Solar Examiner

Treasury's new ITC guidance narrows the domestic-content bonus — here's who still qualifies

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Treasury Department’s latest safe-harbor guidance raises the domestic manufactured-product threshold for the Investment Tax Credit’s 10% domestic-content bonus, a change that will affect utility-scale developers more than residential installers.

For homeowners, the residential system side of the credit is untouched. The change targets the adder that developers claim on top of the base 30% credit, and mostly affects sourcing decisions for inverters and racking rather than panels themselves.

What actually changed

The prior safe harbor let developers count certain steel components toward the threshold using a simplified cost method. The new guidance requires more granular documentation of where that steel was melted and poured, not just fabricated.

Enphase IQ8M microinverter review: the grid-independent feature actually works

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Enphase’s pitch for the IQ8 line has always been that panels can produce usable power during a grid outage without a battery, as long as the sun is up. We tested this through two utility outages this summer, and it held up both times.

1.5 kWusable daytime backup output

<1sswitchover time observed

25 yrmanufacturer warranty

The limitation is obvious but worth stating plainly: once the sun sets or a cloud bank rolls through, output drops with it. This is sunlight-hours backup, not battery backup, and Enphase is upfront about that in the installer materials even if the marketing headline undersells the caveat.

Pennsylvania Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pennsylvania had no October 1, 2026 rate change that we could find as of September 29, 2026. The big 2026 change came on June 1, when utilities reset the default supply price for customers who have not picked an electricity supplier.

Quick Summary

These are residential default-service supply prices (the Price to Compare), not your total bill. Utilities marked “estimated” are labeled that way by the Pennsylvania PUC.

Utility	Effective Date	Previous Rate	New Rate	Change	Customer Impact
PECO (estimated)	June 1, 2026	11.024 ¢/kWh	11.572 ¢/kWh	+4.97%	About +$5.48 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)
PPL	June 1, 2026	12.953 ¢/kWh	13.147 ¢/kWh	+1.5%	About +$1.94 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)
Duquesne Light (estimated)	June 1, 2026	13.75 ¢/kWh	14.14 ¢/kWh	+2.84%	About +$3.90 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)
Met-Ed	June 1, 2026	12.965 ¢/kWh	13.951 ¢/kWh	+7.6%	About +$9.86 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)
Penelec	June 1, 2026	11.747 ¢/kWh	13.142 ¢/kWh	+11.88%	About +$13.95 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)
Penn Power	June 1, 2026	12.606 ¢/kWh	13.477 ¢/kWh	+6.9%	About +$8.71 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)
West Penn Power	June 1, 2026	10.947 ¢/kWh	12.075 ¢/kWh	+10.3%	About +$11.28 per 1,000 kWh (our estimate)

What Changed on June 1, 2026?

The PUC said generation prices for all PUC-regulated electric utilities adjust on June 1. These prices are based on wholesale market rates. The PUC said generation can be about half or more of a total bill. It also noted that summer heat and air-conditioning use can affect bills more than the price change itself.

Net metering by state, 2026: where the math still works

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Net metering rules have splintered enough by state — and increasingly by utility within a state — that a national payback estimate is close to useless without checking your specific utility’s tariff.

The three structures worth knowing

True net metering credits exported power at the retail rate. Net billing credits it at a lower “avoided cost” rate, often 30-50% of retail. A hybrid structure credits retail rate up to your own annual usage, then avoided cost beyond it.

New York Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

No October 1, 2026 rate change had been announced for New York electric utilities as of September 29, 2026. The main 2026 story for upstate customers is temporary rates for NYSEG and RG&E that began June 1, with a final decision still pending.

Quick Summary

Utility	Effective Date	Previous Rate	New Rate	Change	Customer Impact
NYSEG (electric)	June 1, 2026 (temporary)	Prior delivery rates	Not listed in sources reviewed	Revenue +3.7%	Typical residential total bill about +0.2%
RG&E (electric)	June 1, 2026 (temporary)	Prior delivery rates	Not listed in sources reviewed	Revenue +4.0%	Typical residential total bill about +2.9%

What Is Changing?

