Oklahoma solar rebates and incentives: 2024 guide

Live in the Sooner State and want to power your home with clean, sustainable energy? A couple of big incentives are available for Oklahoma homeowners that go solar. They can potentially reduce the cost of installation by thousands of dollars, and speed up your payback period through extra savings on your utility bills.

The main solar incentive in Oklahoma is the federal solar tax credit. Although Oklahoma doesn’t have other state tax incentives, the biggest utility companies are required to offer net metering, which we’ll explain in more detail below.

Residential Clean Energy Credit

The Residential Clean Energy Credit, formerly known as the federal investment tax credit (ITC), can reduce your solar panel system's cost by 30%. Your entire system qualifies for this incentive, including equipment, labor, permitting, and sales tax.

When you file your federal income taxes, you can claim this incentive as a credit towards your federal tax bill. Just keep in mind that to qualify for the ITC, you need to purchase your system either with cash or a solar loan–if you lease your system, you won't be eligible. 

To claim the credit you must have a tax bill, otherwise there is no amount to subtract your credit from. But if you don’t owe any taxes this year don’t worry. You can roll over any remaining credit year-to-year until the end of 2034 when the ITC expires. The only time you might be eligible for a direct payment for the ITC is if you're a tax-exempt entity, like a nonprofit organization. 

No, Oklahoma does not offer any tax exemptions for going solar.

If you connect your solar panel system to the grid in Oklahoma, you can (usually) benefit from a net metering program—one of the best kinds of solar incentives.

Under net metering, the sun doesn’t need to shine all the time to make the most of your solar panels, because your utility company works sort of like a bank account for solar power.

When the sun is shining, your home’s electrical system first takes as much power as it needs from your solar panels. Any excess solar power that your home doesn’t need gets sent back onto the grid, and the utility company gives you a credit for each kWh they get.

When the sun isn’t shining, and your home needs to draw electricity from the grid, the utility starts counting that energy use against your banked credits. 

Depending on the weather, your energy use, and your solar array, you could end up owing very little, or even nothing, on your electricity bills—and net metering makes that a lot more likely than other kinds of solar billing arrangements. 

A few nuances to keep in mind about Oklahoma net metering:

• Utilities will buy your leftover credits—at a discount: If, at the end of a monthly billing cycle, you have any leftover energy credits that you did not use, the utility company will convert them into a cash credit toward future electricity bills. However, they pay you for each credit at “avoided cost rate,” which is well below the retail price they charge per kWh. So it’s like you get half-credit or less for all the extra power you produce in a given month.

• Bill credits roll forward indefinitely: Your dollar-based credits do not expire. That means you can apply those credits toward any costs on any future electric bills, including fixed fees like meter connection costs, or any extra grid electricity that you might need to buy when your solar panels don’t cover all your energy use.

• The biggest utility companies offer net metering (but not all of them): Participating providers include Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OGE), Public Service Co. of Oklahoma (PSO), Liberty Utilities, and a handful of smaller co-ops that are regulated by Oklahoma Corporation Commission (listed here, in the second section of the page). They’re all required to offer net metering to customers with solar arrays smaller than 300 kW. (A typical residential solar system is 5 to 20 kW—nowhere near that upper limit, so you don’t need to worry about this detail). However a couple dozen smaller deregulated electric co-ops that are not required to provide net metering. If you’re served by one of them, check their policies to see if they offer net metering anyway.

No, Oklahoma doesn't offer any state-specific battery incentives. However, all batteries above 3 kWh in size are eligible for the 30% federal tax credit. 

Since most parts of Oklahoma offer net metering, the financial case for a solar battery isn’t very strong. But you might still consider one as a backup system for power outages, and as a way to increase your energy independence.