Kansas solar incentives in 2026, after the federal credit expired.

Kansas's main residential solar incentives in 2026 are the K.S.A. 79-201 Eleventh 10-year property tax exemption on solar panels and inverters (batteries excluded), and K.S.A. 66-1263 net metering for Evergy and Liberty customers. Kansas has no state-level HOA solar protection statute (unlike Missouri RSMo 442.404), no state solar tax credit, no sales tax exemption, and no active utility rebates.

Kansas is a bit of a paradox in the post-ITC era. On paper, the state's incentive list looks thinner than Missouri's. But Kansas has one major advantage Missouri does not: a real, court-tested, currently enforceable property tax exemption on solar panels under K.S.A. 79-201 Eleventh. Missouri's statutory exemption was struck down by the Missouri Supreme Court in 2022 and remains unenforceable. Kansas's exemption is alive and well. For a homeowner who plans to stay in their Kansas home for 10+ years, that exemption can be worth $1,500 to $3,000 over the system's life depending on county property tax rates and home values.

The rest of this guide explains each Kansas incentive in detail: what it is, who qualifies, how to claim it, and what the post-ITC math looks like compared to 2025. We finish with a worked example for a typical 8 kilowatt Kansas install on Evergy.

Section 25D had originally been extended through 2032 under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The OBBBA accelerated the expiration by nearly a decade. Congressional Research Service references the bill as Public Law 119-21 (H.R. 1, 119th Congress).

The OBBBA preserved the commercial Investment Tax Credit under Section 48E for projects that begin construction by July 4, 2026, with placement in service deadlines extending to 2027 and 2028 depending on project type. The commercial credit remains available to third-party owners of residential solar systems (solar leases and Power Purchase Agreements) because the leasing or PPA company owns the equipment and claims the commercial credit, not the homeowner.

Solar Assure does not sell leases or Power Purchase Agreements in Kansas. We sell ownership systems, which deliver much better lifetime savings than leased systems for the typical Kansas homeowner.

Two notes for Kansas homeowners who installed a system in 2025:

• If your system was placed in service on or before December 31, 2025, you can still claim the 30 percent credit on your 2025 federal return (filed by April 15, 2026, or October 15 with extension) using IRS Form 5695.
• Section 25D allows unlimited carryforward of unused credit. If your 2025 credit exceeds your 2025 federal tax liability, the unused portion rolls forward to 2026 and beyond and continues to offset future federal tax liability until used up.

The Section 25C Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit (heat pumps, insulation, windows, doors) also expired on December 31, 2025 under the same legislation.

The exemption is filed with the county appraiser's office, not automatically applied. The application typically requires the system specifications, the installation invoice, a description of the renewable energy resource type, and basic property identification. Solar Assure provides Kansas customers with the exemption documentation packet as part of the install paperwork. The clock starts from the year of filing, so filing promptly after Permission to Operate is the right move.

Practical math: the median Kansas home value is approximately $184,000. Solar typically adds 4 percent of home value (about $7,400) per Berkeley Lab and Zillow research. Kansas's average effective property tax rate is approximately 1.33 percent. Without the exemption, the added solar value would generate about $98 per year in additional property tax. Over the 10-year exemption window, that totals roughly $980 protected. Higher-value homes with above-average county tax rates can see $1,500 to $3,000 in protected property tax over the 10 years.

Important limit on the exemption: The Kansas Court of Tax Appeals has ruled that K.S.A. 79-201 Eleventh applies to solar panels and inverters but does NOT apply to battery storage systems in residential installations. Battery components are assessed at full market value. Solar Assure typically prices Kansas Franklin aPower 2 battery installations with this in mind; the K.S.A. 79-201 exemption math applies only to the panel and inverter portion of the system.

For the Missouri counterpart (where the statutory exemption was struck down by the Missouri Supreme Court), see our Missouri solar incentives 2026 guide.

The Kansas Net Metering and Easy Connection Act is codified at K.S.A. 66-1263 through K.S.A. 66-1271, originally enacted May 2009 and amended in major ways by HB 2527 in 2024 (signed by Governor Laura Kelly on June 6, 2024). The 2024 amendments are the most consequential change to Kansas residential solar policy in over a decade.

For systems beginning operation on or after July 1, 2024, the rules under HB 2527 are:

• Unified 150 kW cap across all customer classes (residential, commercial, industrial). Pre-2024, the residential cap was 25 kW.
• Mandatory sizing formula under K.S.A. 66-1267: generation capacity must match the customer's average load based on a 12-month historic kWh divided by 8,760 hours, divided by a 0.144 capacity factor, rounded to the nearest 2 kW under 20 kW or 5 kW between 20 and 150 kW.
• Effective January 1, 2026: generation capacity may not exceed export capacity by more than 50 percent, and energy storage devices (batteries, EVs) cannot be used in sizing calculations.
• Utility capacity cap (the share of utility peak load that can be served by net-metered systems) rises from 1 percent to 5 percent over 2024 to 2027 (1 percent annually).

On the compensation side, this is where Kansas net metering departs sharply from Missouri's:

• Within a billing month, exports offset imports kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour. This part is identical to Missouri.
• Excess credits at month-end are credited to the customer's account at the utility's system average cost (approximately 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for Evergy in 2026), not the retail rate (approximately 13.6 cents per kilowatt-hour).
• Banked credits expire on March 31 each year with no payout. Missouri pays out residual credits at avoided cost annually; Kansas zeroes the balance.

