NY Solar Incentives

By Noam Yakov

Overview

Estimate what a home solar system would cost and save in any New York State county, using the same official data and arithmetic as the calculator on nysolarincentives.org. What it does: - Sizes a system from your average monthly electric bill (or uses the size on your quote) and estimates its yearly output, installed cost, the 25% New York State solar credit (up to $5,000), the 2026 Customer Benefit Contribution, net yearly savings and simple payback. - Shows the New York City property tax abatement for homes in the five boroughs. - Lists the RPTL 487 property-tax exemption opt-outs on record for a county, from the NY Tax Department's listing and NYSERDA's filings, with links to the filings. - Lists the electric utilities that serve a county and their 2025 average residential price. Data: county medians of NYSERDA-reported home solar projects (output per kW and installed price per watt), EIA-861 2025 utility data, the NY Tax Department's credit and RPTL 487 records, and NYSERDA's 2026 CBC rates and NY-Sun block charts. Each result says when the data was checked and links to the calculator page, which lists every source. Limits: estimates from averages, not a quote, a design for your roof or tax advice. Homes in New York State only, not businesses, farms or community solar. The federal 30% credit shows as $0 because it is not available for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. Small municipal utilities publish no average price, so you may be asked for your own price per kWh. Privacy: the app needs only a county, a utility and a bill amount or system size. It stores nothing and never asks for a name, an address or contact details. NY Solar Incentives is an independent publisher. It is not affiliated with NYSERDA, New York State or any installer.

Tools

check_ny_rptl487_opt_outs

ChatGPT

Use this when someone asks whether their New York county, town, city, village or school district opted out of the RPTL section 487 property-tax exemption for solar. Returns every opt-out on record for the county from the NY Tax Department's listing and NYSERDA's filings, as shown on nysolarincentives.org's RPTL 487 page, with the filing links. Read-only. The assessor confirms; laws adopted after the listing dates do not show yet.

estimate_ny_solar_savings

ChatGPT

Use this when someone asks what a home solar system would cost, save or pay back in a New York State county, or what the NY State credit, NY-Sun, net metering or the RPTL 487 property-tax exemption mean for them. Same data and arithmetic as the calculator on nysolarincentives.org: county medians of NYSERDA-reported home projects (output per kW, installed price per watt), the utility's 2025 average residential price (EIA-861), the 25% NY State credit up to $5,000, the 2026 Customer Benefit Contribution, NYC's property tax abatement, and the RPTL 487 opt-outs on record for the county. Needs the county (not a city) and, when more than one utility serves it, the electric utility; then either the average monthly electric bill or a system size in kW. Optional: a quoted installed price and the person's own price per kWh. Returns an estimate from averages, not a quote or tax advice. Not for other states, businesses, farms or community solar.

list_ny_county_utilities

ChatGPT

Use this to find which electric utilities serve a New York State county (EIA-861 service territory) and the county figures the solar calculator on nysolarincentives.org uses: typical home system size, expected output per kW and median installed price per watt from NYSERDA-reported projects, each utility's 2025 average residential price and 2026 CBC rate. Read-only; does not estimate savings (use estimate_ny_solar_savings for that).