*Dominion Energy South Carolina, Duke Energy Carolinas and Progress, and Santee Cooper export terms, plus the 25% state tax credit, current as of July 2026, per S.C. Code §12-6-3587, the Act 62 Solar Choice tariffs, and South Carolina Public Service Commission filings.
South Carolina Solar Incentives in 2026
The incentives that survive into 2026 fall into three groups: the permanent tax rules that apply automatically, the utility export credits that depend on your territory, and the one rebate limited to a single utility.
Incentive | How It Works | Who Collects It |
|---|---|---|
25% State Tax Credit (§12-6-3587) | Credits 25% of purchase and installation against state income tax, capped at $3,500 a year with a 10-year carryforward | Homeowner who buys or finances |
Net Metering (Solar Choice) | Nets your output against usage each month; surplus is paid at the utility’s avoided-cost rate | Homeowner; bill credits post to the host account even on a lease |
Property-tax Exemption (§12-37-220) | Added home value from a system of 20 kW or less is exempt from property tax | Homeowner |
Santee Cooper Rebate | $950 per kW up to $5,700, for Santee Cooper customers only | Santee Cooper customer who owns the system |
Federal Tax Credit (25D) | Section 25D, the buyer-side credit that expired for 2026 installs | No 2026 buyer can claim it |
Federal Tax Credit (48E) | The commercial credit the company that owns a leased system can claim | The leasing company |
Community solar | A share of an offsite array credits your monthly bill | The subscribing household |
Two features set South Carolina apart from the states around it. There is no state sales-tax exemption on solar equipment, and there is no market to sell solar renewable energy credits, so a homeowner here relies on the state income tax credit, since the recurring payments other states run do not exist here. The value of everything else, above all the export credit, turns on your utility.
Find out what South Carolina programs are available to you!
The Federal Credit in 2026: Gone for Buyers, Alive for Leases
The single biggest change for 2026 is federal, and in South Carolina it plays out differently depending on whether you own the system or lease it.
When You Buy or Finance, Section 25D Is Now $0
The 30% Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D ended for any system installed after December 31, 2025. The IRS treats the expense as made when the installation is completed, so a system you finish in 2026 cannot claim it even if you paid a deposit last year. A homeowner who buys or finances this year gets no federal credit, though unused credit from a pre-2026 install can still carry forward.
That loss matters more here because South Carolina has no state production payment to soften it. The state credit and the export rules now set the return, so whether solar pays off in South Carolina turns on those two pieces.
When You Lease, Section 48E Goes to the Installer
One federal option remains, and it is the only one available through a third party in this state. South Carolina prohibits solar power purchase agreements, so a lease is the sole third-party option.
On a lease, the company that owns the panels can claim the commercial clean-electricity credit under Section 48E and may fold part of that value into a lower monthly payment. The credit goes to the company that owns the system, and the homeowner never files it. Current terms require construction to begin by July 4, 2026, so a lease signed late this year qualifies only if the installer can show its build already started.
The same trade runs through $0-down solar offers in South Carolina: the financier keeps the credit and the export value in exchange for the lower payment.
South Carolina’s 25% State Tax Credit Now Carries the Load
With the federal credit gone for buyers, the state’s own tax credit is the most valuable incentive a South Carolina homeowner can claim in 2026. Under S.C. Code §12-6-3587, you can claim 25% of the purchase and installation cost of a solar system against your state income tax.
The credit has two limits worth understanding before you count on the full amount. It is capped at $3,500 per facility per year, or 50% of your state tax liability for the year, whichever is less, and any excess carries forward for up to ten years.
The statute states its timing rule plainly: “The tax credit allowed by this section must not be claimed before the completion of the installation.”
On a representative 8.58 kW system priced at $24,016, the 25% credit comes to $6,004. The $3,500 annual cap means you claim it across at least two tax years rather than all at once, and a smaller state tax bill spreads it further still.
The credit follows ownership. Buy the system with cash or a loan and it is yours; sign a lease and the company that owns the panels takes it instead, since the statute ties the credit to the party that paid for the purchase and installation. You claim it on Form TC-38, and the system needs certification to the state’s standards before the credit is allowed.
