Natural gas is one of the energy sources used in many places in Delaware, however solar, wind and other renewables are also growing among homeowners and businesses.
With the reduction of solar panel prices in Delaware, solar adoption rates continue to improve. Also the government provides solar incentives to assist solar buyers to reduce the upfront cost of going solar.
The main incentive reducing the cost of installing solar is the investment tax credit(ITC) which is offered by the federal government, while the state of Delaware has one of best Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) legislation to encourage generation of power from renewable sources like solar, wind, geothermal and biomass. The RPS in Delaware mandates about 25% of electricity to be generated from renewables by 2025.
With the RPS, if you own a solar power system, you can sell solar renewable energy credits to the utility company for a credit through net metering. Net metering allows for solar owners to feed extra solar power into the grid hence reducing the cost of solar even further.
The state of Delaware does not offer any specific rebates or tax credits to reduce the cost of installing solar. Also Delaware does not provide tax exemption for the value of solar PV systems and hence increases your property tax instead of reducing it.
Solar leasing and solar power purchase agreements are also available in Delaware, however when you apply these modes of paying for your PV system you cannot claim any tax credits because you don’t own the system. The only benefit is avoiding the high upfront costs of going solar and reduced energy costs in the long-term.
What is the cost of installing solar panels in Delaware?
Considering the above solar incentives you can reduce the average cost with more than 30% if you decide to own the PV system, instead of leasing it.
For instance, you can claim the 30% investment tax credit and solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) for a 5kW PV system costing about $17,000 to reduce this by at least 30% to $11900 and then when you generate SRECs you can sell between $300 and $1500 per year.
One single SREC is equivalent to 1,000 kWh of electricity and for a 5kW PV system you can generate about 5,000 kWh, which will earn you about five(5) SRECs per year.
So the cost of installing solar panels in Delaware is depended on very many factors as you can see and hence it also depends with other external factors such as where you source your solar panels, whether you have access to information that helps you to compare and contrast different quotes from different solar installers etc
EnergySage provides a great online solar marketplace where you can compare solar quotes from different solar installers based on site specific characteristics such solar potential, local solar incentives, local policies supporting solar energy and other factors.
Get started today with this solar panel calculator to determine your cost of installing solar panels in Delaware.