It might surprise you to find out that North Carolina has spent the better part of a decade as one of the top five solar states in the nation. In North Carolina solar energy represents a bountiful crop and the enterprising folks of the Tar Heel State are great at harvesting sunshine.
The following article offers an in-depth exploration of current data, policies, incentives, and trends related to North Carolina solar energy. Please feel free to provide additional contributions in the comments section, below.
North Carolina at number 2 in SEIA’s top 10 states, 2016. Credit: SEIA.org
North Carolina in the Top Ten Solar States
North Carolina climbed from 4th to 2nd place on the strength of the 994 MW it installed in 2016, and it held a top-two position for several years afterwards. It sits 5th today, not because the state stopped building but because Texas, Florida and others built faster. Total installed capacity now stands at 10,093 MW — a little over three times where it stood when this guide was first written.
According to SEIA’s latest figures, that capacity is enough to power more than 1.2 million homes and supplies 10.14% of the state’s electricity. Solar investment in North Carolina now totals $15.3 billion across roughly 60,755 installations, and the industry employs about 7,500 people across 254 companies — 88 installers and project developers, 48 manufacturers, and 118 other solar-related firms such as architectural and engineering practices, financial service providers, equipment distributors, not-for-profit solar promoters, project consultants, and solar power service providers.
The forward-looking picture is where the mood has changed. SEIA now projects 3,279 MW of growth over the next five years, which ranks North Carolina 25th nationally — a striking fall for a state that spent years near the top of the table. In 2025 additions alone, North Carolina placed 22nd.
| Measure | 2017 | Latest |
|---|---|---|
| Installed capacity | 3,287 MW | 10,093 MW |
| National ranking | 2nd | 5th |
| Total investment | $5.24bn | $15.3bn |
| Solar jobs | 7,112 | 7,500 |
| Solar companies | 248 | 254 |
| 5-year growth rank | — | 25th |
The jobs and company figures are worth dwelling on. Capacity tripled, investment tripled, and employment barely moved. Utility-scale solar is not a labour-intensive business once the panels are in the ground, and North Carolina’s growth has been overwhelmingly utility-scale. Falling equipment prices did the rest: the state’s projects have tracked a national cost decline that has continued well past the 70% drop recorded up to 2017.
And, as solar costs have declined, North Carolina’s economy has benefited strongly from rising investments in solar power projects. Historically struggling to increase jobs and businesses, rural areas of North Carolina have witnessed significant growth as utility-scale solar installations have risen across the state, with counties such as Catawba, Robeson, and Wayne among the leaders in utility-scale solar investment.
North Carolina Solar Energy-related Companies, 2017. Screenshot from SEIA.org
Forecasting North Carolina Solar Energy Trends
While North Carolina remains a major solar state, the policy weather has turned. The concerns SEIA flagged in 2017 — the expiration of the state renewable energy tax credit on 31 December 2015, the expiration of the federal Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit on 31 December 2016, and a backlog of interconnection agreement assessments — have since been joined by two much larger ones.
The first is federal. The 30% residential tax credit that underpinned rooftop solar economics for two decades was terminated at the end of 2025, covered in detail below. The second is state-level. In July 2025, the General Assembly overrode a veto to pass SB 266, which rolled back the interim clean energy targets set by House Bill 951 in 2021. Analysts cited by SEIA warn the change could cost ratepayers as much as $23 billion through 2050 and shift more cost onto residential customers.
On the positive side, the structural supports remain in place. The state’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS) did its job, solar leasing authorised in 2017 continues to support the residential market, and HB 951’s carbon planning process still requires Duke Energy to file and update integrated resource plans that include substantial new solar and storage. Duke Energy’s PowerPair rebate, meanwhile, is currently one of the more generous utility solar-plus-battery incentives in the country.
North Carolina also still hosts major players across the solar value chain, including large corporate investors, utility-scale developers, construction contractors, and component manufacturers for inverters, racking and electrical wiring.
North Carolina Solar Energy Incentives & Programs
Federal Incentives
The 30% federal tax credit for homeowner-owned systems no longer exists. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on 4 July 2025, terminated the Section 25D Residential Clean Energy Credit for expenditures made after 31 December 2025. There is no phase-down and no partial credit — a system installed in 2026 or later gets nothing under 25D. The Section 25C efficiency credit ended on the same date.