Net Metering in South Carolina Runs on Avoided-Cost Exports
Net metering is where South Carolina diverges most from the states that made rooftop solar famous. The state does not credit your exported power at the full retail rate.
Under the Solar Choice program created by Act 62 of 2019, both Duke utilities net your production against your usage each month and pay any surplus at a net excess credit of 4.01¢ to 4.19¢/kWh.
Dominion treats exports a step more generously. Excess first offsets usage within the same time-of-use period at the retail rate, and only the remainder left at the November true-up pays out at its 4.14¢ avoided cost. Either way, the credit sits below the 2026 statewide average retail price of 15.93¢.
This design rewards using your own power as you generate it rather than sending it to the grid. The more of your production your home consumes directly, the more each solar kilowatt-hour is worth, because a kilowatt-hour you use offsets the full retail price while a kilowatt-hour you export earns only the lower avoided-cost credit.
South Carolina’s retail rates are climbing, if slowly, at a five-year compound rate of 1.84%, with larger one-time increases approved for 2026 as Dominion and Duke Progress reset their base rates. Every increase lifts the value of the power your panels let you avoid buying. That is how an avoided-cost state still rewards solar: the benefit comes from cutting your own usage, not from selling surplus.
How Much Each Utility Pays for Exported Power
Each utility sets its own credit, so the same array pays back differently depending on your address. The table shows the current surplus rate and the monthly minimum bill you still owe once you go solar.
Utility | Export Credit for Surplus | Monthly Minimum |
|---|---|---|
Dominion Energy South Carolina | 4.14¢/kWh at true-up; in-period excess offsets at retail | $13.50 |
Duke Energy Carolinas | 4.19¢/kWh (net excess) | $30.00 |
Duke Energy Progress | 4.01¢/kWh (net excess) | $30.00 |
Santee Cooper | 4.15¢/kWh (plus a $10 monthly rider) | Three-part rate |
The minimum bill matters as much as the credit. A Duke customer owes $30 a month no matter how much the panels produce, while a Dominion customer owes $13.50, so the same system leaves a different floor under your bill depending on the territory.
The Net-Metering Cliffs That Already Fired, and the One Ahead
South Carolina’s older, more generous net metering has been closing in stages, and the timing decides what terms your system keeps. Homeowners who applied before May 16, 2019 held full retail net metering until it expired on December 31, 2025, and those systems rolled onto Solar Choice on January 1, 2026.
A second group, homeowners who applied between May 16, 2019 and May 31, 2021, keep retail net metering until May 31, 2029. Anyone connecting today goes straight onto Solar Choice with avoided-cost exports. Grandfathering locks in the terms in place when you connect, but only until each window’s stated end date, so your interconnection date decides which regime you live under and which deadline ends it.
Santee Cooper Runs Its Own Rules and the State’s Only Rebate
If Santee Cooper is your utility, the incentive set changes, because the state-owned utility sits outside the Public Service Commission and writes its own solar rules. It is the only South Carolina utility that pays an upfront cash rebate.
The Santee Cooper rebate pays $950 per kW up to $5,700, and it comes with real limits: your installer must be an approved Trade Ally with a NABCEP-certified professional, and, per the program’s 2026 manual, the rebate covers up to 6 kW of capacity per meter for the life of the account, with first-come funding and a waitlist for the program year running December 1, 2025 to November 30, 2026.
Santee Cooper also credits exported power on its own terms. Its DG rider pays 4.15¢/kWh for surplus with an added $10 monthly charge, and its retail rate is built from a customer charge, a demand charge, and an energy charge rather than a single per-kilowatt-hour price, which makes a quick payback estimate unreliable without a full bill review.
For customers who cannot install on their own roof, Santee Cooper runs a Solar Share community program. No South Carolina city or county pays its own residential solar rebate on top of these utility programs, so the utility that serves you sets the local ceiling on what you can collect.
