For years, solar marketing leaned on the 30% federal Residential Clean Energy Credit (Section 25D). That’s over. Under the 2025 law the IRS calls the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, the credit isn’t allowed for expenditures made after December 31, 2025, and the IRS says an expenditure counts as made when installation is completed. If you’re buying solar in 2026, budget for the full price.
Don’t buy portable panels to cut your electric bill
Run the numbers honestly. A 200W panel in a 4-sun-hour location makes roughly 690Wh on a good day. Multiply that by your electric rate from your bill and you’ll see it’s worth well under a dollar a day, and that assumes you set it out and use every watt-hour. Payback on bill savings alone takes a long time, especially for folding panels, which cost more per watt and often carry warranties of only one or two years.
Where they do earn their keep
Outages. A power station without solar is a one-time tank of energy; once it’s empty, you’re waiting for the grid. Add panels and you can keep a fridge, router, lights and phones going through a multi-day outage without a gas generator or fuel runs. That’s the real value, and it doesn’t depend on any tax credit.
How to spend less
If your power station lives near a sunny spot, rigid panels such as Renogy’s 100W N-type panel cost much less per watt than name-brand folding panels. If you need to fold them away, a budget folder like the ALLPOWERS SE200 is the cheaper route. Buy only as much as your battery can take: a Delta 3 Plus tops out at 1,000W of solar input, and a HomePower 2000 Plus v2 at 800W, so panels beyond that sit idle.
The bottom line
If you already own a backup battery and live somewhere with multi-day outages, a modest solar setup is worth it. If you’re hoping to save money on your bill, it probably isn’t.
Want to see how much a panel would refill your battery during an outage? Our Whole-Home Energy Calculator lets you pick a panel and a power station, then shows the daily refill, how long your essentials would run and which cable the pair needs.