What EV and solar incentives does a Delaware resident actually get?

Delaware runs its own EV and solar incentive programs regardless of what Washington does, but almost every "Delaware EV incentives" article online either describes the (now-expired) federal credit, or lists Delaware's programs without saying that the federal layer under them is gone. Both things are true at once, and mixing them up is the single easiest way to overstate what you'll actually get.

Both federal credits were cut short by the reconciliation law widely known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (Public Law 119-21), signed July 4, 2025. Neither credit phased down gradually — each has a specific date after which it simply does not apply.

Practically, this means: buying an EV or buying-and-owning a home solar system in Delaware today carries no federal tax credit. Leasing solar equipment or signing a PPA is the one path where a federal credit still exists in the supply chain — but it belongs to whoever owns the system, and any pass-through to you is a matter of the lease pricing your installer offers, not a credit you claim on your own return.

This is Delaware's own point-of-purchase rebate, run by DNREC and administered day-to-day through Drive Electric Delaware. It is a cash rebate, not a tax credit, and it does not depend on the federal credit above — it has run in parallel with, and now independently of, the expired federal program.

The current cycle covers vehicles purchased or leased from May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027. Rebate amounts are set at the start of each cycle and held fixed until the program is reevaluated the following May.

How to apply. You have 90 days from the purchase or lease date to submit a post-purchase rebate application. Some participating dealerships will apply the rebate at the point of sale instead — dealers must submit those within 30 days of the transaction. Either way you (or the dealer, on your behalf) must first register as a "supplier" through Delaware's Division of Accounting eSupplier Portal, since the state pays the rebate the same way it pays any vendor.

Other eligibility limits: a used vehicle can't be more than 8 model years older than the current calendar year, and any one person can receive at most two rebates over the lifetime of the program. Unlike the charger rebate below, DNREC's own program pages do not state a total dollar funding cap for the vehicle rebate itself — but the program has been reevaluated (and occasionally paused between cycles) before, so treat "the program is currently open" as something to confirm the day you buy, not something to assume from this page.

Do not confuse this with the vehicle rebate above — it is a different program, for charging equipment, with its own funding pool that can run out.

DNREC has $2,000,000 available for Level 2 EV charging equipment installed after May 1, 2026, on a strict first-come, first-served basis until the money is gone. Rebates run up to $5,000 per single-port charger and $10,000 per dual-port charger (higher percentages, up to 90%, apply in designated Priority Areas and for government/nonprofit applicants), capped at 10 ports or 5 dual-port stations per site.

This program is not for homeowners charging their own car in their own garage. It is restricted to multi-family housing, workplaces, publicly accessible locations, and fleets — DNREC's own program description explicitly excludes single-family home charging stations. If you're a Delaware homeowner installing a home charger, this rebate does not apply to you; it applies if you're a business, a landlord, a municipality or an employer installing chargers for others to use.

Three separate things determine what a Delaware homeowner nets from going solar: a Delmarva Power-only upfront rebate, statewide SRECs you can sell every year, and statewide net metering. None of them require the expired federal credit, and none of them are contingent on each other.

Green Energy Program rebate — Delmarva Power customers only

DNREC's Green Energy Program pays an upfront, per-watt rebate, but only to customers of Delmarva Power and Light (DPL) — it does not apply if you're served by Delaware Electric Cooperative or a municipal utility. Effective July 1, 2026, the residential photovoltaic rate is $0.80 per watt, up to 50,000 watts, for a maximum grant of $10,000. Two conditions worth knowing: the grant can't exceed 50% of the total project cost, and the project's total cost has to be $6.00 per watt or less to qualify at all — a below-cap installer quote matters as much as the rebate rate. Residential solar leases or PPAs are explicitly not eligible for this particular rebate; it's for owned systems only.

If you're not a Delmarva Power customer: Delaware Electric Cooperative and the municipal utilities represented by DEMEC reportedly run comparable rebate programs of their own, but we were not able to confirm current dollar amounts for those programs against a primary source as of this review — figures circulating online for DEC's rebate conflict with each other. If you're a DEC or municipal-utility customer, contact your utility directly for their current rate before assuming any number quoted elsewhere.

Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs)

Every megawatt-hour your system generates earns one SREC, which Delaware utilities are required to buy to meet the state's renewable energy quota. The state-run SREC Delaware procurement program sells these under 25-year contracts through an annual competitive auction: bidders name the price they'll accept, and the lowest valid bids fill each year's allocation. In recent procurements, the winning bid price for the first 10 years has cleared around $30 per SREC; years 11 through 25 pay a fixed $10 per SREC regardless of that year's auction. Because the year-1-10 rate is set by auction, not a fixed statutory number, next year's cycle could clear higher or lower — don't treat $30 as guaranteed.

Net metering — statewide

Net metering itself, unlike the rebate above, is not limited to Delmarva Power. Under 26 Del. C. §1014, Delmarva Power, Delaware Electric Cooperative, and Delaware's municipal electric utilities are all required to offer net metering to customers who generate their own electricity. A system can be sized up to 110% of your expected annual usage (residential systems are generally capped at 25 kW). Excess generation in a given month carries forward as a credit against future bills, but unused credits are not paid out in cash at the end of the annual billing cycle — they simply expire at that point.

Property tax — we could not confirm an exemption

Several neighboring states exempt the added value of a home solar installation from property tax assessment by statute. We could not find a Delaware statute that does the same, and multiple secondary summaries of state-by-state solar policy list Delaware among the states with no such exemption. That does not necessarily mean a solar installation will raise your assessment in practice — assessment methods vary by county, and Delaware's counties reassess property infrequently — but we are not confident enough in either direction to state a rule here. If a property tax exemption for solar matters to your decision, ask your county's assessment office directly before you rely on anything published about this online, including this page.