Is solar worth it in Maryland?

What drives solar payback in Maryland

Maryland homeowners pay about 20.6¢/kWh, which is 2.2¢ above the national average. A rooftop here generates roughly 1300 kWh per kW each year — about the typical US figure. On exports, Maryland offers full retail net metering: Retail net metering, a state grant and SRECs do the heavy lifting now that the federal credit has ended.

A worked example

For a Maryland home with a $180/month power bill (typical household usage at Maryland’s rate):

That nets out to a payback of about 10.2 years — shorter than simply dividing net cost by year-one savings, because power prices climb ~2.5%/yr so your savings grow each year. Assumes 3.00 $/W installed before incentives and a typical 40% self-consumption; your actual cost, roof and usage will differ — adjust the calculator above.

Who supplies your power in Maryland

Four investor-owned utilities carve up Maryland — Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), Pepco, Delmarva Power and Potomac Edison — with rural cooperatives such as Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) and Choptank Electric, plus municipal systems including Easton Utilities and Hagerstown Light, filling the gaps. Happily, little of that matters for solar: net metering and the incentive programmes are set at state level by the Public Service Commission and the Maryland Energy Administration. Your utility mostly determines the retail rate you pay and the interconnection paperwork you fill in, which means quotes compare cleanly whether you're in the Baltimore-Washington corridor or out on the Eastern Shore.

What you’re paid for what you export

Your meter effectively runs backwards in Maryland: exports are credited at the same retail rate you pay, and surplus rolls forward month to month, so a sunny July quietly pre-pays a gloomy January. The one historical weakness was the spring true-up, when leftover credits were cashed out at the lower commodity (generation) rate — but under the Net Metering Flexibility Act you can now opt out of that and roll credits forward indefinitely at full retail value instead, removing the old penalty for over-generating. You do have to contact your utility to make the switch. Residential arrays are sized to your own use (generally capped at 200% of your historical annual consumption), within a wider programme that runs to 2 MW; inside those limits, the grid does the storing for you.

Maryland incentives & taxes in 2026

Maryland's incentives are a mixed bag of the closed, the oversubscribed and the genuinely useful. The old flat rebate of roughly $1,000 — the Residential Clean Energy Rebate — is gone. Its successor, the income-qualified Maryland Solar Access Program (created by the Brighter Tomorrow Act of 2024), pays on the order of $750 per kW up to about $7,500, but the FY2026 pot was fully subscribed and applications are shut; a fresh FY2027 round is expected later in 2026, so treat it as a possibility rather than a plan. More dependable is the SREC market, which remains active: your system earns one certificate per megawatt-hour, sold into the compliance market — though prices have softened and move with supply, so count that income as a bonus. The quiet workhorses are the exemptions: no 6% sales tax on the equipment, no state property tax on the added home value, and several counties layer local credits on top.

The 30% federal credit ended on 31 December 2025 and can now only reach a homeowner indirectly through a lease or PPA. Check the current state and utility programs on DSIRE’s Maryland list, then type any incentive into the calculator above to see how it shortens your payback.

What solar costs in Maryland

Call it $3.00 a watt — Maryland quotes mostly fall between $2.85 and $3.10, which puts an 8 kW system at $23,000-$25,000 before incentives. Northeast-adjacent labour and permitting stop prices dropping to Sunbelt levels, but the Baltimore-Washington corridor has enough installers competing that bids stay honest. Collect several anyway: the same roof routinely draws quotes several thousand dollars apart.

The honest verdict for Maryland

Maryland pays you twice. Once through full retail net metering at close to 20 cents/kWh — now with the option to roll credits forward indefinitely instead of surrendering them at true-up — and again through SREC income on everything you generate. Add the sales- and property-tax exemptions and a well-sized, owned system pays back in roughly 9-12 years. The MEA's Solar Access grant can shorten that if you qualify and a funding round happens to be open, but it's income-limited and routinely oversubscribed, so treat it as luck rather than strategy. Not quite New Jersey's SuSI-fuelled economics, but a genuinely strong stack.

Driving electric — or heating electric — in Maryland?

Your home electricity rate also sets what it costs to charge an EV and whether a heat pump beats a gas furnace. See the Maryland EV charging cost and the Maryland heat pump vs gas comparison.

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