If your system was installed and operational on or before 31 December 2025, you can still claim the 30% credit, and unused credit from an eligible 2025 project can generally be carried forward.
For anyone shopping now, the remaining federal route is third-party ownership. Under a lease or power purchase agreement, the company that owns the system claims the Section 48E commercial credit and passes the benefit through as lower monthly payments. That credit remains available for such projects into 2027, with safe-harbour provisions extending eligibility further for some. The trade-off is the familiar one: you don’t own the array, and the savings arrive as a smaller bill rather than an asset on your roof.
Businesses may also still qualify for accelerated depreciation alongside the commercial investment tax credit.
State Incentives
The following is a limited sample of state solar energy incentives recorded on the North Carolina page of the DSIRE Incentives Database. Operated by the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center at N.C. State University, the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE) website offers a comprehensive and up-to-date public clearinghouse for solar energy incentives across the US, including federal and state incentives, programs, and policies. Because North Carolina’s rules have moved repeatedly since 2023, DSIRE is the right place to confirm anything below before you sign a contract.
North Carolina Solar Energy Net Metering Policy
Established in 2005, the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) provided net metering rules for the state’s investor-owned utilities. Those rules were amended in 2009, revisited after HB 589 in 2017, and then substantially restructured by an NCUC order in March 2023 that set out a multi-year glide path away from traditional retail-rate net metering.
The result is that which programme you are on now depends heavily on when you connected:
- Legacy net metering — customers who went solar before 2023 were grandfathered onto the older retail-rate arrangement.
- Net Metering Bridge Rate (Bridge Rider) — a transitional structure that credits exported energy at a favourable rate with a small minimum bill, and no monthly rollover of unused credits. Customers whose interconnection request is submitted and approved before it closes lock it in for 15 years.
- Residential Solar Choice Rider (RSC) — a time-of-use structure in which export compensation varies by time of day and season. Less favourable than the Bridge Rate, and the default for new customers once the Bridge Rate closes.
Duke Energy’s Net Metering Bridge Rate closes to new applicants on 31 December 2026, subject to annual capacity caps that can fill before the deadline. From 1 January 2027, new solar customers move onto Residential Solar Choice with time-of-use billing and critical peak pricing. If you are weighing a project in Duke territory, the interconnection date — not the install date — is what determines which side of that line you land on.
Outside Duke’s footprint the picture differs. Dominion Energy customers in north-eastern North Carolina use standard net metering, with an interconnection fee for systems under 20 kW. Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation members can choose between net metering and net billing. Municipal utilities and electric cooperatives set their own terms and are not bound by the NCUC’s rules, so co-op members should check locally rather than assume.
Duke Energy PowerPair
The most substantial incentive currently available to North Carolina homeowners is Duke Energy’s PowerPair programme, which pays a one-time incentive of $0.36 per watt-AC for solar up to 10 kW-AC and $400 per kWh for battery storage up to 13.5 kWh — up to roughly $9,000 combined. It is capacity-limited and has repeatedly filled early, and it requires both enrolment in the Net Metering Bridge Rider and participation in Duke’s EnergyWise Home battery control programme, under which Duke can remotely discharge your battery a set number of times per year.
The practical consequence is that solar-only installations no longer make much sense for Duke customers chasing the best return. The state’s headline incentive is a solar-plus-storage incentive, and the rate structures increasingly reward households that can shift their own consumption rather than export.
NC GreenPower
NC GreenPower, the statewide not-for-profit founded in October 2003 as the first programme of its kind in the US, no longer runs the small-generator production incentive described in earlier versions of this guide. It has pivoted: voluntary contributions from electricity customers now fund the Solar+ Schools grant programme, which installs fully-funded 20 kW arrays at North Carolina K-12 schools along with weather stations, data monitoring, STEM curriculum and teacher training. Applications open annually from 2 January to 28 February.
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Green Power Providers programme, also referenced in earlier versions of this guide, has likewise closed to new participants.