The practical effect is that Kansas systems are best sized at or below 100 percent of annual usage to minimize uncompensated annual export. Oversizing in Kansas is economically pointless. In Missouri, oversizing to roughly 105 percent of annual usage can pay back via retail-rate net metering during the year. In Kansas, you size for self-consumption.

Net metering is mandatory only for the two investor-owned utilities (Evergy Kansas Metro, Evergy Kansas Central, and Liberty Utilities). Kansas electric cooperatives (Bluestem, FreeState, Kaw Valley, others) and municipal utilities (Kansas City BPU, others) are not statutorily required to offer net metering, though many do voluntarily on terms set by their member-owned boards.

For complete details with utility-specific math, read our Kansas net metering law guide. Our Evergy Kansas guide covers the IOU specifics.

In 2019, Evergy (operating at the time as Westar and Kansas City Power and Light) received Kansas Corporation Commission approval to charge customer-generators (solar households) extra demand-based monthly fees that non-solar customers in the same rate class did not pay. The intent was to recover what Evergy claimed were grid costs disproportionately attributable to solar customers. Solar advocates and customers challenged the approval.

This ruling is the reason Kansas solar economics work as well as they do. Without it, the utility would have effectively offset much of net metering's value through punitive rate structures. The decision has stood for over five years and is unlikely to be overturned in the foreseeable future. It is also part of why HB 2527 in 2024 had to expand net metering capacity rather than restrict it: the legislature recognized that aggressive rate-side restrictions would face judicial pushback.

Solar Assure tracks rate cases at the Kansas Corporation Commission. As of April 2026 there are no pending dockets that would re-introduce discriminatory solar fees in Kansas.

Kansas does not have a state-level HOA solar protection statute. Per the Kansas Legislative Research Department, Kansas is one of 21 states without an HOA solar access law. Three legislative bills (HB 2268 in 2024, SB 506 in 2024, SB 144 in 2025-26) have proposed creating one but none have passed. Kansas homeowners in deed-restricted communities have to negotiate within the framework of their subdivision's CCRs.

K.S.A. 58-3801 (the actual Kansas Solar Easements Act of 1979) is sometimes confused with HOA solar protection but is a different statute. K.S.A. 58-3801 covers solar easements created in writing and recorded with the county register of deeds, typically between neighbors to prevent shading from new structures or trees. It does not address HOA restrictions on a homeowner's own roof.

In the absence of a state-level law, individual Kansas HOAs have broad authority over architectural standards. That said, most HOAs are increasingly accommodating of solar given growing homeowner demand. Practical strategies that typically work in Kansas HOA-restricted communities include:

• Submit a thorough architectural review packet with detailed visual renderings and panel specifications.
• Offer to meet aesthetic standards (color match, conduit routing) where it does not significantly affect production.
• Cite the financial benefits to the homeowner and the broader trend toward solar acceptance.
• Propose a written architectural standard the HOA could adopt for future installations to streamline the review process.

Strategies that may not work without a state law backstop:

• Citing a state statute that requires HOA approval. There is no such Kansas statute.
• Threatening litigation. Without statutory backing, HOA defenders have meaningful leverage.
• Assuming covenants will be invalidated automatically. They will not.
• Skipping the architectural review process. The HOA covenant is contractually binding.

Solar Assure prepares HOA submission packets for customers in deed-restricted communities (especially Johnson County, where many neighborhoods have active HOAs) and handles architectural review correspondence on the homeowner's behalf. Joshua works directly with the HOA architectural committee to find compliant solutions wherever possible. For complete details on the Kansas HOA solar landscape including the failed legislative bills and practical strategies, read our Kansas HOA solar guide.

8 kW Evergy Kansas Metro residential solar install · 2026

Annual production at Kansas's 5.4 average peak sun hours: ~12,400 kilowatt-hours. At Evergy Kansas Metro's residential rate of approximately $0.115 per kilowatt-hour, gross annual electric value is around $1,425. Because Kansas net metering pays only system average cost (~2.4 cents per kWh) on monthly excess and zeros out annually on March 31, we use $1,150 as the conservative annual offset for a system sized close to 100 percent of usage and self-consumed during the day.

Two notes on this math: First, Kansas residential rates have risen approximately 9 percent over the past three years per EIA data, so the 3 percent annual inflation assumption is conservative. Second, Evergy Kansas Central residents (Wichita, Topeka, central Kansas) typically see slightly different per-kWh rates than the Metro territory; the structure of the math is the same, but the production-side values shift up or down by roughly 5 to 10 percent.

The two big takeaways for a homeowner deciding between sides of the state line:

• Kansas wins on property tax. The K.S.A. 79-201 Eleventh exemption is real and worth $1,200 to $3,000 over 10 years on a typical home.
• Missouri wins on net metering. Retail-rate compensation versus Kansas's 2.4 cents per kWh is a much larger lifetime gap than property tax savings, especially for systems sized at or above 100 percent of usage.

For most metro Kansas City households, the side of the state line you live on is determined by where you bought your house, not by solar economics. Solar Assure operates in both states and the math works in both. Read our Missouri incentives 2026 guide for the Missouri counterpart.