Iowa solar leads

Sunlight at Des Moines

The PVWatts calculator, built at NREL and now hosted by the National Laboratory of the Rockies, turns typical-year weather into the solar energy that reaches a panel. For Des Moines, Iowa’s largest city in the Census Bureau’s July 1, 2025 estimates, the result is 4.72 kWh per square meter per day (checked October 9, 2026).

The method behind the number: PVWatts version 8 with its default array, fixed on an open rack, pointed south and tilted 20 degrees, at the city’s Census gazetteer location, using the National Solar Radiation Database typical year. A different town or roof pitch changes the result; it serves to compare places, not to predict one home’s output.

How Iowa bills rooftop solar

Iowa’s rule for rate-regulated utilities is a statute, Iowa Code 476.49 (Iowa Code 2026, checked October 9, 2026). It applies to an eligible distributed generation facility: one behind the customer’s meter, interconnected with the utility, no larger than 1 MW AC, able to produce no more than 110% of the customer’s yearly use and meant to serve only the site. Each rate-regulated utility files one of two tariffs:

• Net billing: the netting period is the monthly billing period, exported energy is credited in kilowatt-hours for future bills, and leftover kilowatt-hours after twelve months are cashed out at the utility’s avoided cost rate, half to the customer and half to the low-income energy assistance program (Iowa Code 476.49(3)(a), 2026).
• Inflow-outflow billing: energy is measured hourly or more often, and exports are credited in dollars at the outflow purchase rate. Until a value of solar rate is approved, that rate is the retail volumetric rate, fixed for 20 years (Iowa Code 476.49(3)(b), 2026).

The Iowa Utilities Commission lists the inflow-outflow tariffs it approved for the two rate-regulated utilities in November and December 2020, and says its interconnection standards are in 199 IAC chapter 15 for all utilities and chapter 45 for the rate-regulated ones (checked October 9, 2026). Neither method may add fees that other customers in the same rate class do not pay.

The statute also sets a later step. Under subsection 4, the commission opens a value of solar proceeding when a utility petitions after July 1, 2027 or when statewide distributed generation penetration reaches 5%, whichever is earlier. The commission’s published rate for 2025 was 3.90%: 317.7 MW of eligible facilities against a combined 2024 peak demand of 8,142 MW, up from 1.55% in 2020.

Iowa’s detached homes and owners

Few states lean as heavily on the single-family house. The Census Bureau’s table B25024 (ACS 5-year 2020-2024) counts 1,038,172 detached single-family homes among Iowa’s 1,437,699 housing units: 72.2%, behind only three states. In table B25032, 850,740 of 943,396 owner-occupied homes are detached, or 90.2%.

Housing age and home values are on Iowa window replacement leads, and furnaces, propane and degree days are on Iowa HVAC leads, so they are left off this page.

Planning Iowa solar coverage from these numbers

Iowa combines a housing stock dominated by owner-occupied houses with a statute that fixes how exports are credited for now and schedules a review. A buyer setting up Iowa coverage can take three points from the data:

• Most owners live in detached houses. With 90.2% of owner-occupied homes detached in the 2020-2024 ACS, housing type narrows few ZIP code lists; the area an installer can reach matters more.
• Rural counties matter. Over half of the owner-occupied detached homes are outside the ten largest counties in the ACS county data, so a coverage map drawn only around metro areas leaves much of the housing out.
• The billing rule has a review date. Iowa Code 476.49 allows a value of solar petition after July 1, 2027, while facilities on the retail outflow rate keep it for 20 years, a point installers explain on the first call.

Nothing in these points counts leads or says where they originate. They summarize Iowa’s housing, the solar already installed and the billing law.

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