Data / Federal policy
Federal policy
The federal credit as data, versioned by year, with the dated events that changed it.
- Records
- 9
- With their own source
- 9
- Carrying a caveat
- 0
- Verified
- 2026-09-05
What this decides
Every net cost, and the difference between buying and leasing in 2026.
Versioned by year so no page ever hard-codes a percentage. A year with no record cannot be built.
Every record
| Record | Credit | Authority | Verified | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025, buying it yourself | 30% | IRC 25D (Residential Clean Energy Credit) | 2026-09-05 | irs.gov |
| property placed in service on or before 2025-12-31 | ||||
| 2025, leased or on a power purchase agreement | 30% | IRC 48E | — | irs.gov |
| Claimed by the system owner (lessor / PPA provider). | ||||
| 2026, buying it yourself | 0% | IRC 25D (expired) | 2026-09-05 | irs.gov |
| 25D unavailable for property placed in service after 2025-12-31 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) A homeowner buying with cash or a loan in 2026 receives no federal credit. | ||||
| 2026, leased or on a power purchase agreement | 30% | IRC 48E (Clean Electricity Investment Credit) | 2026-09-04 | ecfr.gov |
| Claimed by the system owner (lessor / PPA provider), passed through in pricing - NOT claimable by the homeowner. | ||||
| 2022-08-16 timeline | Public Law 117-169 approved: the reconciliation act known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. | dated event | 2026-09-05 | govinfo.gov |
| govinfo lists the formal title ("An act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 14"); the short title is the name in common use. | ||||
| 2025-07-04 timeline | Public Law 119-21 (H.R. 1) approved: the reconciliation act known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which ended 25D for property placed in service after 2025-12-31. | dated event | 2026-09-05 | govinfo.gov |
| govinfo lists the formal title ("An act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of H. Con. Res. 14"); passed the House 2025-05-21, the Senate 2025-06-30, House concurrence 2025-07-02. | ||||
| 2025-12-31 timeline | Last day a residential system could be placed in service and qualify for the 30% credit under 25D. | dated event | 2026-09-05 | irs.gov |
| 2026-07-04 timeline | Begin-construction cut-off under the 48E termination rules for third-party-owned systems. | dated event | 2026-09-04 | ecfr.gov |
| 2027-12-31 timeline | Placed-in-service cut-off under the 48E rules for third-party-owned systems. | dated event | 2026-09-04 | ecfr.gov |
Source column links the page or endpoint the value was read from. Where a row has no link of its own, it inherits the file-level source.
IRS guidance and the statute, each row with the page it was read from.
Take it
- federal-policy.json
The file the engine actually reads, unaltered, with the documentation blocks it carries.
- federal-policy.csv
The 9 records flattened for a spreadsheet: value, verified date, source, caveats, note.
Our compilation is free to reuse with a link back. The underlying data is not ours to license — follow the source on any row for the authoritative version and its own terms. The full position.
The rest of the data
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What a system costs installed, on both published bases: competitive quotes, and what buyers actually paid.
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What the utility pays for a kilowatt-hour you send out. Decides payback more than sunshine does.
- State incentives
What a buyer can actually claim from a state, read from the statute or programme that grants it.
- Modelling assumptions
Everything the model assumes rather than sources: panel wattage, degradation, loan terms, escalation.
Published 6 September 2026. Last verified 5 September 2026. A figure here that looks wrong is the mail we most want: tell us, and we publish corrections. The formulas that consume these records are on the methodology page.