Is Free Solar in California Real?

The short answer

"Free solar" is real in exactly two places: DAC-SASH (Disadvantaged Communities – Single-Family Solar Homes) and, in narrower cases, the Self-Generation Incentive Program. Both are income- and location-gated. Outside those, every "free solar," "$0 cost," or "government program pays for it" pitch describes a loan, lease, or power purchase agreement — a way to pay for solar with no money down, not a way to get solar for no money at all.

The CPUC's guide is blunt about this. It puts the exact claim — "you can get free solar energy at no cost to you" — in a table of false statements to watch for, and it puts a nearly identical companion claim next to it: "you will never pay an electricity bill again after a solar system is installed." Also false, for the same reason. Going solar reduces your utility bill; it doesn't zero it out, and if you financed the system, you've traded part of that utility bill for a loan, lease, or PPA bill instead.

None of this means $0-down solar is a bad deal. A properly disclosed loan, lease, or PPA can be a perfectly reasonable way to go solar without a five-figure check. The problem is only when "no money down" gets marketed as "no cost," because those are different claims and only one of them is true.

What "$0 down" actually means: three structures

Every solar deal in California is one of three things, per the CPUC guide's own breakdown:

Cash or loan purchase. The homeowner owns the system outright. A "$0 down" loan is still a loan — no down payment means 100% financed, with interest, over the loan term. You own the panels and you owe the lender.

Power purchase agreement (PPA). The solar company owns the system on your roof and sells you the electricity it produces, at a fixed per-kWh rate, typically for 20 to 25 years, usually with an annual price escalator of 1% to 3%. You never own the panels. You're buying power from a private seller instead of the utility, and that seller's price goes up every year on a schedule you agreed to at signing.

Lease. Same ownership structure as a PPA — the solar company owns the system — but you pay a scheduled monthly rent for its output instead of a per-kWh rate, also typically over 20 to 25 years.

In all three, somebody gets a bill. Either the utility (reduced, not eliminated), the loan company, the lease company, or the PPA company — frequently more than one at once, since NEM 3.0 / Net Billing export credits are thin enough (roughly 5 to 8 cents per kWh at PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E) that the utility bill rarely disappears even with a fully paid-off system.

The tax credit changed in 2026 — know which deal you're in

The federal residential solar tax credit, Section 25D, ended December 31, 2025. If you buy a system with cash or a loan today, there is no federal tax credit attached to that purchase. That's a real change from two decades of solar marketing, and it's worth asking directly: is this pitch still assuming a 30% credit that no longer exists for a homeowner-owned system?

Third-party-owned systems are a different story. A PPA or lease provider that owns the system can still reach the commercial investment tax credit under Section 48E — but that credit belongs to the owner (the leasing or PPA company), not to you. It may show up indirectly in a lower monthly rate, but you will not personally claim a tax credit on a leased or PPA'd system, and you never could.

Practical read: if a salesperson quotes you "30% off" on a cash or loan purchase in 2026, ask them to show you the credit they're applying it to. There isn't one anymore for that ownership structure. If the credit is described as something the leasing company gets and passes through in pricing, that's a defensible statement — confirm it's framed that way and not as your own tax benefit.

DAC-SASH: the program that makes solar genuinely free

DAC-SASH is the real thing. It's overseen by the CPUC, adopted under Decision 18-06-027 (issued June 22, 2018) pursuant to AB 327 (2013), and administered statewide by the nonprofit GRID Alternatives, which has run California's low-income solar incentives since 2008. The program runs on $10 million a year from 2019 through 2030 — $120 million total — funded through PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E.

Eligibility requires all four: you're a customer of PG&E, SCE, or SDG&E; you own and occupy the home as your primary residence; your household income is at or below the CARE or FERA program limits (check current dollar thresholds directly with GRID or your utility — they're published and change periodically); and your home sits in a Disadvantaged Community under CalEnviroScreen 4.0, or in California Indian Country.

The incentive itself is a flat $3 per watt, one-time, paid after a minimum-quality install inspection. Here's what makes it genuinely $0: applicants can choose GRID's Third-Party Ownership model, where GRID's financing partner (currently Sunrun) prepays the full cost and the homeowner carries no financial liability at all — no loan, no lease payment, no lien. Twelve CPUC-mandated protections come with that path, including a guarantee of at least 50% savings versus standard utility rates and a flat prohibition on liens against the home. Applications and installations both run on deadlines — reservations by December 31, 2030, installs complete by September 30, 2031 — so this isn't open-ended. Apply through GRID Alternatives directly: (866) 921-4696 or DACSASH@gridalternatives.org.

