Is solar still worth it on Long Island now that the federal credit is gone?

It still pencils out, but the payback window moved from roughly five years to roughly eight. The reason solar works here was never the federal credit on its own - it is PSEG Long Island's electric rate. At a blended $0.27-$0.31/kWh, every kilowatt-hour your roof produces offsets some of the most expensive residential electricity in the continental United States. An 8.7 kW array on a 10,000 kWh/year house avoids roughly $2,400-$2,700 a year in PSEG-LI charges whether or not Washington is subsidizing it. What changed is the size of the check you write up front, not the value of the electricity.

How much does an 8 kW system cost on Long Island right now?

Figure $20,000 to $28,000 installed before any incentive, with most Suffolk County quotes landing near $2.80-$3.00 per watt - about $23,200 for 8 kW at $2.90/W. Reported county averages in 2026 have ranged from $2.48/W in Hauppauge to $2.93/W in Bay Shore, so the spread between a lean quote and a padded one on the same roof can exceed $6,000. Anything under about $2.40/W deserves scrutiny of the equipment list, and anything over $3.50/W needs a specific justification such as a steep slate roof or a long conduit run.

What incentives can a New York homeowner actually claim in 2026?

Three things survive. New York's residential solar tax credit under Tax Law 606(g-1) is still 25% of system cost capped at $5,000, which most full-size arrays max out. PSEG Long Island net metering still credits exported power at the full retail supply rate. And the NYSERDA NY-Sun program retains pathways for households at or below 80% of area median income. What is gone is the 30% federal residential credit, and the standard-income NY-Sun Megawatt Block on Long Island has been exhausted rather than reduced.

Why did my neighbor pay so much less for the same roof last year?

Because they claimed a 30% federal credit that no longer exists. On a $25,230 system the Internal Revenue Code Section 25D credit was worth about $7,569, and it terminated for expenditures made after December 31, 2025 with no phase-down. The same array that netted roughly $12,700 in 2025 nets roughly $20,200 in 2026. If a salesperson quotes you a 2025-era net price or a four-year payback, they are either working from a stale spreadsheet or counting on you not to check.

Can a lease or PPA still capture the federal money?

Indirectly, and this is the one genuine workaround. Third-party owned systems are claimed by the company that owns the hardware under Section 48E rather than by you under the expired residential provision, and that owner can price the lease or power purchase agreement to reflect it. The catch is that you no longer own an appreciating asset, the escalator clause can erode the savings over twenty years, and transferring the agreement at closing complicates a home sale. Run the twenty-year total, not the first-year payment.

Incentives

Solar Panel Cost on Long Island in 2026: $2.50-$3.50 per Watt

Huntington Solar Co Published October 1, 2026

A grid-tied residential solar array on Long Island costs $2.50 to $3.50 per watt installed in 2026, which puts a typical 8-to-9 kW system between $20,000 and $30,000 before incentives. The number that changed this year is not the sticker price - it is the net price, because the 30% federal residential credit expired on December 31, 2025.

That single change is the most important fact in any 2026 Long Island solar conversation, and it is the one most likely to be missing from a quote handed to you at the door. Here is the arithmetic, the incentives that survived, and what the payback period actually looks like now.

What the hardware and labor actually cost

Installed cost per watt is the only number worth comparing between quotes, because system sizes differ. Divide the total contract price by the DC watt rating of the array.

Across Suffolk County in 2026, reported averages have run from about $2.48/W in Hauppauge to $2.77/W in Stony Brook to $2.93/W in Bay Shore. Call the honest working range $2.50-$3.50/W, with most competitive north-shore quotes clustering near $2.80-$3.00/W.

At $2.90/W, that produces:

6 kW - roughly $17,400 gross, suitable for a 7,000 kWh/year house with gas heat
8 kW - roughly $23,200 gross, the most common Long Island residential size
8.7 kW - roughly $25,200 gross, the match for a 10,000 kWh/year home
12 kW - roughly $34,800 gross, typical where electric heat or an EV is in play

Sizing follows usage, not roof area. The local rule of thumb is annual kilowatt-hours divided by 1,150, reflecting Long Island’s roughly 4.3 peak sun hours per day. A 10,000 kWh/year home therefore wants about 8.7 kW DC. The residential solar installation page covers how that gets fitted to a specific roof plane and obstruction map.

What legitimately pushes a quote toward the top of the range: a slate or cedar shake roof, a second-story array needing staging, a main panel upgrade from 100A to 200A service, a long conduit run to a detached garage, or rapid-shutdown-compliant module-level electronics required under NEC 690.12. What does not justify it: branded “energy audits,” financing fees folded into the cash price, or a monitoring subscription.

