Home Solar Done Right: Tax Credits, Financing Math and Red Flags Before You Sign Anything
You evaluate rooftop solar with written math, not a sales pitch: which federal incentives survive in 2026, how cash, loan, lease and PPA offers differ in ownership and true cost, whether production estimates match the roof, what the utility pays for exported power, which contract clauses signal trouble, and how an honest payback period comes out — with or without batteries.
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Who it's for
US homeowners weighing a rooftop solar offer — especially anyone receiving door-to-door visits, mailers or calls — and homeowners who signed recently and want to know their cancellation rights before the window closes.
About this playbook
A lookup guide for homeowners facing a rooftop solar pitch: what remains of the federal tax credit after its December 2025 termination, how cash, loan, lease and PPA offers differ in true cost, whether promised production matches the actual roof, what the utility really pays for exported power, and which contract clauses separate a fair deal from a predatory one. Entries stand alone — open the section matching the question at hand, run the check, and write down the result. Every calculation is designed to be redone with your own bills, tariff and quotes instead of the numbers printed in a sales proposal. The guide stops at the sign-or-walk decision; it does not cover DIY installation, off-grid systems, or preparing tax returns beyond pointing at the right form.
Covers 1 situation
Which describes you: shopping for solar offers, or signed a solar contract recently?
The playbook asks you along the way and shows you only the steps that apply to you.
What you'll do, step by stepFree preview
Only a sample is open: 4 of 21 steps can be read in full. The rest unlock when you buy.
Phase 1: Start here
1 stepPhase 2: Credits and what survives
4 stepsPhase 3: Financing math
4 stepsPhase 4: Production and roof
4 stepsPhase 5: Utility export
3 stepsPhase 6: Contracts and installers
3 stepsPhase 7: Decide
2 steps
Details
What you need first
A utility account showing twelve months of usage, any written proposal or contract already received, knowledge of whether the home is owned, and the utility's name and current rate plan.
Tags
Common questions
Glossary
- Residential Clean Energy Credit
- The federal tax credit for a homeowner who owns a residential solar system. This guide treats it as a 30% credit available only for systems placed in service on or before December 31, 2025, with no credit for systems placed in service in 2026.
- Section 25D
- The section of the Internal Revenue Code that authorizes the Residential Clean Energy Credit for homeowner-owned systems. The guide references it as the legal basis for the 30% credit that survives only for systems placed in service by the December 31, 2025 cutoff.
- Form 5695
- IRS form used to claim residential clean energy credits. The guide directs homeowners to claim any qualifying solar credit on this form for the tax year the system is placed in service.
- Permission to Operate
- Written authorization from the utility that allows an interconnected solar system to be energized and begin operating. The guide uses this date, not the contract signature or panel installation date, to decide whether the system meets the placed-in-service cutoff.
- PTO
- Abbreviation for Permission to Operate, the utility approval that marks when a system is considered placed in service. The guide tells the reader to save the PTO email or portal approval as proof of the placed-in-service month.
- DSIRE
- National database of state and utility incentives for renewables and efficiency. The guide uses it as a primary source to find active solar, storage, and exemption programs filtered to the reader’s state and residential sector.
- SREC
- Certificate created for each megawatt-hour of solar electricity produced in states with certificate markets. In this guide ownership determines who can sell the certificate for cash, and under a lease or PPA the finance company usually retains it.
- dealer fee
- Markup added to the principal of a solar loan by the installer’s lending partner, also labeled program, finance, platform fee, or original issue discount. The guide calculates it as loan principal minus the fee-free cash price for the same equipment and notes it raises true cost even when the advertised rate looks low.
