What ended and what did not
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.
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.
That is why third-party ownership is being promoted harder in 2026. It is worth evaluating rather than dismissing, but evaluate it as a rate you are being offered rather than as a credit you receive, because whether any of the value reaches you is a commercial decision rather than a rule.
Ask for the side-by-side: a cash purchase with no federal credit against the lease or power purchase agreement on the same system over the same term, with the Energy Trust incentive and the net metering treatment identical in both.
What is left is more conditional than what left
The federal credit was close to unconditional. If you owned the system, had the tax liability and placed it in service in time, you received it. Nothing about your choice of contractor or the state of a programme budget mattered.
The incentives that remain in Oregon are not like that. The Energy Trust incentive of $3,500 for Portland General Electric customers requires an approved trade ally contractor, and offers are subject to funding availability and may change at any time.
The state ODOE Solar + Storage rebate is more conditional still: it reopened on June 15, 2026 with $1.1 million and was fully reserved, so it is currently unavailable, and it requires a reservation before construction starts.
So the diligence has shifted. It used to be about tax liability and timing. It is now about contractor status, programme budgets and application sequencing, and those are things to verify rather than assume.
How to spot material written for the old world
A great deal of what you will read about Oregon solar was written before 2026 and has not been revisited. The reliable tell is a 30 percent federal credit applied to a cash purchase.
A second tell is the state ODOE rebate presented as available, with up to $5,000 for solar and $2,500 for storage, without any note about funding. Those amounts are real when the programme is funded and the programme is not currently accepting applications.
A third is a savings projection that reports only a net figure, without breaking out which incentives it applied. That formatting is not necessarily dishonest, but it makes an out-of-date assumption impossible to spot.
Ask for the incentive lines itemised, each with the programme name and the amount. Anything that cannot be traced to a named, currently open programme should come out of the number before you compare quotes.
What is left, and when it is funded
Strike the federal residential credit, since Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025.
Strike the ODOE Solar + Storage rebate unless you have confirmed with ODOE directly that it is accepting applications again.
Rebuild from the Energy Trust incentive of $3,500 for PGE customers through an approved trade ally, Solar Within Reach if your household qualifies under your county income limit, and the battery incentive of $400 per kWh up to $5,000 if storage is included.
Add retail-rate net metering under ORS 757.300 with the annual reconciliation at the end of the March billing cycle, and the electricity you stop buying at about 12.2 cents per kWh on the April 2026 Oregon residential average.