Other real programs — and one that's closed

SASH, the original Single-family Affordable Solar Homes program that DAC-SASH replaced, is closed. It ran from 2008 through the end of 2021 and served roughly 10,000 households total. If anyone pitches you "SASH" by name as a currently open program, that's outdated information at best.

SGIP (Self-Generation Incentive Program) still has a Residential Solar & Storage Equity budget aimed at low-income customers pairing battery storage with solar, through an approved SGIP Developer List installer. Non-residential SGIP budgets closed at the end of 2025; whether residential equity funds remain is something to confirm directly with a program administrator before anyone tells you it's funded — that detail moves.

Two other CPUC-listed options are worth knowing if rooftop solar isn't possible on your home: DAC-GT and CSGT (Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariff and Community Solar Green Tariff) give renters and homeowners who can't put panels on their own roof a straightforward 20% bill discount from utility-scale clean energy, tied to CARE/FERA eligibility — some households are enrolled automatically. And the Farmworker Housing Energy Efficiency and Solar PV Program provides direct, no-cost efficiency and solar work for farmworker housing across 18 counties, administered by La Cooperativa Campesina de California.

Property tax: solar doesn't spike your bill, for now

One more cost question worth answering directly: does adding solar trigger a property tax reassessment? No. Revenue & Taxation Code § 73 excludes active solar energy systems from the "newly constructed" reassessment trigger that would otherwise apply when you add a major improvement to your home.

The catch is that this exclusion sunsets by its own terms — currently operative through the 2025-26 fiscal year, with a scheduled end date of January 1, 2027, per the statute as most recently amended (Stats. 2025, ch. 328, effective January 1, 2026). The legislature has renewed this exclusion before, and existing systems are grandfathered until a change of ownership regardless. But if you're timing an install around 2026 versus 2027, this is a real deadline to have your contractor or a tax professional confirm at signing — not something to assume is permanent.

How to tell a legitimate $0-down offer from a misleading one

Every legitimate solar sale, lease, or financing contract in California must include a Solar Energy System Disclosure Document on its cover page, in boldface 16-point type, under Business & Professions Code § 7169. It has to state the total cost and payments including financing charges, how to file a complaint, and your cancellation rights. Since November 1, 2025, a longer companion document — the Solar Energy System Supporting Information form — has also been required, covering financing sources, generation-estimate methodology, extra utility fees, rebate terms, the contractor's license number, and a lease-versus-purchase comparison. If a salesperson can't produce these, or rushes past them, that's your signal to slow down. Blank forms are posted at cslb.ca.gov/consumers/solar_smart.

You also have a cancellation right almost no salesperson volunteers: if the deal was signed at your home (true for nearly all residential solar sales), you can cancel until midnight of the third business day after signing — the fifth if you're a senior citizen — under Civil Code § 1689.6 and Business & Professions Code § 7159. Cancel in writing; mailed notice counts the day you send it.

Before signing anything, verify the contractor's CSLB license number and, for door-to-door sales, the salesperson's Home Improvement Salesperson registration, at cslb.ca.gov/consumers or 800-321-2752. The license should carry a C-46, C-10, or B classification. Get at least three bids. One thing not to rely on right now: the CPUC's Public List of Non-Compliant Solar Providers is currently blank — the agency paused it after 2023 rule revisions and hasn't republished it, per the CPUC's own page as of this writing. Its absence doesn't mean everyone's compliant; it means the list itself isn't a working screening tool at the moment.

What if your lease or PPA company goes out of business?

This isn't hypothetical anymore. Several large national solar financing companies have gone through bankruptcy in the past two years: Freedom Forever filed Chapter 11 in April 2026 and converted to Chapter 7 liquidation on July 31, 2026, ceasing operations entirely and affecting more than 150,000 homeowners; Sunnova filed Chapter 11 in June 2025 and was sold, with SunStrong now administering legacy accounts rather than originating new ones; SunPower filed Chapter 11 in August 2024. These are public bankruptcy filings, not accusations — cited here because they change what a 20-to-25-year lease or PPA commitment actually means in practice.

If you own your system outright, a financing company's bankruptcy is someone else's problem to fix, though warranty service can get disrupted while accounts get sorted out. If you're in a lease or PPA, the contract typically survives bankruptcy and gets assigned or serviced by another entity — but the entity servicing your panels in year 15 may not be the one that sold them to you, and service quality during a bankruptcy transition is genuinely uncertain. This is a real factor to weigh against a 20-to-25-year commitment, and a fair question to put to any salesperson pitching a lease or PPA: what happens to my contract if your company doesn't exist in ten years?