The federal credit expired, and nothing replaced it

Through 2025, Internal Revenue Code Section 25D returned 30% of a residential solar expenditure as a nonrefundable federal tax credit. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act terminated it for expenditures made after December 31, 2025. There is no phase-down, no transition window, and no reduced successor credit for homeowners who buy with cash or a loan.

On an 8.7 kW array, the expired federal credit was worth about $7,569. That is the entire delta between a five-year payback and an eight-year one.

The practical consequence is a roughly 60% increase in net cost on an identical system:

	2025	2026
Gross cost (8.7 kW at $2.90/W)	$25,230	$25,230
Federal credit (25D, 30%)	-$7,569	$0
NY State credit (25%, $5,000 cap)	-$5,000	-$5,000
Net cost	$12,661	$20,230

If a proposal you are reading shows a net price near $12,000 for a full-size array, it is a 2025 document. Ask for the federal credit line to be shown explicitly as zero, and verify it against your own tax preparer rather than the salesperson’s tablet.

What New York still pays

Three incentives survived, and together they remain meaningful.

The New York State residential solar credit under Tax Law 606(g-1) is unchanged: 25% of qualified system cost, capped at $5,000. Any array above $20,000 gross maxes the cap, so for most full-size systems this is a flat $5,000 reduction. It is a credit against New York State income tax liability and carries forward up to five years if your liability is smaller than the credit.

PSEG Long Island net metering remains the quiet workhorse. Exported generation earns a bill credit at the full retail supply rate, roughly $0.27-$0.31/kWh, carried forward month to month across the 12-month cycle. There is no annual cash payout for a system connected since January 1, 2018: unused credit carries forward and is removed at the 20th anniversary of the in-service date (LIPA Tariff for Electric Service, Leaf No. 34F-1 and 34F-2, effective June 1, 2024), so size the array to use what it earns. Size to roughly 100% of annual usage, not 120%.

NYSERDA NY-Sun still has funding, but not for everyone. The standard-income residential Megawatt Block for the Long Island region has been exhausted rather than merely stepped down, so a 2026 quote showing a per-watt NY-Sun rebate for a market-rate household is very likely wrong. Pathways for households at or below 80% of area median income do remain open, and those are worth checking directly with NYSERDA before signing anything. The full incentives breakdown tracks which blocks are actually open.

Payback on a real Long Island house

Take the 10,000 kWh/year, 8.7 kW case in Greenlawn or East Northport:

Gross cost: $25,230 at $2.90/W
Less NY State credit: -$5,000, leaving a net of $20,230
Annual production: about 10,000 kWh, matching consumption
Annual PSEG-LI charges avoided: about $2,700 at $0.27/kWh blended
Less the charges solar cannot offset: the $11.85/month SC1 fixed customer charge and percentage-based riders still apply, so realistic annual savings land at $2,400-$2,700
Simple payback: $20,230 divided by roughly $2,550 equals about 7.9 years

Call it seven to nine years depending on your blended rate and how cleanly the array matches usage. The same house in 2025 would have shown roughly 4.7 years. Over a 25-year module warranty the system still returns multiples of its cost, and PSEG-LI rate escalation shortens the window further, but anyone quoting you a sub-five-year payback in 2026 is quoting last year’s tax code.

Batteries are a separate decision and do not shorten payback. Storage buys outage coverage during north-shore storm season, not arbitrage - PSEG-LI’s residential net metering already credits exports at retail, so there is no rate spread for a battery to exploit. Price battery storage on the value of keeping a well pump and a refrigerator running, and judge it on that basis alone.

What the change does to a financed deal

Most Long Island solar is sold on a loan, and the expired federal credit breaks a structure the industry leaned on for years. The standard solar loan was built around a bridge payment: you financed the full gross cost, made small payments for 12 to 18 months, then used your 30% federal refund to make a large principal paydown, after which the payment dropped to its permanent level. Two payment tiers, one reamortization, and the whole structure assumed a federal check that no longer arrives.

In 2026 that bridge has nothing to stand on. If a lender still presents a two-tier payment schedule, read the fine print on what happens when the paydown does not occur: on most paper the loan simply reamortizes at the higher balance, and the payment you were quoted as temporary becomes the payment you keep. The New York State credit is real money but it is capped at $5,000 and it is a credit against state liability, not a lump-sum refund - it cannot carry the same structure.

