Ohio Solar Incentive Programs

Ohio ranks 12th in total installed solar capacity, with 7,087 MW installed and enough solar to power 879,259 homes. Ohio actually ranked 7th nationally in new capacity added during 2025, and the state has more than 35,855 solar installations and 8,179 solar jobs on the books, according to SEIA’s September 2026 state profile. 

With an average residential electricity rate roughly between 16 and 18 cents per kilowatt-hour, Ohio homeowners have a real incentive to look at solar. The state doesn’t offer a personal income tax credit for going solar, but it does have a functioning net metering mandate, a market-based SREC system, and a handful of local and statewide tax exemptions worth understanding before signing a contract.

Below is a list of some of the incentives available to Ohio homeowners and businesses, and you can find further breakdowns by visiting https://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program?state=OH.

Federal Incentives

Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC)

Commercial solar energy systems can take advantage of the Federal Investment Tax Credit 48E, which provides a tax credit of 30% of the total cost of the system, provided prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements are met. 

Residential systems can no longer claim any federal solar tax credit, as the One Big Beautiful Bill eliminated it for systems installed after January 1st, 2026. 

Commercial Depreciation

Commercial asset owners can write off 100% of a project’s value in depreciation in the first year. The One Big Beautiful Bill reinstated the 100% bonus depreciation, while simultaneously eliminating the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS) that previously depreciated solar energy systems over 5 years. 

The depreciable basis of a project is reduced by half of the ITC value when combined with the 30% ITC. Here’s a quick example:

• Project cost = $800,000
• 30% credit = $240,000
• Reduced depreciation basis: $800,000 – ($240,000 / 2) = $680,000

A company’s tax rate is then taken into account to calculate the exact amount they’re able to write off. 

State Incentives & Programs

Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs)

Ohio’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard requires electric utilities and retail providers to source a share of their electricity from solar generation. That requirement is what creates a market for Solar Renewable Energy Certificates. One SREC represents 1,000 kWh, or 1 MWh, of solar production.

To generate marketable SRECs, a system has to be certified with PUCO. Most homeowners don’t sell SRECs directly to a utility. Instead, they work through an aggregator that bundles and resells certificates on their behalf. Current SREC values in Ohio run around $3-5 per MWh (megawatt-hour = 1000 kWh) each, so a 6 kW system producing roughly 7,000 kWh a year would generate about seven SRECs, worth in the neighborhood of $21-$35 annually at that price. It’s a modest, ongoing add-on rather than a large upfront incentive.

This SREC market is a separate thing from Ohio’s old Solar Generation Fund. That fund made fixed $9 per SREC payments to a small group of utility-scale solar projects that were certified before June 1, 2019, with payments scheduled to run through 2028. House Bill 15, signed in 2025, repealed that fund and barred retail electric suppliers from continuing to collect the charge that financed it. 

City of Cincinnati Property Tax Abatement for Green Buildings

Cincinnati has offered a property tax abatement for LEED-certified buildings since 2006, run through the city’s Community Reinvestment Area program. The incentive was amended for projects installed after January 31st, 2013. 

Residential projects can qualify for a 100% tax abatement for 15 years on new construction and 10 years on existing building retrofits. Commercial systems can also qualify for this incentive, with the term lasting 8 to 15 years depending on the use case. 

Qualified Energy Project Tax Exemption

This statewide exemption, administered by the Ohio Department of Development, exempts owners or lessees of renewable energy projects from the state’s public utility tangible personal property tax. Projects under 250 kW are exempt, but larger projects have to apply with Ohio Development 

This is primarily a tool for commercial and utility-scale projects rather than typical rooftop residential systems, but it matters for larger commercial arrays that would otherwise carry a real annual tax burden on their generation equipment.

Net Metering

Ohio requires the state’s investor-owned utilities, AEP Ohio, Duke Energy Ohio, AES Ohio, and FirstEnergy’s three Ohio utilities, to offer net metering to customers. 

Most Ohio utilities currently credit exported solar energy at the full retail rate, a 1:1 credit, though the exact terms depend on each utility’s specific filed tariff. Some utilities roll unused annual credits forward indefinitely, while others settle them out at a lower rate at the end of the billing year, so it’s worth checking a specific utility’s tariff before assuming credits carry over the way they do elsewhere. 

System sizing matters too: net metering eligibility caps out at 120% of a customer’s average annual electricity consumption, so a system built well beyond actual household usage won’t earn full credit on the extra output.

Net metering in Ohio only applies as a matter of state law to investor-owned utilities. Municipalities and electric cooperatives aren’t required to offer it, though many choose to on their own terms.

Where does Ohio solar go from here?

Ohio residents lost the federal solar tax credit and its old fixed-price Solar Generation Fund in the same stretch of time, but the fundamentals that actually move the needle for most homeowners, a statewide net metering mandate and a functioning SREC market, are still in place. 

The state added enough capacity in 2025 to rank 7th nationally for that year alone, and SEIA projects another 8,123 MW of growth over the next five years, good for a 10th-place ranking on that measure. House Bill 303’s community energy program is the piece to watch next, and the AEP Ohio net metering proceeding is the one that could most directly affect what a new system is worth.

If you’re in Ohio and looking to go solar with protection for parts and labor for 30 years, check out our homeowner page to find a Solar Insure Certified Provider near you: https://www.solarinsure.com/find-a-certified-provider

Want to learn more about solar incentives in other states? Check out our solar incentives hub: https://www.solarinsure.com/solar-incentives-guide-to-all-50-states