On May 14, 2026, the Public Service Commission (PSC) voted to set temporary rates for NYSEG and RG&E, effective June 1, 2026. The PSC said it granted only a fraction of what the utilities requested. The rates are temporary and will be reconciled against the final decision. The PSC also said an increase may ultimately be necessary when it makes that decision. NYSEG’s temporary electric increase is $52.572 million a year.

Community solar subscriptions grew 14% this year — but cancellations are rising too

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Community solar subscriber counts grew 14% year-over-year through Q3, continuing a multi-year expansion into states that opened programs to non-utility developers.

+14%subscriber growth, YoY

9%annual cancellation rate

19states with active programs

The growth headline hides a churn story. Roughly 9% of subscribers cancel within their first year, and the most commonly cited reason in exit surveys we reviewed was a savings guarantee that turned out to be a projection, not a contractual floor.

Texas Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

No October 1, 2026 rate change had been announced for Oncor or CenterPoint as of September 29, 2026. The biggest recent change in North Texas was Oncor’s new delivery rates, which began June 1, 2026. This article explains what changed and what could still affect your bill.

Quick Summary

Only verified changes are listed. Rates here are delivery charges, not your full bill.

Utility	Effective Date	Previous Rate	New Rate	Change	Customer Impact
Oncor (Dallas-Fort Worth area)	June 1, 2026	Prior delivery rates	Not listed in sources reviewed	About +3% on the total bill	About +$4.64/month at 1,000 kWh on a 15¢/kWh plan (Oncor estimate)

Who Sets What on a Texas Electric Bill?

If you live in a competitive area, two companies affect your bill. Your retail electricity provider sells you the electricity and sets the energy rate. Your local utility (Oncor, CenterPoint and others) owns the poles and wires and charges a delivery fee that the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) regulates. Oncor says it does not bill retail customers directly. Your provider passes its delivery charges through to you.

How to size a home battery without over-buying capacity you'll never use

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The fastest way to overspend on a battery is to size it to your total daily usage instead of your overnight critical-load usage, which is usually a third of the total.

The method

List what you actually want powered during an outage: refrigerator, a few lights, internet, and phone charging is typical. Add up the wattage, multiply by the hours of outage you’re planning for, and that’s your target capacity in watt-hours — not your whole home’s daily draw.

Florida Electricity Rate Changes for October 2026: FPL Refund Ends and What Changed in 2026

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

FPL customers will see their September storm refund end with October bills. FPL’s October 2026 rate sheet removes a refund charge of 0.797 cents per kWh and leaves every other residential charge unchanged. This article also covers what changed in 2026 for FPL and Duke Energy Florida.

Quick Summary

Utility	Effective Date	Previous Rate	New Rate	Change	Customer Impact
FPL (most of Florida)	October 2026 bills	Storm refund of -0.797 ¢/kWh (September only)	Refund removed	+0.797 ¢/kWh versus September	Typical 1,000 kWh bill: $128.45 in September, roughly back to $136.64 (estimate)
Duke Energy Florida	After September 2026	About $6 reduction (June to September)	Reduction scheduled to end	About +$6/month for a typical 1,000 kWh customer (estimate from Duke’s figures)	Bills return to March-May levels, all else equal

What Is Changing on October 1, 2026?

FPL’s September rate sheet included a “Storm Restoration Recovery Refund” of 0.797 cents per kWh. It came from a true-up of costs from the 2024 hurricane season. The October rate sheet drops that line. All other residential charges match September: the $10.52 monthly base charge, 7.865 cents per kWh for the first 1,000 kWh, and the fuel, conservation, capacity, environmental and storm protection charges.

Panel degradation rates are quietly improving — warranties haven't caught up

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most 25-year panel warranties still guarantee output based on degradation assumptions written a decade ago — roughly 0.5% annual loss. Independent field data we reviewed from installations five to twelve years old shows top-tier monocrystalline panels degrading closer to 0.3% annually.

