What ended, and what was never there
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. A homeowner who purchased and installed by the end of 2025 could still claim it on that return; a cash or loan purchase now receives nothing.
Georgia does not offer a state income tax credit for residential solar, and did not before the federal credit ended either. So there is no state-level backstop and there was never a two-credit stack here.
Treatment of solar for local property tax assessment has been changing in Georgia in recent years, which is why it is worth asking your county tax assessor directly how residential solar is assessed at your address rather than relying on a published guide.
The result is a market where the incentive column is short. That is not a reason to avoid solar; it is a reason to insist the case is built on the electricity rather than on the programmes.
What the case actually rests on
The largest term is the electricity you stop buying. Georgia Power residential rates have been in the region of 14 to 15 cents per kWh, and the state average was around 15.8 cents in mid-2026, roughly 14 percent below the national average.
But under instantaneous netting only the electricity you consume as it is generated is worth that rate. Anything above your instantaneous demand is exported at the Solar Avoided Cost Rate, 3.2188 cents per kWh for 2026 with a 4 cent adder approved in the 2022 rate case.
So the case is not simply about how much the system generates, it is about how much of that generation lands inside your own consumption. That is the number to interrogate.
Ask any installer what self-consumption share the projection assumed and what it was based on. Ask to see the projection at a lower share as well, so you can see how sensitive the case is to that one assumption.
Where 30 percent still exists, and who receives it
Section 48E, the commercial Clean Electricity Investment Credit, survives at 30 percent and is available to third-party owners of residential systems under leases and power purchase agreements. The provider claims it, not you.
In a state with no credit of its own, that is the only route by which a 30 percent federal credit touches a Macon rooftop at all, which is why third-party ownership is being promoted harder in 2026 than before.
Whether any of the value reaches you depends entirely on the rate you are offered, which is a commercial decision rather than a rule. Ask what the provider claims and what portion is reflected in the rate.
Ask for the side-by-side against a cash purchase on the same system over the same term, with the netting treatment identical in both. And ask what happens at the end of the agreement, and how it interacts with selling the house.
Costing it out against a capped programme
Strike the federal residential credit from any quote that shows it, since Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025.
Strike any state solar tax credit, because Georgia does not have one.
Rebuild from the tariff: full retail value for self-consumed generation, the Solar Avoided Cost Rate for exports, under a capped programme limited to residential systems of 10 kW AC or less.
Ask for that version in writing, with the self-consumption assumption stated on the page. In a lean incentive environment the design is the return, and the design is only as good as the assumption underneath it.