Indiana statutory framework and export compensation, with the filings that matter.
Indiana’s incentive list is two items long: a property tax deduction that removes your system’s value from your home’s assessment, and a statutory export rate that pays new solar customers a formula price for surplus power. Everything else worth knowing about Indiana incentives is the story of three dates on which things ended or changed. No state credit, no rebate, no performance program. What remains rewards households that read the rules.
Short lists have a virtue: nothing on this one expires, competes, or runs out of funding.
See what your Indiana utility files for exports
Three Dates That Built the Current Rules
Date | What happened | What it means in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
2017 | Senate Enrolled Act 309 set the phase-out of retail net metering and defined the excess distributed generation framework | The legal architecture your quote must be modeled under |
July 1, 2022 | Net metering closed to new residential customers of the investor-owned utilities | New systems are compensated for exports at the EDG rate, below retail |
December 31, 2025 | The federal residential credit ended for systems whose installation is completed after this date | $0 federal money; any quote subtracting 30% is a year out of date |
The Deduction: Indiana’s One Standing Offer
Indiana law allows homeowners to deduct the value of a solar energy system from their property’s assessed value, filed through your county auditor. It is a deduction against assessment, not a credit against tax owed, so its worth scales with your local rate and your system’s assessed contribution. It asks one thing of you: the filing. Unfiled is uncollected, and it is the most commonly skipped piece of paper in Indiana solar.
Both live items, and the confirmations that neither a credit nor a rebate exists:
Program | What it is | 2026 status | How to claim |
|---|---|---|---|
Property tax deduction | System’s assessed value deducted from your home’s assessment | Live | File with your county auditor; skipping the filing forfeits it |
EDG export rate | Utility-specific filed rate: prior-year average hourly wholesale price x 1.25 | Live | Automatic once interconnected; require the current filed figure in your proposal |
Indiana state tax credit | None | No program exists or is pending | Not applicable |
Statewide rebate | None | No program exists | Not applicable |
Federal 25D credit | $0 for systems you own whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025 | Ended | Third-party owners claim the separate 48E business credit |
The EDG Rate: The EDG Rate: A Filed Formula
Exports from new systems are compensated at the excess distributed generation rate, set by statutory formula, the prior-year average hourly wholesale market price multiplied by 1.25, and filed by each investor-owned utility with state regulators. Two of those filed rates are on record: NIPSCO pays $0.038333 per kilowatt-hour (effective March 31, 2025) and AES Indiana pays 3.935¢. Three things follow:
- The rate is public and utility-specific. Your proposal should name your utility’s current filed figure.
- It sits below retail, which makes self-consumption the valuable half of every generated kilowatt-hour and makes usage timing the real Indiana question, examined in whether solar is worth it in Indiana.
- Munis and co-ops sit outside it. Municipal and cooperative utilities set their own export terms, sometimes less generous; verify yours before modeling anything.
What Does Not Exist Here
- No state income tax credit. Never has one existed for residential solar in Indiana.
- No statewide rebate. Money off the price comes from competitive quotes, not programs.
- No SREC market of consequence for homeowners.
- No federal residential credit for systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025, which is why $0-down offers deserve the reading in what free solar really means in Indiana.
You Should Not Expect Help If
- You want a check. Indiana’s two offers are an assessment deduction and a formula rate; neither mails anything.
- The deduction never gets filed. The county auditor does not chase you; the paperwork is yours or your installer’s to remember.
- Your quote leans on incentives from a neighboring state or a dead federal line. Indiana math has to stand on avoided electricity and real sizing.
See What My Utility Files for Exports
Enter your ZIP code and we will point you at your utility’s current EDG filing and the county paperwork for the deduction, before any proposal gets to do the pointing. Installers graded on exactly this fluency are in our Indiana installer rankings.
Get the deduction paperwork pointers for your ZIP
Frequently Asked Questions
Indiana’s solar incentives in 2026 are a property tax deduction removing the system’s value from your assessment, filed through the county auditor, and the statutory excess distributed generation rate paid for exported power. There is no state credit or rebate, and the federal residential credit ended for systems whose installation is completed after December 31, 2025.
No. Indiana has never offered a residential state income tax credit for solar, and the federal credit is now $0 for purchased systems. The state’s standing offer is the property tax deduction.
Not for new customers. Retail net metering closed to new residential customers of the investor-owned utilities on July 1, 2022, though systems interconnected before the closure keep retail netting until 2032, or 2047 for the earliest class. New systems are compensated at the EDG rate, a wholesale-tied formula filed by each utility, which sits below retail.
The assessed value attributable to your solar energy system is deducted from your property’s assessment once you file with your county auditor. It is not automatic: the filing is the incentive, and skipping it forfeits the benefit year after year.
It is your utility’s filed figure under a statutory formula: the prior-year average hourly wholesale price multiplied by 1.25. On record now: NIPSCO $0.038333 per kilowatt-hour (effective March 31, 2025) and AES Indiana 3.935¢. Require the current filed rate in your proposal, then judge the project on self-consumed value with exports as the discounted remainder.
For households whose usage aligns with production, or who shift loads or add storage, it can be, on avoided electricity alone. That verdict is usage-shaped instead of incentive-shaped, and our Indiana worth-it guide runs it properly.
References & Research Sources
EcoGen America reviewed Indiana statutes, regulatory filings, and county assessment guidance alongside federal tax guidance for this page. Sources were accessed August 20, 2026, unless another date is listed.
- Indiana General Assembly. Senate Enrolled Act 309 (2017) and IC 8-1-40. Legislation phasing out retail net metering and establishing excess distributed generation compensation at 1.25 times the prior-year average hourly wholesale price. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC). Excess Distributed Generation Rate Filings. State regulatory resource for each utility’s filed EDG rate, including NIPSCO’s $0.038333 effective March 31, 2025 and AES Indiana’s 3.935¢. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF). Renewable Energy Device Deduction Resources. State resource covering the property tax deduction and the county auditor filing. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC). Residential Solar Consumer Resources. State consumer resource covering rooftop solar economics and grandfathered netting classes. Accessed August 20, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS). One, Big, Beautiful Bill Provisions. Federal guidance confirming termination of the Section 25D residential credit for installations completed after December 31, 2025 under Public Law 119-21. Accessed August 20, 2026.