NC GreenPower helps get a wounded Veteran’s solar PV system back on track. Credit: NC GreenPower
Property Tax Abatement for Solar Electric Systems
Effective 1 July 2008, 80% of the appraised value of a solar energy electric system is exempt from property tax. In February 2011, further clarification was issued to provide 100% exemption for residential PV solar systems not used to generate income or in connection with any business. This remains one of the more durable North Carolina solar incentives — it has survived every legislative change since.
Other North Carolina Solar Energy State Incentives and Programs:
• Local Option — Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing
• Active Solar Heating and Cooling Systems Exemption
• Local Option — Green Building Incentives
• Local Option — Financing Program for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
• Solar Rights
Interconnection Standards
Legislation signed into law in August 2007 required the NCUC to establish interconnection standards for distributed generation systems with up to 10 MW capacity. Similar to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) interconnection standards for small generators, the NCUC standards govern interconnection to the distribution systems of Duke Energy Progress, Duke Energy Carolinas, and Dominion North Carolina Power. Municipal utilities and electric cooperatives in the state are not governed by the NCUC’s interconnection standards.
The NCUC standards use a three-tiered approach to simplify the interconnection process:
- Inverter Process: Systems up to 20 kilowatts (kW)
- Fast Track Process: Systems larger than 20 kW that meet the eligibility criteria in the table below
- Study Process: Systems that fail to qualify for the Fast Track Process
| Line Voltage | Fast Track Eligible Regardless of Location | Fast Track Eligibility on a Mainline and less than 2.5 Electrical Circuit Miles from Substation |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 5 kV | Less than or equal to 100 kW | Less than or equal to 500 kW |
| Between 5 kV and 15 kV | Less than or equal to 1 MW | Less than or equal to 2 MW |
| Between 15 kV and 35 kV | Less than or equal to 2 MW | Less than or equal to 2 MW |
| Greater than or equal to 35 kV | Not eligible | Not eligible |
The applicable interconnection standard for most North Carolinian homeowners is the Inverter Process, specified for systems up to 20 kW in capacity. Learn more details on DSIRE’s NC interconnection standards listing, and confirm current fees with your utility.
Duke Energy pilot project to serve a remote communications tower in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Credit: Duke Energy
North Carolina’s (No Longer Remotely Interesting) Energy Storage Policy
When this guide was first written, North Carolina had no procurement target for energy storage and its utilities were running scattered pilots — the most charming being Duke Energy’s November 2016 proposal to power a remote communications tower in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with solar and batteries.
That is no longer the shape of the market. North Carolina now has 873 MWh of installed storage capacity, ranking 18th nationally, and storage sits at the centre of Duke Energy’s integrated resource planning rather than at the edges. The state is developing storage manufacturing and workforce capacity alongside deployment, and regulators are working through interconnection, transparency and end-of-life management frameworks. The Energy Storage Workgroup of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association was right about the direction of travel; costs fell, performance improved, and the guidance followed.
Behind the meter, the change is more visible still. PowerPair has made batteries a mainstream part of residential quotes, and Duke’s EnergyWise Home programme aggregates enrolled home batteries into what amounts to a virtual power plant.
HB 589 and What Came After
Entitled Balanced Energy Solutions for North Carolina, HB 589 was signed into law on 27 July 2017. It required new regulations aimed at achieving a statewide solar target of 6,800 MW by 2020 — a figure that would have more than doubled the state’s solar capacity in three years. North Carolina reached that level in the early 2020s, slightly behind the target date, and has since roughly doubled it again.
Passing the House by 66-41 and the Senate by 36-4, the law represented an intensive negotiation between NC utility officials and solar advocates. Its features included a competitive bidding programme, better access to low-cost financing, a solar leasing programme, and community solar provisions — and it is the source of most of the residential market structure that exists in the state today.
Community solar programmes in Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress territories were required to be filed with the NCUC, with a minimum of five subscribers and no individual subscriber owning over 40% interest. Subscribers are credited at the avoided cost rate rather than through net metering, which has kept uptake modest compared with community solar markets in states that allow retail-rate crediting.
Solar leases were authorised in Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas service territories, along with any municipal utility opting in, subject to disclosure and record-keeping requirements and an NCUC certificate. That provision has become considerably more important than it looked in 2017: with the federal residential credit gone, third-party ownership is now the main way a North Carolina homeowner reaches a federal incentive at all.
