About Solar & Battery Guide

Who runs Solar & Battery Guide, how we stay independent from solar sellers, how we are funded and how we research home solar and battery guides.

Last updated: October 18, 2026

Solar & Battery Guide is an independent online guide that helps US homeowners decide whether home solar panels and battery storage make sense for them, and how to buy wisely if they do. We publish in English, Spanish and Simplified Chinese because many of the homeowners who receive solar sales pitches are more comfortable reading in those languages.

Why this site exists

Solar is a large purchase (at our calculators' example price of $3.00 per watt, a 7 kW system costs about $21,000), and it is often sold in a single sales conversation. The rules that decide whether it pays off changed sharply going into 2026. The 30% federal Residential Clean Energy Credit ended for systems whose installation was completed after December 31, 2025, and several utilities now credit exported power at much less than the retail rate. Many sales pitches have not caught up.

We want homeowners to walk into that conversation with clear answers to three questions: what a fair price looks like, what the system will really save under their utility's current rules, and what to check in the contract.

What we publish

Guides on costs, incentives, net metering and net billing, batteries, financing, choosing an installer and state rules. Each guide answers its main question in the first paragraph, then explains the details.
Calculators for savings, payback, system size, cost, batteries, net billing, loans and leases. They run in your browser and show their formulas and assumptions.
Checklists and glossaries to help you compare quotes and understand contract terms.

Start with our guides or the solar calculators.

Who we are

The site is run by the Solar & Battery Guide Editorial Team. We publish as a team and do not attach invented names or credentials to our work. Our team researches each topic from primary sources, including the IRS, the US Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Federal Trade Commission and state utility commissions. If qualified expert reviewers join us, we will name them and describe their real background.

How we stay independent

We do not install, sell, lease or finance solar or batteries.
We do not take referral fees, lead fees or commissions from installers or lenders.
No company can pay to be covered, ranked or reviewed.
We do not link to other companies' sales pages from our guides; outbound links go to official and primary sources.

There is no advertising or affiliate income on the site today. If that changes, any paid link or ad will be labeled where it appears and explained on our advertising disclosure page, and it will never change what our guides conclude.

How we keep content accurate

Every guide lists the sources it relies on and the month we checked them, and every calculator explains where its default numbers come from. Research and drafting are assisted by AI tools, and every page is checked by our editorial team against the primary sources it cites before it is published. When rules change, we update the affected pages and note the change. Read the details in our editorial policy and methodology.

What we are not

Our content is educational. It is not financial, tax, legal or engineering advice, and it cannot replace a site visit by a licensed installer or a conversation with a tax professional. See our disclaimer for more.

Contact us

Questions, tips and corrections are welcome at Please use the contact form. or through our contact page. We read messages on US business days and aim to reply within 3 business days. If you found an error, our corrections page explains how we handle it.

Frequently asked questions

Who writes Solar & Battery Guide?

The site is written and checked by the Solar & Battery Guide Editorial Team. We publish as a team rather than under individual bylines, and we do not claim credentials we do not have. If named expert reviewers join us, we will list them on our author page with their real qualifications.

Do you sell solar panels or batteries?

No. We do not install, sell, finance or broker solar or battery systems. We also take no referral fees from installers or lenders, so no company pays us when you sign a contract.

How is the site funded?

Today the site carries no advertising and no affiliate links, and it is funded by its publisher. In the future we may add clearly labeled affiliate links or advertising. If we do, our advertising disclosure page will explain exactly what is paid and how we keep it separate from editorial decisions.

Can I ask you about my own solar quote?

You can write to us, and reader questions help shape what we cover. We cannot give personal financial, tax, legal or engineering advice or review contracts, but we can point you to the guides and calculators that help you check a quote yourself.