Two practical consequences. First, compare loans on total interest paid, not on the first-year monthly figure, and ask for the amortization schedule assuming no federal paydown. Second, watch the dealer fee. Lenders offering a 2.99% or 3.99% nominal rate typically buy that rate down with a fee of 15-30% of the financed amount, folded invisibly into the contract price. On a $25,000 system that fee can exceed $5,000 - larger than the entire New York credit - which is why a cash price and a financed price for the same array should never match. Ask for both, in writing, and compare the cost per watt of each.

A home equity line of credit at a transparent rate frequently beats a subsidized-rate solar loan once the dealer fee is visible. That comparison is worth an hour of your time; it is often worth more than the equipment decision you are spending a week agonizing over.

Reading a 2026 quote without getting taken

Four checks catch most of what goes wrong:

Confirm the cost per watt. Total price divided by DC watts. Outside $2.50-$3.50/W, ask why in writing.
Confirm the federal line reads zero. Any nonzero 25D figure for a 2026 cash or loan purchase is an error, and it is a $7,500 error.
Confirm the NY-Sun line. If a market-rate quote claims a Megawatt Block rebate, ask which block and verify its status.
Confirm the production estimate. Long Island averages about 1,150 kWh per installed kW annually. A proposal claiming 1,400 kWh/kW is inflating savings to shorten the payback.

Permitting is the other place timelines slip. In the Town of Huntington, the Building Division handles the electrical and structural review before PSEG-LI issues permission to operate, and that sequence - not the one-day panel mount - is what sets your in-service date. The install process page lays out the real calendar.

Where this leaves a Long Island homeowner

Solar on Long Island in 2026 is a straightforward utility-rate arbitrage with a worse up-front number than last year and the same underlying logic: PSEG-LI charges roughly triple the national average for electricity, and a correctly sized roof offsets it for 25 years. The honest pitch is an eight-year payback, not a four-year one, and any quote that still says four is a quote to walk away from.

If you want the math run against your own 12 months of PSEG-LI usage rather than a county average, that is exactly what a residential solar installation assessment is for - and the first output should be a cost-per-watt figure you can compare to every other bid on your kitchen table.

Frequently asked

Is solar still worth it on Long Island now that the federal credit is gone?: It still pencils out, but the payback window moved from roughly five years to roughly eight. The reason solar works here was never the federal credit on its own - it is PSEG Long Island's electric rate. At a blended $0.27-$0.31/kWh, every kilowatt-hour your roof produces offsets some of the most expensive residential electricity in the continental United States. An 8.7 kW array on a 10,000 kWh/year house avoids roughly $2,400-$2,700 a year in PSEG-LI charges whether or not Washington is subsidizing it. What changed is the size of the check you write up front, not the value of the electricity.
How much does an 8 kW system cost on Long Island right now?: Figure $20,000 to $28,000 installed before any incentive, with most Suffolk County quotes landing near $2.80-$3.00 per watt - about $23,200 for 8 kW at $2.90/W. Reported county averages in 2026 have ranged from $2.48/W in Hauppauge to $2.93/W in Bay Shore, so the spread between a lean quote and a padded one on the same roof can exceed $6,000. Anything under about $2.40/W deserves scrutiny of the equipment list, and anything over $3.50/W needs a specific justification such as a steep slate roof or a long conduit run.
What incentives can a New York homeowner actually claim in 2026?: Three things survive. New York's residential solar tax credit under Tax Law 606(g-1) is still 25% of system cost capped at $5,000, which most full-size arrays max out. PSEG Long Island net metering still credits exported power at the full retail supply rate. And the NYSERDA NY-Sun program retains pathways for households at or below 80% of area median income. What is gone is the 30% federal residential credit, and the standard-income NY-Sun Megawatt Block on Long Island has been exhausted rather than reduced.
Why did my neighbor pay so much less for the same roof last year?: Because they claimed a 30% federal credit that no longer exists. On a $25,230 system the Internal Revenue Code Section 25D credit was worth about $7,569, and it terminated for expenditures made after December 31, 2025 with no phase-down. The same array that netted roughly $12,700 in 2025 nets roughly $20,200 in 2026. If a salesperson quotes you a 2025-era net price or a four-year payback, they are either working from a stale spreadsheet or counting on you not to check.
Can a lease or PPA still capture the federal money?: Indirectly, and this is the one genuine workaround. Third-party owned systems are claimed by the company that owns the hardware under Section 48E rather than by you under the expired residential provision, and that owner can price the lease or power purchase agreement to reflect it. The catch is that you no longer own an appreciating asset, the escalator clause can erode the savings over twenty years, and transferring the agreement at closing complicates a home sale. Run the twenty-year total, not the first-year payment.