The larger arc since then runs through HB 951 in 2021, which set carbon reduction planning requirements for the state’s utilities, and SB 266 in 2025, which rolled the interim targets back over the governor’s veto.
Current Solar Costs in North Carolina
Installed prices have continued to fall since this guide first quoted $3.23 per watt. Recent North Carolina figures run roughly $2.40 to $3.20 per watt installed before incentives, so a typical 5 kW rooftop system lands somewhere around $12,000 to $16,000.
The arithmetic after that point has changed fundamentally. Under the old 30% credit, a $16,150 system came down to $11,305. In 2026, a homeowner buying with cash or a loan pays the full price. That single change matters more to North Carolina payback periods than any equipment price decline of the past five years, and it lands on a state where residential electricity is cheap — Duke residential rates average around $0.14 per kWh, well below the national average, which means each kilowatt-hour your panels offset is worth less here than in most of the country.
The honest consequence is that payback periods have lengthened well beyond the 11.5 years this guide once quoted, and the answer now depends heavily on your rate plan, whether you include storage, and whether you can capture PowerPair. Rising utility rates cut the other way — Duke has continued to file for increases — but anyone modelling a North Carolina system on pre-2026 assumptions will be disappointed.
Every solar installation is unique, so it’s best to get an initial quote and then have a local installer take a closer look at your situation so you can get a more specific quote. Get more than one.
Keep in mind that residential solar installations typically produce electricity for 20-plus years. And if you decide to move before then, solar panels can add to a home’s value — research consistently finds a premium for owned systems, though the figures vary considerably by market and are far more modest than some of the numbers circulated during the 2010s. Leased systems are a different matter, and can complicate a sale rather than help it.
Notable North Carolina Solar Energy Installations
Conetoe II Solar LLC, completed in 2015, provides 80 MW of solar capacity — enough solar energy to power over 9,030 homes.
Carol Jean Solar, with 4 MW of capacity in Walnut Cove, provides enough power to plug in more than 451 homes.
Also going solar in a big way in North Carolina, IKEA has a 1.1 MW system on its store in Charlotte, and SAS has a 2.2 MW solar farm on 12 acres adjacent to the Executive Briefing Center in Cary.
But Apple is truly impressive, with 25 MW of solar capacity installed at its mega data center located in Maiden. That project looks prescient now rather than merely large: data centres and solar have become one of the defining pairings in electricity planning, and the load growth from computing is now a central assumption in Duke Energy’s own resource plans.
Apple Data Center and Solar Farm, Maiden, NC. Screenshot from Google Maps.
Finding a North Carolina Solar Installer
North Carolina’s installer market has turned over substantially since this guide was first published, and not always gently. The most prominent example is Mooresville-based Power Home Solar, later rebranded Pink Energy, which closed in September 2022 and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on 7 October 2022 after the state Attorney General’s office received hundreds of consumer complaints. Customers were left with non-functioning systems and outstanding loans.
The NC Sustainable Energy Association maintains a consumer guide for homeowners considering solar, along with a list of companies that have signed its solar code of conduct covering sales, advertising and installation standards. Given how much the installer landscape has changed — and how little recourse a bankruptcy leaves you — that list is a better starting point than any static directory.
Check that a company is currently licensed and in business, get at least three quotes, be wary of high-pressure sales and of financing arranged by the installer, and confirm who honours the workmanship warranty if the installer ceases trading.
North Carolina remains well served by long-established regional installers across the Triangle, the Triad, Charlotte, Wilmington and the mountains, several of which have been operating in the state for well over a decade. (Please feel free to offer reviews and/or recommendations in the comments section, below.)
Additional Links for North Carolina Solar Energy Resources
North Carolina Energy Division — Learn more about state government energy policies, programs, projects, energy-saving strategies, and energy-related statistics
North Carolina Utilities Commission — Learn about the governing body that regulates state electricity rates and services of the North Carolina public utilities
North Carolina General Assembly — Track solar energy legislation, locate and contact state legislators, and learn more about current legislative issues
NC Sustainable Energy Association — Learn about ongoing efforts to advocate for clean energy in North Carolina
DSIRE Incentives Database — The definitive clearinghouse for current North Carolina incentives, updated as programmes change
For a wider view of how North Carolina stacks up, see our rundown of the top solar states in America.