This matters for payback calculations more than it sounds: over 25 years, that difference compounds to roughly 4-5 percentage points of additional lifetime output that most solar calculators don’t credit you for, because they use the conservative warranty number by default.

California Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

California’s three big investor-owned utilities had not announced a residential rate change for October 1, 2026 as of September 29, 2026. That is different from October 2025, when Southern California Edison raised its average residential rate from 31.2 to 35.3 cents per kWh. This article covers what is in effect now and what could still change.

Quick Summary

These are the most recent verified changes for each utility, not October 1 changes. All figures are average residential rates or utility-estimated bills, not your personal rate.

Columbia, Missouri Raises Electric Usage Fees 6% Starting October 1, 2026

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The City of Columbia, Missouri, which runs its own electric utility, raised electric usage fees by 6% effective October 1, 2026. The customer charge did not change.

What changed

Usage fees: up 6%.
Customer charge: unchanged.
Revenue: the city expects about $8.6 million more per year.
Why: the city cites higher costs, including purchased capacity and energy, power production expenses and high-priority infrastructure projects.
Power Cost Adjustment (PCA): the city set the maximum PCA at 20% of the residential first-tier rate beginning Oct. 1, 2026. The PCA is a monthly adjustment that reflects the true cost of power.

What this means for your bill

A 6% increase applies to the usage portion of your bill, not necessarily your total. The city has not published a single “typical bill” figure in the announcement. Use its Utility Rates Calculator with your account number for a personalized estimate.

EIA: U.S. Residential Electricity Prices Forecast to Average 18.2¢/kWh in 2026

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s September outlook projects the average U.S. residential electricity price at 18.2 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 2026. That compares with 17.3 cents in 2025 and 16.5 cents in 2024. EIA projects 18.6 cents for 2027.

The numbers

Year	Avg. residential price (¢/kWh)
2024	16.5
2025	17.3
2026 (projected)	18.2
2027 (projected)	18.6

By our math from those figures, that is roughly +5% in 2026 and +2% in 2027. These are EIA forecast values from its September 9, 2026 release.

Home Solar Prices Edged Up 3% in the First Half of 2026, EnergySage Reports

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

EnergySage’s latest marketplace report says the median U.S. home solar price rose about 3% to $2.57 per watt in the first half of 2026 compared with the second half of 2025. These figures are before incentives. The report covers six months after the 30% federal residential tax credit ended for systems purchased after 2025.

Key figures (EnergySage data)

Median price: $2.57/W, up about 3%. EnergySage links part of that to higher labor rates.
Solar-only systems: held flat at $2.62/W versus the second half of 2025, and down 1% from the first half of 2025.
Solar plus storage: up 5% (excluding the battery itself).
Leases and PPAs: the share of installers quoting third-party ownership options rose from about 14% to about 41% during the half.
Batteries: customer interest reached 76% this half, battery prices reached $1,130/kWh, and the attachment rate fell to 31%.

What to know

EnergySage notes that new Section 232 tariffs on imported polysilicon are set to take effect December 4, 2026, which could add cost pressure to panels as soon as 2027. This is EnergySage’s own marketplace data, not a government statistic, so treat it as one data point.

OG&E Asks Oklahoma Regulators for a Base Rate Increase

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E), which serves about 917,000 customers, has asked the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to raise its average residential base rate by $23.88 a month. The request is a proposal. Nothing has been approved, and your bill has not changed.

What OG&E filed

The ask: an average residential base rate increase of $23.88 per month. Your own number could differ depending on how much electricity you use.
What drives it: per the company, new generation, grid upgrades, community programs and technology. That includes replacing two 60-year-old natural gas units at its Horseshoe Lake plant with new turbines, and replacing other units at its Tinker Power Plant.
Already preapproved: the company says it received preapproval for those projects, and their costs haven’t been included in customer bills yet.
Customer assistance: OG&E also proposes expanding its senior discount and low-income program, plus a pilot to forgive past-due balances, a choose-your-own-due-date option and a pre-pay option.

