The Utah credit and how it wound down
The Utah Renewable Energy Systems Tax Credit for residential solar photovoltaics was reduced on a published schedule rather than cancelled abruptly, which is part of why stale figures persist.
The maximum was $2,000 for installations before 2018, $1,600 for 2018 through 2020, $1,200 in 2021, $800 in 2022 and $400 in 2023.
Residential solar photovoltaic systems installed from 2024 onward are not eligible. There is no reduced amount and no successor programme for residential solar.
So any guide, calculator or quote listing a Utah solar tax credit is either out of date or describing a different technology. Ask directly whether a quote includes one, and have it removed if it does.
And the federal credit that followed it
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.
The two expiries landing within about two years of each other is why 2026 feels like a step change in Utah rather than a gradual tightening. Both legs of the tax credit stack are gone.
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 makes third-party ownership the only route by which a 30 percent federal credit touches a West Jordan rooftop. Evaluate it as a rate rather than as a credit, and ask for the side-by-side against a cash purchase on the same system and term.
What has to carry the case instead
The good news is that Utah installed costs are among the lowest in the country, averaging around $2.65 per watt, and the solar resource is genuinely strong. Those two things have not changed.
What carries the return now is the electricity you displace. But under Schedule 137 Net Billing only the electricity you consume as it is generated displaces the retail rate; the surplus earns the export credit, roughly 4.855 cents per kWh in summer and 4.033 in winter as of March 1, 2026.
So the case rests on the production estimate and the self-consumption share, both of which are modelled assumptions rather than published facts. That is where your diligence belongs now that the credits are gone.
Ask for the production figure in kilowatt hours per year with its data source named, the assumed self-consumption share stated, and the projection shown at a lower share so you can judge how sensitive it is.
Rebuilding the estimate from current figures
Strike the Utah residential solar tax credit from any quote that shows it, since systems installed from 2024 onward are not eligible.
Strike the federal residential credit too, since Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025.
Rebuild from retail value on self-consumed generation, the seasonal export credit on surplus, and nothing else at tax level unless you are going the lease or power purchase agreement route.
Ask for that version in writing with each line named. Two credits disappearing in two years is exactly the situation in which an unrevised template quietly overstates a return.