On this page

25D credit (Residential Clean Energy Credit): A 30% federal tax credit homeowners could claim for solar and batteries they paid for. It ended for expenditures made after December 31, 2025; the IRS counts the expense when installation is completed.
48E credit: A federal business tax credit for clean electricity property. Companies that own leased or PPA systems on homes may claim it, subject to construction deadlines and sourcing rules. The homeowner does not claim it.
Avoided cost: What it would cost a utility to produce or buy the same power elsewhere. Some states pay rooftop exports at an avoided-cost rate, which is far below retail.
Dealer fee: A charge a solar lender takes from the loan, usually built into the amount you borrow so the advertised interest rate looks low. The CFPB has warned these fees can add tens of percent to the price.
Degradation: The slow loss of a panel’s output over time. NREL research puts the median around 0.5% per year, and most panel warranties guarantee roughly 80–90% of original output after 25 years.
Escalator: A yearly percentage increase written into a lease or PPA, often 0–3%. A 2.9% escalator raises the payment by about 100% over 25 years.
FEOC rules: Federal “foreign entity of concern” sourcing limits added in 2025 that a business must meet to claim 48E credits on projects starting construction in 2026 or later.
Interconnection: Your utility’s approval to connect a solar system to the grid. Most utilities require an application before installation and a final permission to operate (PTO) before you turn it on.
Inverter: The device that turns the direct current (DC) from panels or batteries into the alternating current (AC) your home uses. Types include string inverters, microinverters and hybrid inverters that also manage a battery.
Islanding (backup mode): When a solar-plus-battery system disconnects from the grid during an outage and keeps powering your home. Ordinary grid-tied solar without a battery shuts off in an outage for line-worker safety.
kW (kilowatt): A unit of power: how fast electricity is made or used at one moment. Solar system size is quoted in kW of panel capacity (DC). A 7 kW system has panels rated 7,000 watts in total.
kWh (kilowatt-hour): A unit of energy: using 1 kW for one hour. Your electric bill charges you per kWh, and solar output and battery capacity are measured in kWh.
Microinverter: A small inverter mounted under each panel. Shade on one panel affects only that panel, and each panel can be monitored separately. Usually costs a little more than one central string inverter.
NABCEP certification: A voluntary professional certification for solar installers from the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners. It is a useful signal, but you should also check state contractor licensing.
NEM 3.0: The common name for California’s Net Billing Tariff, which applies to new rooftop solar customers of PG&E, SCE and SDG&E who applied on or after April 15, 2023. Exports earn hourly values far below retail rates.
Net billing: A billing rule where exported solar earns a credit set by a separate, usually lower, export rate rather than the full retail price. California’s Net Billing Tariff (often called NEM 3.0) is the best-known example.
Net metering: A billing rule where each kWh your panels send to the grid earns a credit equal (or close) to the retail price you pay. Credits offset power you buy later, often rolling over month to month.
Offset: The share of your yearly electricity use that solar is designed to produce. A 100% offset aims to match a year of use; under low export credits a smaller offset can pay back faster.
Payback period: How many years of bill savings it takes to recover what you paid for a system. A shorter payback means a better investment, all else equal.
Peak sun hours: Daily sunlight expressed as the number of hours at full-strength sun (1,000 watts per square meter). Five peak sun hours means the day’s sunlight equals five hours of full sun.
PPA (power purchase agreement): A contract where a company owns the system and you pay for the electricity it produces at a set price per kWh, often rising each year.
PTO (permission to operate): The utility’s final go-ahead to switch on a grid-connected system. Running a system before PTO can violate your utility agreement.
Round-trip efficiency: The share of energy you get back out of a battery compared with what went in. About 90% is typical for home lithium batteries.
Solar lease: A contract where a company owns the panels on your roof and you pay a fixed monthly amount, often with a yearly increase (escalator), usually for 20–25 years.
Specific yield: Yearly energy a solar system produces per kW of capacity, in kWh/kW. It depends on sunshine, tilt, direction and shade. Sunny Southwest roofs often reach 1,600–1,800; cloudier northern roofs 1,100–1,300.
Time-of-use (TOU) rate: An electricity plan where the price per kWh changes by time of day, with the highest prices in late afternoon and evening. Batteries save money by covering those peak hours.
True-up: The annual settlement on a net metering or net billing account. Charges and credits from the past 12 months are totaled, and you pay any balance owed. Leftover credits may be paid out at a low rate or lost.
Usable capacity: The share of a battery’s energy you can actually draw. Spec sheets list it in kWh; compare usable, not total, capacity between batteries.