2025 Solar Incentives Guide for West Goshen, PA - Tax Credits & Rebates

What Solar Tax Credits, Incentives, and Rebates are Available in West Goshen?

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

Solar incentives are designed to mitigate the cost of installing a solar panel system on your home. Financial incentives like these are in place to encourage more Americans to switch their home over to renewable energy. Solar incentives might include cash back, upfront discounts or credit towards your monthly utility bill. Some incentives are provided by the federal government, some by the Pennsylvania government and some by your utility company, county or municipality. Categories of solar incentives include:

• Net Metering: Make sure you talk with your West Goshen 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 may receive either a dollar-for-dollar credit or a percentage of the value.
• Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC): SRECs can be sold to your utility company (or other buyers) for cash that is generally considered part of your taxable income. Typically, there is a small threshold of energy production to meet before your solar system can earn SRECs or other performance-based incentives. Incentives like these are generally handled by your state government.
• Tax Exemptions: Your solar system might qualify for both sales tax and property tax exemptions. Sales tax exemptions are applied at the time of purchase. Property tax exemptions allow you to exclude the value that solar panels add when you are calculating property taxes on your home.
• Tax Credits: Tax credits reduce, dollar-for-dollar, the amount of income tax you owe the government. These are different from tax deductions.
• Rebates: A solar rebate is a partial refund given after you've purchased your solar panels. Rebates could be offered by your local utility company, your county or your state. The discount that rebates offer is normally applied to the price of solar panels before tax credits are calculated.

Federal Solar Incentives

When people think of solar incentives, federal incentives may be the first thing that comes to mind. The solar incentive that you're most likely to have heard of is the Federal Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which provides a credit on your taxes equal to a certain percentage of the cost of your solar system.

The ITC can be applied to solar systems installed after January 1, 2006, and lets you deduct from your taxes a percentage of the total cost of solar panels, labor, accessories and equipment. This credit can be claimed on solar panels installed on a primary or secondary residence that you own in the United States. Originally, you could claim 30% of the total cost, although the amount you can claim may range between 26-30%. There is no maximum claim amount.

Talking to your local West Goshen solar panel installation expert is the best way to understand how the ITC could apply to you.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, made some changes to the ITC (as well as retitling it the Clean Energy Credit). Homeowners can now receive a credit equal to 30% of the total solar system installation costs for projects started after January 1, 2022, and completed before the end of 2032. This percentage will then decrease on a yearly basis until the Clean Energy Credit expires in 2035. Beginning in 2023, it will also be easier to get credits for energy storage systems with the new act.

More information about the new Inflation Reduction Act can be found here. The easiest way to learn more about how the new Clean Energy Credit might apply to you is to talk with your local West Goshen solar panel installation expert.

State & Local Solar Incentives

In addition to those provided at the federal level, there are often also state solar incentives. Tax credits, rebates and more might be available at a more local level. These incentives might be offered by the Pennsylvania government, or by your county or municipality. Some incentives may be available for a limited time, while others are ongoing.

Next Steps for Installing Solar in West Goshen

There are many types of solar incentives: those offered by local utility companies, those provided by the federal government and those provided by the Pennsylvania government, to name a few. Solar energy use has increased tremendously in the last 15 years, partially due to these incentives. If you're prepared to make the switch to solar energy, getting in touch with your local West Goshen solar panel installation expert is an excellent place to start.