2023 Solar Incentives Guide for Twin Rivers, NJ - Tax Credits & Rebates

What Solar Tax Credits, Incentives, and Rebates are Available in Twin Rivers?

Source: https://www.dsireusa.org/

Solar incentives are meant to help mitigate the cost of installing a solar panel system on your home. Financial incentives like these are designed to encourage more Americans to switch their home over to renewable energy. Different types of incentives, including cash back, discounts or credit towards your monthly utility bill, may be available to you. Certain incentives may be handled by the New Jersey government, by your utility company or by county or municipality, while other incentives are federal. Types of solar incentives might include:

• Net Metering: Be sure to talk to your Twin Rivers utility company about signing a net metering agreement. This will allow you to receive credit towards your utility bill every month for the value of excess energy generated by your solar panels. You could receive either a dollar-for-dollar credit or a percentage of the value.
• Tax Credits: Tax credits lower, dollar-for-dollar, the amount of income tax you owe the federal government. Tax credits differ from tax deductions.
• Tax Exemptions: Your solar panels could qualify for both sales tax and property tax exemptions. Sales tax exemptions are effective at the time of purchase. Property tax exemptions allow you to ignore the value added by your solar panels when calculating property taxes on your home.
• Rebates: Solar rebates may be offered by your local utility company, or by your state or county. These rebates are essentially partial refunds that are applied after your purchase of a solar system and before tax credits are calculated.
• Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC): SRECs are credits that can be sold to your utility company (or other buyers) for money that normally counts as part of your taxable income. Typically, there is a small threshold of energy production to meet before your solar system can earn SRECs or similar performance-based incentives. Incentives like these are typically handled at the state level.

Federal Solar Incentives

When you think about solar incentives, you likely think of federal incentives first. You've likely heard of the Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit, or ITC. The ITC is a tax credit that reduces your taxes by a predetermined percentage of the money you spend on solar panels for your home.

The ITC originally covered 30% of the cost of installing solar panels, although that number has fluctuated slightly over the last few years between 26-30%. The percentage you qualify for will depend on when your solar system was installed. The cost of installation includes the panels themselves as well as the cost of labor, accessories and equipment. There is no maximum claim amount. The ITC can be applied to solar systems installed after January 1, 2006 on your primary or secondary residence. The residence must be owned by you and in the United States.

Your local Twin Rivers solar panel installer can provide you with more information about the ITC and how it might apply to your situation.

The ITC was renewed and increased in scope after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022. It's also now called the Clean Energy Credit. The Clean Energy Credit runs until 2035. Any solar installation project that is completed between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2032 may qualify for a 30% tax credit. This amount will then decrease slightly each year until the current program ends. Beginning in 2023, it will also be easier to qualify for credits for energy storage systems under this new program.

Click here to learn more about the new Inflation Reduction Act. Your local Twin Rivers solar panel installation expert is the best person to answer your questions regarding the new Clean Energy Credit and how it applies to you.

State & Local Solar Incentives

Tax credits, rebates and more can be claimed at multiple levels. Along with federal solar incentives, there are often state and local ones, too. These solar incentives — which might be handled by the state of New Jersey, or by your county or municipality — may be offered for only a limited time, or on an ongoing basis.

Next Steps for Installing Solar in Twin Rivers

There are a number of different solar incentives: those provided by local utility companies, those provided by the New Jersey government and those provided by the federal government, to name a few. The use of solar energy has increased enormously in the last 15 years, partially due to these incentives. It is a good idea to talk to your local Twin Rivers solar installation expert to learn more about these incentives and to be sure that you're getting the largest number possible for your solar panels.