Is solar worth it in South Carolina in 2026?

How South Carolina pays for your solar power

No statewide rule; set by each utility. Since June 1, 2021 new solar customers get time-of-use netting; Duke pays a low per-kWh credit on net exports, Dominion carries them forward at the time-of-use retail rate.

In the calculator, 40% of your solar output is used at home at the retail price and the rest is exported at about 60% of retail (our default for this kind of rule), so each solar kWh is worth 76% of the retail price on average. Change it if your utility pays more or less. Method

State or utility incentive	What it is worth
South Carolina solar energy tax credit	25% of cost, up to $3,500 per year per facility (and no more than 50% of state tax liability); excess carries forward 10 years
South Carolina Solar Choice metering (Duke Energy Carolinas Rider RSC, Dominion Energy SC Rate 5 rider)	Time-of-use netting for new rooftop systems up to 20 kW AC on the Duke side

How exports are credited

South Carolina has no single statewide export rule. The 2019 Energy Freedom Act (S.C. Code 58-40-20) told the Public Service Commission to replace the old net metering program with a “solar choice metering tariff” for applications received after May 31, 2021. Each large utility then got its own tariff, so the answer depends on who sends your bill.

Duke Energy Carolinas. New residential customers are served under Rider RSC and must be on the solar time-of-use rate, Schedule R-STOU. Systems are limited to 20 kW AC. Power you send to the grid is netted against power you buy within each time-of-use period in the month. Any net excess in a period is credited at a flat per-kWh rate, not at retail. In the Rider RSC tariff page on file (effective January 1, 2024) that credit is $0.0397 per kWh, against R-STOU energy charges that ranged from about 8.5 to 17.7 cents per kWh for non-critical periods. A newer Rider RSC page for 2026 could not be opened, so check the current credit before relying on it. Bill credits do not count toward the minimum bill, which is at least the basic facilities charge.

Dominion Energy South Carolina. The Commission voted in April 2021 for Dominion customers to move to its existing time-of-use rate and carry over monthly excess generation at the full retail rate for the time-of-use period. That is much closer to classic net metering than Duke’s structure. Dominion’s older net metering rider is closed to new customers.

Older systems. Customers who applied before June 1, 2021 stayed on net metering for a set period. Duke’s Rider NMT moves pre-2019 systems to a transition tariff from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2035, and 2019 to 2021 systems from June 1, 2029 through May 31, 2039. A home buying an existing system should ask which tariff the system sits on.

State incentives in 2026

State income tax credit. S.C. Code 12-6-3587 allows a credit of 25 percent of the cost of buying and installing a solar energy system on a facility the taxpayer owns in South Carolina. The credit in any year is capped at the lesser of $3,500 per facility or 50 percent of that year’s state tax liability. Anything above the cap carries forward for up to 10 years. The credit cannot be claimed before installation is complete, and the system must be certified for performance by the Solar Rating and Certification Corporation or a comparable endorsed body. The statute text opened for this page shows no end date for the solar credit.

The federal 30 percent credit is gone for systems installed after December 31, 2025, so the state credit is now the main tax incentive. Because it is capped each year and limited by tax owed, a household with a small state tax bill may need several years to use all of it.

What it means for payback

The metering rule matters more than the sticker price. With Duke, a flat low credit for net exports means solar is worth most when it offsets your own use in the same time-of-use period. Daytime production that cannot be used then is paid at a fraction of the energy charge. Shifting laundry and cooling loads toward production hours, and adding a battery to carry solar into the evening peak, improves results. With Dominion, carried-over excess keeps its time-of-use retail value, so oversizing a system hurts less. A mandatory time-of-use rate also changes what you pay for the power you still buy, so compare your usage by hour before signing.

Other rules worth knowing

• Solar choice customers have to accept the utility’s environmental attributes under Duke’s riders, so selling renewable energy certificates separately is not allowed.
• Duke’s Rider RSC adds a non-bypassable charge based on system size, and Rider RSC contracts run one year and renew automatically.
• Cooperative and municipal utilities set their own terms and are not covered here.
• This page did not verify Dominion’s current rate schedule, fees or a 2026 tariff revision; confirm on the utility’s tariff before buying.

Berkeley Lab does not publish a South Carolina median from enough systems, so the calculator starts from the U.S. median of $3.60/W. Put your own quote in.