The Solar Book

Every claim on this page checked against primary sources on

Is solar worth it in 2026?

It depends on your state and your utility far more than it did a year ago, and anyone giving you a single national payback figure for 2026 is averaging across rules that contradict each other. The federal credit was the one large term that was the same for everybody. It ended for expenditures made after December 31, 2025, and what is left is set locally.

Reading 12 states from primary sources, we found one that bans utility standby fees by name and another that requires a monthly charge calculated on the size of your array; one where bill credits never expire and one where they vanish after twelve months. This page gives you the six inputs that decide the answer instead of a number we cannot source.

Is solar still worth it in 2026?

For many households yes, but for a different reason than in 2025, and the answer now varies by state more than by anything about your roof. The federal residential credit covered 30% of system cost and applied identically in every state; it no longer applies to expenditures made after December 31, 2025. What remains is the electricity you generate and use yourself — valued at whatever your retail rate is, and usually the largest single term in the arithmetic — plus whatever your state and utility have decided exported electricity is worth, minus any charge your utility is allowed to impose for having the system. Those state terms differ enormously: across the 12 states on this site they range from full retail value for exports with credits that never expire and standby fees banned by statute, to no net metering at all plus a mandatory monthly charge based on your system's nameplate capacity. That is why this page will not give you a national payback figure.

Verified against primary sources on .

The six inputs, in the order they matter

1. Your retail electricity rate

This is almost always the largest term, and it is the one most often underweighted. A kilowatt-hour you generate and consume yourself is worth exactly the price you were not charged for it. That means a high-price state with ordinary sunshine routinely beats a sunnier state with cheap power — the sun is a smaller lever than the tariff.

It also means the states where solar pays back fastest are frequently not the ones people expect. We are not publishing retail rates on this site, because they change constantly and vary by utility and rate class within a state; your own bill is the authoritative source and it is in your hand.

2. How much of your own production you actually use

In most states this is the second-biggest lever, and it exists because of a structural fact set out on the net metering page: of the 12 states here, six operate a hybrid arrangement where generation offsets consumption at retail value within a billing period and only the surplus is exported at a lower rate.

Where that is true, every kilowatt-hour you consume on site is worth several times one you export — so the fraction of production you self-consume does more for payback than the export rate does. This is the arithmetic behind the advice that appears at the bottom of nearly every state page on this site: size the system to your consumption rather than to your roof.

3. What your exports are worth

Only one of the 12 states we have read operates something that would honestly be called net metering. Four use net billing, six are hybrid, and one has no net metering at all — in which case the question becomes whether a federal obligation requires the utility to buy from you, and at what.

The rate itself is not the whole story either. How often the netting is measured decides how much of your production counts as an export in the first place, and the same headline rate can mean very different things under monthly versus instantaneous netting.

4. Whether your utility can charge you for having solar

This is the input most likely to be missing from a quote, and the one where states disagree most starkly. One state on this site requires every customer with on-site generation to take a rider charging a monthly fee calculated on the nameplate capacity of the array. Two others ban standby, capacity and interconnection fees by name.

A recurring charge based on system size is a fixed annual subtraction that scales with the array, so it does not merely lengthen payback — it changes what size system is optimal. If you are in a state that permits one, ask to see a projected monthly bill at your proposed system size with that line on it.

5. What is left of the tax and rebate picture

The federal credit is gone for expenditures made after December 31, 2025. 26 U.S.C. § 25D What remains at state level is thinner than most guides suggest, and several of the things guides still list have expired or been struck down — which is the reason this site dates every claim.

Storage is the exception worth checking: five of the 12 states here have at least one residential battery program, and some pay in ways solar programs never did. The battery page sets those out.

6. Whether certificates are worth anything where you are

Four of the 12 states on this site have a certificate market a homeowner could in principle reach; eight do not. And owning certificates is a separate question from being able to sell them — one state here gives you unusually clean title to certificates nobody is obliged to buy. The certificates page explains the difference.

Two things that changed the answer more than people realize

The variance moved. Before 2026 the largest single term in most residential solar arithmetic was a federal credit that was identical in every state. Now the largest terms are all local, and they do not move together. That is why national advice about solar got substantially less useful in January 2026 than it had been in December 2025, even though nothing about the panels changed.

