A month after Congress killed the solar tax credit, the industry is anything but dead

The federal tax credit that covered 30% of the cost of a home solar system expired on July 4, after Congress ended the incentive as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill. Many expected the deadline to gut the home solar market. Instead, industry groups SEIA and Wood Mackenzie now project sales will drop by something like 18 to 21 percent this year, not the collapse some feared. Part of the reason may be simple: reader surveys suggest many homeowners never knew the credit existed in the first place, so its loss changes less than expected.

What has changed is why people are buying. Solar shoppers are talking less about savings and more about resilience: keeping the lights on during storms and having some independence from an increasingly strained power grid. That shows up in how systems are being built. In 2025, up to 45% of new home solar installations also included a battery, up from around 6% back in 2020. Homeowners who've paired solar with batteries and, in some cases, an electric vehicle report locking in low, predictable electricity costs for years and avoiding both blackouts and gas pumps.

None of this changes the fact that tax rules, state programs, and utility incentives are complicated and vary by location, so it's worth checking what your own state or utility currently offers before assuming the math has changed for your house.