CleanPowerSF, PG&E, Solar Installation, Permits, and Local Incentive Options in 2026

San Francisco is not in the same position as Oakland, San Jose, or San Diego. CleanPowerSF's rooftop-solar page still describes an active Net Energy Metering (NEM) program for customers with on-site renewable systems, and it says eligible customers who install solar through PG&E's process are automatically served under CleanPowerSF's NEM structure. At the same time, CleanPowerSF has proposed a new Solar Billing Plan, but its updates page says the item was tabled at the SFPUC Commission's January 27, 2026 meeting and will be considered again at a future date.

That makes San Francisco more unusual than other California city pages. The market is clearly moving toward a more time-sensitive billing structure, but the city's own public materials still show many rooftop customers on CleanPowerSF's existing NEM framework while the successor plan remains pending. A San Francisco page therefore needs to explain the transition directly rather than pretending the local structure already looks identical to other community-choice or investor-owned-utility markets.

To see how San Francisco compares with the rest of California’s solar market, visit our California solar guide.

Although the proposed plan is not yet in force, CleanPowerSF's public update page already shows where the city is headed. It says the proposed Solar Billing Plan would move export compensation away from a fixed NEM-style structure and toward rates that change by day, hour, and season. CleanPowerSF also says the proposal would add a local energy credit of $0.01/kWh for electricity sent to the grid and an additional equity credit of $0.07/kWh for customers on CARE or FERA.

The same page is explicit about the operating logic: "power your life, not the grid." CleanPowerSF says customers maximize savings by using renewable energy at home during the day and, if they have a battery, storing electricity for evening use instead of exporting it. That is why a strong San Francisco page should already frame system value around self-use and storage strategy, even while the proposed billing plan is still pending.

San Francisco still has a city-linked incentive story, but it is more limited than many older solar pages suggest. The GoSolarSF page says the program has distributed nearly $30 million and incentivized about 6,000 solar systems since launch, but it also states that all categories except DAC-SASH are now fully subscribed and closed. In other words, the remaining live city incentive is no longer a broad homeowner rebate.

GoSolarSF's page says the remaining available category is tied to DAC-SASH, the Disadvantaged Communities – Single-family Solar Homes program operated with GRID Alternatives. The same page also says households that previously received a low-income incentivized GoSolarSF system may qualify for up to $3,000 under the city's Solar Inverter Replacement Program. That gives San Francisco a real local incentive angle, but it is much more targeted than a citywide cash-back program.

At the state level, California's Active Solar Energy System Exclusion still matters. The California State Board of Equalization says the sunset date for the exclusion was extended through the 2025–26 fiscal year and is currently scheduled for January 1, 2027. The Board also says a property owner who adds an active solar energy system to an existing structure does not need to file separately for the exclusion because it should be granted automatically when the assessor receives the building-permit record.

At the federal level, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says the Residential Clean Energy Credit is not available for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025, and the 2025 Form 5695 instructions repeat that taxpayers cannot claim residential clean energy credits for expenditures made after that date. That means San Francisco solar installations in 2026 need to stand on current local billing, permitting, and incentive realities rather than on an expired homeowner tax-credit assumption.

San Francisco solar is strongest for homeowners who control their roof, can use a meaningful share of their production on-site, and want a project designed around the city's actual billing and permitting structure. The best-fit projects are the ones where the installation is modeled around self-use, permit execution, and realistic local credits, not oversized export assumptions. That follows directly from CleanPowerSF's current rooftop-solar rules and its proposed direction for future billing.

The city also has a narrower but still meaningful path for lower-income households through DAC-SASH and for some prior low-income participants through the Solar Inverter Replacement Program. So while San Francisco is not a broad rebate city in 2026, it still has targeted local support that matters for the right households.