Every claim on this page checked against primary sources on
Missouri solar rebates, utility by utility, 2026
Columbia Water and Light is the only Missouri utility still paying a solar rebate: $500 per kW for the first 10 kW, with a tiered and performance based rebate above that, plus a premium rebate for systems designed to perform best during peak periods. Ameren Missouri, Evergy and Liberty (Empire District) have all stopped: Ameren's schedule schedule ended december 31, 2023; the system had to be operational and sections e and f filed by that date, and Liberty stopped taking applications on August 6, 2023, while Evergy's help page still describes a rebate in the present tense but names no amount and no schedule is on file. Net metering under section 386.890 applies to every one of these utilities, plus municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives, regardless of whether a rebate is open. Program rows were checked against each utility's own pages on September 13, 2026; rows carried forward from the July 29, 2026 sweep say so in their verified date.
Which Missouri utility still pays a solar rebate?
Columbia Water and Light, and as far as we have verified, only Columbia Water and Light. It pays $500 per kw for the first 10 kw, with a tiered and performance based rebate above that, plus a premium rebate for systems designed to perform best during peak periods, and its program page states no closing date, funding pool or waitlist. Every investor-owned utility rebate in Missouri, Ameren, Evergy and Liberty, has ended or was never given an amount. The reason Columbia's survived is structural: the two statutes that closed the investor-owned rebates, sections 393.1030 and 393.1670, bind an "electrical corporation," and a municipally owned utility is not one.
Verified against primary sources on .
Columbia Water and Light: open
Amount: $500 per kW for the first 10 kW, with a tiered and performance based rebate above that, plus a premium rebate for systems designed to perform best during peak periods.
Status: Open. The program page carries no closing date, no funding cap and no waitlist.
How to apply: The rebate page names [email protected] and 573.441.5528 as the program contact and publishes a solar rebate calculator spreadsheet dated 2025. It does not print a written application procedure.
What the record could not confirm: the tier amounts above 10 kW, the size of any funding pool, and the application procedure itself. The page states none of these, and this page is not going to guess them. Whether the rebate reaches a leased or third-party-owned system is also not stated either way.
Columbia's rebate belongs to the City of Columbia only; an Ameren, Evergy or Liberty customer cannot claim it. Columbia Water and Light, solar rebates, read September 13, 2026.
Ameren Missouri: closed
Amount, while it ran: Last rate paid: 25 cents per watt for systems becoming operational between July 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023, capped at 25 kW for a residential system. The authorizing statute expired December 31, 2023.
Status: Ended. Schedule ended December 31, 2023; the system had to be operational and Sections E and F filed by that date Ameren Missouri, 2019-2023 Solar Rebates
How to apply: No application, program closed. Ameren's customer-owned solar FAQ answers "Are there Solar Rebates?" only with a status lookup for customers who already applied.
Net metering continues regardless: Ameren Missouri credits exports at 3.84 cents per kWh in summer billing months (June through September) and 3.39 cents per kWh in winter billing months (October through May). Ameren Missouri solar FAQs, read September 13, 2026.
Evergy (Missouri Metro and Missouri West): no amount published
Amount: Evergy publishes no amount, no cap and no end date for this rebate. The help page describes "a rebate per watt of solar energy generated" and stops there.
Status: Help page still present and written in the present tense, no amount published, and no solar rebate schedule in the filed Missouri West tariff Evergy help center, What is the Solar Power Rebate? The filed tariff is the record; the help page is marketing copy that was not updated when the program lapsed.
How to apply: No application procedure is published, and none should be expected given that no schedule is on file.
Battery storage, separately: Evergy's Residential Battery Energy Storage Pilot (Schedule RBES) is a battery program, not a rebate, and its own two sources disagree. Tariff funding cap ran through December 31, 2025. Evergy's own pilot page is still recruiting and says the pilot ends in 2026. Evergy battery storage program, read September 13, 2026. This page states what both sources say rather than picking one.
Liberty / Empire District: closed
Amount, while it ran: No rebate is offered. The last rate was the statutory twenty-five cents per watt under section 393.1670.
Status: Ended August 6, 2023. Applications already in had until December 31, 2023 to be operational. Liberty's Missouri solar page states verbatim: "As of Aug. 6, 2023, Liberty no longer offers solar rebates."
How to apply: No application, program closed.
Net metering continues under Tariff Schedule NM; the application sits in the Net Metering Rider on Liberty's Missouri Electric Rate page, and completed forms go to Liberty, ATTN: ENERGY SERVICES/NET METERING, PO Box 127, Joplin MO 64802. Liberty, solar for home and business (Missouri), read September 13, 2026.
Cooperatives and municipals: no rebate list found
Sections 393.1030 and 393.1670, the statutes that closed the investor-owned rebates, bind an "electrical corporation," a term that reaches only Commission-regulated investor-owned utilities. A rural electric cooperative operating under chapter 394 and a municipal utility operating under chapter 91 sit outside both statutes, which is exactly why Columbia Water and Light's rebate survived. That also means a cooperative rebate is legally possible, since nothing forbids one.
