar in 2026 using your rates, export credits, self-consumption and installed price.
Read more
Policy & Incentives
How Kentucky net metering works after SB 100: legacy 1:1 credits, LG&E and KU's NMS-2 export credit, Kentucky Power, Duke, co-ops and the 45 kW limit.
Read more
Who we serve
Independent help for Kentucky farm families weighing on-farm solar, comparing land lease offers, and sorting out co-op rules and 2026 program changes.
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Free tool
A free solar payback calculator built for Kentucky's below-retail export credits. Enter your system, price and rates to see first-year savings, the payback year and net savings over the life of the system.
Read moreNext step
Tell us what you are weighing. A free 20-minute fit call is enough to know whether we can help and what it would take.