The Property-Tax Break for Home Solar, Capped at 20 kW
A solar array adds assessed value to a South Carolina home, and county assessors would ordinarily tax that increase the way they tax any other improvement. For home systems of 20 kW or less, the state takes that increase off the table.
Under S.C. Code §12-37-220, the added value from a residential solar system of 20 kW or less is exempt from property tax, so the value the system adds at resale never shows up on your county tax bill. The statute lists no application requirement, and the exemption does not depend on any yearly budget.
One gap is worth naming. South Carolina does not exempt solar equipment from sales tax, so unlike Florida and several neighbors, you pay the state sales tax on the hardware at purchase, one piece of what solar costs in South Carolina. The property-tax exemption is real and permanent; the sales-tax break simply does not exist here.
Who Collects Each Incentive in South Carolina
Every incentive on this page has an owner, and in South Carolina two questions settle who that is: whose name is on the system, and which utility serves the meter.
Who Qualifies for the Full Set
If you own your home, own the system, and one of the investor-owned utilities serves you, you collect the whole set: the state tax credit, net metering under Solar Choice, and the property-tax exemption. Santee Cooper customers add the rebate but work under that utility’s separate rules. Cooperative members fall outside Act 62, and their board-set export credits and terms vary, so confirm your co-op’s policy before you plan around a number.
Buy or Lease: Who Keeps the Credit
Ownership decides the rest. Buy or finance the system and the state tax credit and the net-metering value are yours. Sign a lease, the only third-party option South Carolina allows under §58-27-2610, and the company that owns the panels keeps the state credit and the 48E federal credit in exchange for the lower monthly payment.
State law does send the export bill credits on a leased system to the host customer’s account rather than the provider, one detail that favors the homeowner, but the tax benefits still leave with the owner.
Before you sign anything, get clear on which of these benefits survives the contract in front of you, and start by vetting South Carolina solar installers.
Where Solar Incentives Fall Short for Low-Usage Duke Homes
Solar does not pay everywhere in South Carolina, and the incentives cannot rescue every home. These are the cases where they fall short.
Low-usage homes are the clearest example. Under Duke, the $30 monthly minimum bill is non-bypassable, and surplus earns only 4.01¢ to 4.19¢/kWh. A household using 300 kWh a month offsets little variable cost while still owing the $30 floor, which pushes payback past the useful life of the system. Below 500 kWh a month, solar rarely pays under Duke’s Solar Choice rules.
A renter or condo owner controls no roof, which rules out an owned system from the start. A home with heavy shade, or a roof with under ten years of life left, should wait, since removing and resetting an array to re-roof erases the savings. South Carolina also has no law protecting solar access from a homeowners association, so an HOA can restrict or block panels outright, a risk worth checking against your recorded governing documents before you sign.
For anyone shut out of an owned system, community solar is the fallback. Dominion runs a community solar program, and Santee Cooper offers Solar Share, both letting you subscribe for bill credits with no equipment on your roof.
Match South Carolina’s Solar Incentives to Your Utility
In South Carolina, the utility named on your bill decides most of what you can collect, from the export credit to the one rebate.
Enter your ZIP code to see the programs, export terms, and exemptions in force at your address, sized against a system built for your usage.
Find out what South Carolina programs are available to you!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. South Carolina offers a 25% state income tax credit on the purchase and installation of a home solar system under §12-6-3587. It is capped at $3,500 per year or 50% of your state tax liability, whichever is less, with a 10-year carryforward for any excess.
No, buyers can no longer claim it. Section 25D pays $0 on systems installed after December 31, 2025. The one federal option left in South Carolina runs through a lease, where the leasing company claims the Section 48E commercial credit and prices part of it into your payment.
The state moved to Solar Choice net billing under Act 62. At the Duke utilities, exported surplus is paid at a net excess credit of 4.01¢ to 4.19¢/kWh, and at Dominion the excess first offsets same-period usage at retail before the remainder pays out at the November true-up. Power you use as you generate it always earns the full retail rate, so self-consumption drives the return.
Yes. Santee Cooper pays $950 per kW up to $5,700 for its own customers, limited to 6 kW per meter, with an approved installer and first-come funding. No other South Carolina utility offers an upfront solar rebate.