We looked in two places and found no cooperative rebate list. The Missouri Public Service Commission's net metering page carries only the annual net metering reports jurisdictional utilities must file by April 15 each year, and lists no rebate programs. Missouri PSC, Net Metering Reports The Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives site has no rebate list and no solar incentive page; its only relevant language is a general sentence about promoting energy efficiency. Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives Individual cooperative sites were not swept one by one, so this is not a claim that no cooperative anywhere offers a rebate, only that none turned up at the two places a statewide list would live.
Net metering still applies. Section 386.890 defines "retail electric supplier" to include municipally owned electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives alongside investor-owned utilities, so a co-op or municipal customer nets at retail inside each billing period the same as an Ameren, Evergy or Liberty customer. The one difference is who sets the export rate for credit beyond the billing period: for a co-op or municipal, that "avoided fuel cost" figure is set by the utility's own governing board rather than by the Commission, and no individual board's number was read for this page.
Set the PACE St. Louis: financing, not a rebate
Financing, not a rebate: 100 percent upfront financing through fixed-rate loans of up to 20 years, repaid through a voluntary assessment that transfers with the property. It is administered by the Missouri Energy Initiative for the City of St. Louis Clean Energy Development Board. It is not a rebate and it does not reduce the cost of a system, it spreads the payment. Set the PACE St. Louis, read September 13, 2026. The site is commercial-heavy and does not detail residential terms, and the domain sometimes quoted as setthepacestl.com does not resolve; the working domain is setthepacestlouis.com.
Net metering applies no matter which row above is closed
Every utility on this page, open rebate or not, sits inside the Net Metering and Easy Connection Act. It nets your generation against your own consumption at retail rate-class pricing inside each billing period, it binds municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives as well as investor-owned companies, and the renewable energy certificates start out belonging to you. Above your own consumption, the credit drops to avoided fuel cost, and any unused credit expires after twelve months for nothing. The full net metering breakdown is on the Missouri hub.
Also worth naming plainly: section 393.1030 was amended effective August 28, 2025 (S.B. 4), and its subsection 4 says "Nothing in this section shall prevent an electrical corporation from offering rebates after July 1, 2020, through an approved tariff." Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1030 The mandated schedule is dead, but a voluntary tariff rebate from Ameren or Evergy is not forbidden by statute. None currently offers one.
Back to the Missouri hub for the full program table and net metering rates, or the property tax exemption page for the part of Missouri solar law a court, not a legislature, changed.
Common questions
Does Ameren Missouri still pay a solar rebate?
No. Ameren Missouri's rebate under section 393.1670 paid twenty-five cents per watt for systems operational through December 31, 2023, and the statute expired by its own subsection 7 on that date. Ameren's customer-owned solar FAQ names no rebate available today; it answers "Are there Solar Rebates?" only with a status lookup for customers who already applied.
Does Evergy pay a solar rebate in Missouri?
Evergy's help center still describes a rebate in the present tense, but it names no dollar amount, no cap and no end date, and the complete filed Missouri West tariff book has no solar rebate schedule anywhere in it. Treat the filed tariff as the record and the help page as marketing copy that has not been updated.
Is the $300 per kW smart inverter rebate available in Missouri?
No. That rebate is an Ameren Illinois program for Illinois rate classes DS-1 through DS-4. Ameren's Missouri solar FAQ page names no smart inverter rebate. The two are easy to confuse because both live on ameren.com, but only one is Missouri's.
Which Missouri utility still pays a solar rebate?
Columbia Water and Light, a municipal utility serving the City of Columbia only. It pays $500 per kW for the first 10 kW, tiered above that, with no closing date published. Ameren Missouri, Evergy and Liberty have all closed their investor-owned rebates.
Do Missouri electric cooperatives have to offer net metering?
Yes. Section 386.890 defines "retail electric supplier" to include rural electric cooperatives operating under chapter 394 alongside investor-owned utilities and municipal utilities, so a co-op customer nets at retail inside each billing period the same as any other Missouri customer. What a co-op sets on its own is the avoided fuel cost rate paid for credit left over after a billing period; that number comes from the cooperative's own governing board.
Are there free solar panels in Missouri?
No. No program found in this research gives away a solar system. Columbia Water and Light's rebate covers part of the cost of a system a homeowner still buys and installs, and Set the PACE St. Louis is financing that still has to be repaid through a property tax assessment. Any offer describing free panels is not one of the programs on this page.
Do Missouri utility solar rebates change what net metering pays?
No. Net metering under section 386.890 applies to every utility on this page regardless of whether its rebate is open or closed. A closed rebate only affects the upfront cost of a system; the export credit for excess generation is set separately, by the Commission for investor-owned utilities and by each utility's own governing board for municipals and cooperatives.