Solar incentives and financing in Pennsylvania
- Factsheet
What type of solar incentives are available?
Several types of incentives can help you go solar. Learn more about the national context of solar incentives on our national solar incentives page.
Pennsylvania Solar Alternative Energy Credits
Pennsylvania offers Solar Alternative Energy Credits (SAECs). An SAEC is the functional equivalent of Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) in other states. Historically, the Pennsylvania market for these credits has been oversupplied. This is because Pennsylvania was one of the only states that allowed solar systems located outside its own borders to sell their credits into the state. This led to a massive oversupply of credits, depressing their monetary value.
In a victory for solar energy and Pennsylvania ratepayers alike, the state moved to close its borders to out-of-state credits in fall 2017. Moving forward, only solar systems installed in Pennsylvania can sell its credits into the state market. Find the latest credit market prices at SRECTrade.com.
In Pennsylvania, some installers will offer a percentage off the price of your system in exchange for your SAECs (SRECs).
Solar financing
Pennsylvania PACE
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs give property owners another tool to finance solar installations or other clean energy or efficiency-related investments. PACE financing is a loan that is attached to the property, rather than the property owner. This means it is paid back through an additional assessment on property taxes, rather than a separate bill, and if the property is sold, the new owner automatically assumes the remainder of the debt. This allows property owners to invest in solar panels and other multi-year payback improvements even if they expect to sell the property before the investment is fully paid off.
In June 2018, Pennsylvania passed legislation to allow for C-PACE, which allows local governments to create PACE programs for commercial entities to use. The Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance (KEEA) led a group of stakeholders to create model C-PACE legislation for local governments to adopt, called “C-PACE in a Box”.
In 2022, C-PACE was expanded to include multifamily commercial properties. The program was also expanded so that the C-PACE financing mechanism could be applied to ventilation projects, a timely consideration given the COVID-19 pandemic. To learn more about C-PACE in Pennsylvania and track the progress of local adoption, visit the KEEA website.
Pennsylvania does not yet have enabling legislation for R-PACE, allowing homeowners to take advantage of PACE financing.
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