What it is not

A base rate covers the cost of building and running the system. It is separate from the fuel charge, which changes quarterly. OG&E says the request does not include costs tied to the three Google data centers it agreed in April to power, because those customers are not yet using electricity from OG&E.

Illinois Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Published: September 30, 2026 | Last verified: September 30, 2026

Illinois is one of the few states where a real, documented rate change lands on October 1, 2026. Both of the state’s largest utilities reset the default price of the electricity itself (the “supply” part of your bill) for the fall and winter. Ameren Illinois customers in central and southern Illinois see a drop of about 8% from the summer price. ComEd customers in northern Illinois see a smaller drop of about 3%. Both prices are still high compared with two years ago, and neither change touches the delivery part of your bill.

Massachusetts Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Published: September 30, 2026 | Last verified: September 30, 2026

We did not find a Massachusetts residential electricity rate change scheduled for October 1, 2026. Default supply (“basic service”) prices reset every six months, and the most recent reset was August 1, 2026. Prices should hold steady through the fall, then reset again in early 2027. Because that August increase is what most homeowners are seeing on bills now, it is covered below.

Michigan Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Published: September 30, 2026 | Last verified: September 30, 2026

We did not find a Michigan residential electricity rate change taking effect on October 1, 2026. Michigan works differently from states with seasonal or auction-based default rates: DTE and Consumers Energy change their rates through rate cases decided by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC). Both got increases earlier this year, and both have new requests pending.

Quick Summary

Utility	Effective Date	Previous Rate	New Rate	Change	Customer Impact
DTE Electric	March 5, 2026	—	—	+$242.4M/year approved (case U-21860)	Residential bills up by more than 4% (Citizens Utility Board of Michigan); about $4.23/month for an average residential customer (DTE)
Consumers Energy	May 1, 2026	—	—	+$276.6M/year approved	Residential bill impact not verified
DTE Electric (pending)	Not yet decided	—	—	$474.3M/year requested, filed April 28, 2026	Attorney General says 9.7% for residential customers if granted in full
Consumers Energy (pending)	Not yet decided	—	—	New electric case U-22070, filed June 2026	Amount not verified

These are total rate-case revenue increases, not per-kWh prices. Utility revenue increases are spread across customer classes, and the MPSC and utilities publish bill impacts for a typical residential customer.

New Jersey Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Published: September 30, 2026 | Last verified: September 30, 2026

Short answer: we did not find a headline statewide electricity rate change on October 1, 2026 in New Jersey. The big supply-price reset happened on June 1, 2026. What we can document for the fall is narrower: Atlantic City Electric adjusts a supply reconciliation charge twice a year, on June 1 and October 1, and New Jersey’s default supply tariffs are designed with seasonal pricing. Here is what is confirmed, and what is not.

Ohio Electricity Rate Changes: What Changed in 2026 and What's Next

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Published: September 30, 2026 | Last verified: September 30, 2026

We did not find a verified Ohio electricity rate change taking effect on October 1, 2026. Ohio’s default supply rates for AEP Ohio, AES Ohio and the FirstEnergy utilities were reset on June 1, 2026, and the utilities say they run through May 31, 2027. If you saw a website claiming a new AEP Ohio rate starting October 1, our primary source says otherwise (see below).

About

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Solar Examiner is an independent publication about residential and community solar, and about the electricity rates that decide whether solar pays off for a household.

What we cover

Electric rates: utility rate changes, rate cases and net-metering rules, state by state.
Equipment: panels, inverters and batteries, and how they hold up over time.
Solar costs and incentives: what solar costs, how it is financed, and which tax credits still apply.
News: short, dated updates as utilities, regulators and agencies publish them.

Start with Rates by State to find your state’s electricity rate changes.

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