Rebates

The City of Ashland Conservation Division offers a solar water heating program to its residential electric customers who currently use an electric water heater. Under "The Bright Way to Heat Water Program," qualified home owners may choose either the cash rebate or a zero-interest loan. Cash rebates of up to $1,000 are available for approved systems. The rebate amount is calculated as $0.40 times the estimated annual kilowatt-hour (kWh) savings (the Oregon Department of Energy provides the estimates for approved systems). Interested customers are provided site evaluations, consumer education, information about available solar systems, and the names of qualified contractors.

In 1975, the City of Santa Clara established the nation's first municipal solar utility. Under the Solar Water Heating Program, the Santa Clara Water & Sewer Utilities Department supplies, installs and maintains solar water heating systems for residents and businesses. In addition, the city has also installed solar energy equipment for a number of its own facilities.

Solar equipment is available from the city for heating swimming pools, process water and domestic hot water. The hardware (solar collectors, controls and storage tanks) is owned and maintained by the city under a rental agreement. The renter pays an initial installation fee

Arizona provides a sales tax exemption* for the retail sale of solar energy devices and for the installation of solar energy devices by contractors. The statutory definition of "solar energy device" includes wind electric generators and wind-powered water pumps in addition to daylighting, passive solar heating, active solar space heating, solar water heating, and solar photovoltaics. The sales tax exemption does not apply to batteries, controls, etc., that are not part of the system. (Note that H.B. 2429, enacted in June 2006, eliminated the $5,000 limit per device.)

S.B. 1229 of 2012 extended this exemption to net metering transactions

Arizona's Solar Energy Credit is available to individual taxpayers who install a solar or wind energy device at the taxpayer's Arizona residence. The credit is allowed against the taxpayer's personal income tax in the amount of 25% of the cost of a solar or wind energy device, with a $1,000 maximum allowable limit, regardless of the number of energy devices installed. The credit is claimed in the year of installation. If the amount of the credit exceeds a taxpayer’s liability in a certain year, the unused portion of the credit may be carried forward for up to five years. Taxpayers

Created by the Alaska State Legislature and administered by the Alaska Energy Authority, this fund provides loans to electric utilities, regional electric utilities, municipalities, regional and village corporations, village councils, and independent power producers. It is designed for the development or upgrade of small-scale power production facilities of less than 10 megawatts, conservation facilities, and bulk fuel storage facilities. This includes energy production, transmission and distribution, and waste energy conservation facilities that depend on fossil fuel, wind power, tidal, geothermal, biomass, hydroelectric, solar or other energy sources.

The loan term is related to the life of the project, but may

Note: According to the 2025 Renewable Energy Plan, in 2024, City of Columbus Utilities purchased or generated 22.82% of its total electric usage through renewable energy sources. 

In November 2004, voters in Columbia, Missouri, approved* a proposal to adopt a local renewable portfolio standard (RPS). (The state renewable electricity standard adopted by ballot initiative in November 2008 does not apply to municipal utilities such as Columbia Water & Light.) The city's municipal utility Columbia Water & Light is required to generate or purchase 30% of its electricity from eligible renewable energy resources by the end of 2028. Nearly 7%

The District of Columbia's Retail Electric Competition and Consumer Protection Act of 1999 required the DC Public Service Commission (PSC) to establish a public benefits fund to provide energy assistance to low-income residents, and to support energy-efficiency programs and renewable-energy programs. This fund, known as the Reliable Energy Trust Fund (RETF), took effect in 2001. In October 2008, the District of Columbia enacted the Clean and Affordable Energy Act (CAEA), which effectively eliminated the RETF and replaced it with the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund (SETF). This program is administered by the third-party DC Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU) which develops, coordinates

NOTE: H.B. 8354 enacted on July 2016 included provision that exempted qualifying renewable energy equipment used in residential and manufacturing sector to be exempt from property taxes throughout the state, thereby superseding the reduction in solar energy property tax assessment provision. Renewable energy equipment used in commercial facilities are not included in the exemption.

Rhode Island law provides that for purposes of local municipal property tax assessment, certain residential solar-energy systems may not be assessed at more than the value of a conventional heating system, a conventional water-heating system, or energy production capacity that otherwise could be necessary to install

Salt River Project's Solar Water Heating Program provides incentives to its residential customers who purchase solar water-heating systems as electric back-up systems. The incentive for residential solar water heating systems is $0.30 per kilowatt hour (kWh) of estimated annual energy savings. Incentives are prorated ($0.24 per kWh) for systems with solar collectors installed in sub-optimal locations. 

The State of Virginia provides the option for any county, city, or town to exempt or partially exempt solar energy equipment and recycling equipment from local property taxes.  This status is targeted toward non-commercial participants; commercial entities are fully exempt from state and local taxes under Commercial Property Tax Exemption for Solar.

The solar equipment and installation has to be inspected and certified by the local building department or the Department of Environmental Quality to provide the value of the system for the purpose of determining tax credit. The statute broadly defines solar energy equipment as any that is