Oregon Solar Incentives in 2026: Yes, You Can Still Save (Big Time)

Short answer: in 2026 an Oregon homeowner has one main incentive — the Energy Trust of Oregon cash incentive, paid through your installer — plus net metering, which is worth more over the life of a system than most people realise. The federal 30% credit is gone. The Oregon state tax credit has been gone since 2017. The state rebate programme is currently out of money.

That is a shorter list than it was two years ago, and anyone telling you otherwise is working from an old page. Here is what is actually available, what it is worth, and how to get it.

What an Oregon homeowner can claim in 2026

• Energy Trust of Oregon cash incentive — the main one. Paid to your installer and deducted from your price. Open.
• Solar Within Reach — a substantially larger Energy Trust incentive for income-qualified households. Open, and the income limits are far higher than most people assume.
• Net metering — not a cheque, but the mechanism that makes solar work in this climate. Always on.
• Oregon Department of Energy Solar + Storage Rebate — currently closed. Out of funding.
• Federal residential tax credit — expired 31 December 2025.
• Oregon state tax credit — none. Ended in 2017 and was never replaced.

Energy Trust of Oregon: the main incentive

Energy Trust is funded by a charge on Portland General Electric and Pacific Power bills, which is why it is only available to customers of those two utilities. If a co-op or a municipal utility serves you, this does not apply. The incentive is paid to your Energy Trust trade ally contractor and comes off your project price — you do not file anything yourself.

Why we do not publish one flat number here

Because it changes, on a schedule. Energy Trust runs a stepped incentive: rates start at a level on 1 January and step down through the year at quarterly boundaries — 1 April, 1 July, 1 October — with a target of no more than one small reduction per quarter for each offer. Budget consumed also matters.

So a figure published in a blog post in January is describing Step 1, and by August you are in Step 3. Energy Trust tells its own trade allies to check the live status report rather than trust static pages, and you deserve the same honesty. We pull the current step for your utility and your project on the day we quote you, and you will see it as a dated line item.

You can check it yourself on Energy Trust’s solar page. Amounts differ between PGE and Pacific Power customers, and there is a minimum system size of 2 kW DC.

Solar Within Reach: the one most people wrongly assume they miss

This is the income-qualified offer, and it is worth considerably more than the standard incentive. Current terms, effective 1 June 2026:

• PGE customers: $1.25 per watt, capped at $7,500
• Pacific Power customers: $0.85 per watt, capped at $5,250
• Battery storage, PGE: $500 per kWh, capped at $6,250
• Battery storage, Pacific Power: $400 per kWh, capped at $5,000

The income limits are much higher than most people expect. They are set by county and household size — in Multnomah County the limit for a single-person household runs well over $130,000. A great many households who assume they earn too much actually qualify. It costs nothing to check, and the difference is thousands of dollars. Current thresholds are published by Energy Trust here.

You must be a PGE or Pacific Power residential customer, occupy the home, and use an Energy Trust trade ally contractor. Minimum 2 kW DC for solar, 3 kWh for storage.

The ODOE Solar + Storage Rebate is closed right now

The Oregon Department of Energy rebate — up to $5,000 for solar and $2,500 for storage — had been out of funding since mid-2024. It reopened on 15 June 2026 with $1.1 million in repurposed funding, and that money was reserved almost immediately. ODOE is not currently accepting rebate reservation applications.

If you see this rebate quoted in a proposal as a certainty, that is a problem with the proposal. You can sign up for notification of the next opening through ODOE directly. We do not build it into a quote unless a reservation is actually in hand.

Net metering: the incentive nobody counts

This is the one that matters most across twenty-five years, and it never appears in a “top incentives” list because it is not a cheque.

Your array will massively overproduce in July and badly underproduce in December — that is simply what solar does at this latitude. Net metering bridges the gap: surplus you export is credited at retail rate and rolls forward month to month, and you draw it back down through the winter.

• System size: up to 25 kW for residential customers on both PGE and Pacific Power.
• Credits: accrue at retail rate and roll forward monthly.
• Annual true-up: both utilities reconcile on the March billing cycle.
• Leftover credits at true-up: are not paid out to you — under Oregon rules they transfer to the utility’s low-income energy assistance programme.

That last point is the practical argument against deliberately oversizing. Building well beyond your annual usage donates the surplus every March. We explain Oregon net metering in more detail here.

Is there an Oregon solar tax credit?

No. Oregon’s Residential Energy Tax Credit expired on 31 December 2017 and no state income tax credit has replaced it. If a page offers you an Oregon state solar tax credit in 2026, it is nine years out of date.

What happened to the federal 30% credit

The federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D was terminated for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025. It is not available for a residential system installed in 2026, and there was no phase-down — it was a hard cutoff.

This is the most common stale number in circulation. If you hold a quote showing 30% back from the IRS, your real net cost is materially higher than that quote says, and it should be redone before you compare it against anything. The full position is here.

PGE or Pacific Power — and why it changes your number

Energy Trust pays different amounts to customers of the two utilities, so which one serves you directly changes what your project costs. Around the Portland metro the boundary is not intuitive and does not follow city limits. We confirm your utility from your address and your bill before quoting rather than guessing from a postcode.

How this actually works in practice

• You do not apply for the Energy Trust incentive yourself. Your trade ally contractor reserves it and it comes off your price.
• The reservation happens before installation, and that is what locks your step. A project quoted in one quarter and reserved in the next can land on a different number.
• Ask for the incentive as a dated line item, not a range, and ask whether it is the current step or an assumed future one.
• Ask whether you were screened for Solar Within Reach. Given how high the thresholds run, the honest answer for many households is that nobody checked.

Want your actual Oregon numbers, at this quarter’s step, for your utility? Call 360-313-7190 or request a free quote.