No. South Carolina prohibits residential solar power purchase agreements. Leasing is legal and is the only third-party financing the state allows, and on a lease the company keeps the tax credits while the export bill credits post to your account.
No. Under §12-37-220, the added home value from a residential system of 20 kW or less is exempt from property tax. The statute lists no application requirement, and the exemption lasts as long as the system is in place.
No. South Carolina does not run a solar renewable energy credit market, so there is no monthly production income to sell. The state’s recurring solar value comes from net metering and the 25% tax credit instead.
*Methodology: The representative system size and cost in this guide come the EcoGen Solar Cost Index, which blends current marketplace installation pricing against Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NREL, and SEIA/Wood Mackenzie benchmarks. South Carolina’s statewide residential electricity price is drawn from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Incentive values, tariff rates, and export credits come from South Carolina statutes, utility tariffs, and Public Service Commission filings.
References & Research Sources:
EcoGen America reviewed federal electricity price data, South Carolina tax statutes, state solar policy legislation, utility solar choice tariffs, federal tax guidance, solar rebate program materials, avoided cost and distributed generation rate resources, federal research materials, and solar production modeling tools for this article. Sources were accessed July 9, 2026, unless another publication, release, effective, or update date is listed below.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State, Year-to-Date Through April 2026 and 2025. Federal residential electricity price data table. Released June 25, 2026. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- South Carolina General Assembly. South Carolina Code of Laws § 12-6-3587: Purchase and Installation of Solar Energy System for Heating Water, Space Heating, Air Cooling, or Generating Electricity. State solar energy income tax credit statute. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- South Carolina General Assembly. South Carolina Code of Laws § 12-37-220: General Exemption from Taxes. Property tax exemption statute, including renewable energy resource property provisions. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- South Carolina General Assembly. Act No. 62, H.3659: South Carolina Energy Freedom Act. State solar policy legislation, including Section 58-27-2610 related to leases of renewable electric generation facilities. Signed May 16, 2019. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS). South Carolina Energy Freedom Act. Solar Choice and Energy Freedom Act consumer resource. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Residential Clean Energy Credit. Federal Section 25D tax credit guidance. Updated July 4, 2026. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Treasury, IRS Issue FAQs to Address the Accelerated Termination of Several Energy Provisions Under OBBB. Federal clean energy tax guidance. Published August 21, 2025. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC. Rider RSC (SC): Residential Solar Choice. South Carolina Third Revised Leaf No. 136; Public Service Commission of South Carolina Docket No. 2020-264-E, Order No. 2021-390. Effective January 1, 2026. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Duke Energy Progress, LLC. Residential Solar Choice Rider RSC. South Carolina Second Revised Leaf No. 663; Public Service Commission of South Carolina Docket No. 2020-265-E, Order No. 2021-390. Effective January 1, 2026. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Dominion Energy South Carolina, Inc. Rate PR-1: Small Power Production, Cogeneration. Electric cogeneration and standby rate schedule. Effective for bills rendered on and after the first billing cycle of January 2026. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Santee Cooper. Residential Solar Programs: EmpowerSolar. Solar Home rebate and rooftop solar program resource. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Santee Cooper. Solar Customers. Distributed Generation Rider resource for retail customers who install distributed generation. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Congressional Research Service (CRS). Expiration and Carryforward Rules for the Residential Clean Energy Credit. CRS Insight IN12611. By Nicholas E. Buffie. Published September 25, 2025. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Tracking the Sun: Pricing and Design Trends for Distributed Photovoltaic Systems in the United States, 2024 Edition. Distributed solar pricing, design, and market trend report. Published 2024. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). PVWatts Calculator. Solar photovoltaic energy production modeling tool. Accessed July 9, 2026.
- South Carolina Department of Revenue. SC Schedule TC-38: Solar Energy, Small Hydropower System, or Geothermal Machinery and Equipment Credit. South Carolina income tax credit form and instructions. Revised March 28, 2022. Accessed July 9, 2026.