Ownership became a live question. Federal law now treats a system you buy and a system a company owns and leases to you very differently, while many state and utility programs still require the customer to own the system outright. That combination did not exist before and it is easy to end up on the wrong side of. The buy-versus-lease page is the one to read.

How to get an answer for your own house

  1. Find your state on the states index and read the summary table at the top. It says what is still on offer and when each entry was last checked.
  2. Note your export arrangement and, if it is hybrid, treat self-consumption as the number that matters most.
  3. Check whether your utility may charge you a fee for having the system, and if so get it shown on a projected bill.
  4. Take your own retail rate off your latest bill rather than a state average.
  5. Ask any installer to show the payback with and without each state-level item they have included, so you can see how much of the case rests on something that could change.

If a quote's payback figure includes a federal credit, a repealed state exemption or a rebate that has closed, it is describing a country that stopped existing at the end of 2025. Several state pages on this site document exactly that happening.

What this page does not cover yet

Each of those is queued. When one is verified it will appear above with its own date.

Common questions

Is solar worth it in 2026 now that the federal credit is gone?

For many households yes, but the answer is now set locally rather than nationally. The federal residential credit covered 30% of system cost and applied identically everywhere; it ended for expenditures made after December 31, 2025. What remains is the electricity you generate and use yourself, valued at your own retail rate and usually the largest term in the arithmetic, plus whatever your state and utility have decided exports are worth, minus any charge your utility may impose for having the system. Across the 12 states on this site those terms range from full retail value for exports with credits that never expire, to no net metering plus a mandatory monthly charge based on your array's nameplate capacity.

What is the solar payback period in 2026?

We do not publish one, and the reason is not evasion. A payback figure is an installed cost divided by an annual saving, and the annual saving now depends on state and utility rules that contradict each other between neighbouring states — one state on this site bans utility standby fees by name while another requires a monthly charge calculated on system size. A national average would combine those into a figure that describes neither. This page instead sets out the six inputs that determine payback and tells you where to source each for your own state, which is the honest version of the same answer.

Does sunshine or my electricity rate matter more?

Usually the electricity rate. A kilowatt-hour you generate and use yourself is worth exactly the retail price you avoided paying, so a high-price state with ordinary sun frequently beats a sunnier state with cheap power. That surprises people because sunshine is the visible variable, but the difference in retail rates between two states is generally larger in percentage terms than the difference in irradiance. It also means the fastest-payback states are often not the ones you would guess from a map.

Should I size my system to my roof or my usage?

To your usage, in most states, and it is arithmetic rather than preference. Six of the 12 states on this site use a hybrid arrangement where your generation offsets your consumption at full retail value within a billing period and only the surplus is exported at a lower rate. Under that structure every kilowatt-hour you consume on site is worth several times one you export, so panels beyond your own consumption earn a fraction of what the first ones did. Where a utility also charges a monthly fee based on nameplate capacity, oversizing costs you twice.

What is most likely to be wrong in a solar quote in 2026?

In our experience reading the primary sources, three things. A federal credit that no longer applies to expenditures made after December 31, 2025. A state benefit that has expired or been struck down but is still listed everywhere — several state pages on this site document exactly that, including one exemption a state supreme court held unconstitutional while the statute remained printed in the code. And a missing charge: if your utility is permitted to bill a monthly fee for having on-site generation, a payback figure that omits it is wrong by a fixed amount every year for the life of the system.

Is it better to buy or lease in 2026?

It is a genuinely open question now in a way it was not before, because federal law and state programs point in opposite directions. The federal credit for homeowners who buy was repealed while the commercial credit claimed by companies that lease survives on its own timeline — but many state and utility programs still require the customer to own the system outright, so a lease can capture a federal benefit you never see while forfeiting state money you would have received. Every incentive on this site carries an ownership label for exactly this reason, and the buy-versus-lease page sets out the statutory position.

Primary sources

Every one of these was opened and read on the date shown. None of it is copied from DSIRE, EnergySage, or any other aggregator.

Get told when this changes

Solar incentives in your state moved three times in the first half of 2026. We recheck every program on this site on a schedule and email you when a number, a deadline, or a rule actually changes — not on a newsletter cadence, and not when nothing has happened.