South Carolina
How much does solar cost in South Carolina?
The fees and rates that are public, and the arithmetic that turns your own quote into a net cost and a payback.
Get Solar Options
If you have done your research and want to speak with a solar professional, HyreSolar can help you explore available options.
Solar cost terms used on this page
- Gross cost
- The contract price for equipment, labor, permits and interconnection, before any credit.
- Incentives
- In South Carolina, mainly the 25% state credit, plus a utility rebate where one exists (Santee Cooper).
- Financing cost
- Interest and any dealer fee built into a loan. It is a cost of the money, not of the system.
- Net cost
- Gross cost minus incentives you can actually use, plus financing cost if you borrow.
- Savings
- The bill you avoid each year: self-used power at your retail rate plus exports at your utility’s credit, minus any new fixed charges.
What decides solar cost in South Carolina
South Carolina’s systems ran larger than the national average in 2024, 7.54 kW against 6.74 kW (EIA-861), because homes here use more electricity. System size is the largest single driver of the contract price.
After that come roof type and condition, design wind loads under the 2021 South Carolina Building Codes, panel and inverter choice, a battery, and whether your electrical panel needs an upgrade.
Utility rules also change what you should buy. Dominion and Duke cap residential systems at 20 kW AC and require a time-of-use rate; Santee Cooper caps at the lesser of 20 kW or your estimated maximum monthly demand.
Because every verified export credit is below retail, an oversized system raises cost faster than savings. Cost by system size explains the scaling.
South Carolina solar fees and charges you can verify
South Carolina utility fees and charges below are published figures. Your permit fee is set locally; your city page lists it where we have verified it.
| Item | Utility or authority | Amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interconnection application | Santee Cooper | $100 | Residential, non-refundable (2026 program manual) |
| Monthly solar charge | Santee Cooper | $10/month | DG-25 rider |
| Interconnection application + inspection | Berkeley Electric Cooperative | $150 + $50 | Renewable Surplus Rider |
| Application fee | Palmetto Electric Cooperative | $100 | Residential net billing |
| Minimum monthly bill | Dominion Energy South Carolina | $13.50 | Solar Choice rider |
| Basic facilities charge | Dominion Energy South Carolina | $0.4274/day (about $12.99/month) | Rate 5, required with Solar Choice |
| Basic customer charge | Duke Energy Carolinas | $13.09/month; $30 minimum customer and distribution charge | Schedule R-STOU, required with Rider RSC |
| Non-bypassable charge | Duke Energy Carolinas | Per kW DC of nameplate; amount not verified | Rider RSC |
| Building and electrical permit | Your city or county | Set locally; the City of Charleston charges by contract value | Charleston’s fee arithmetic |
Utility tariffs and program manuals, retrieved 5 October 2026.
South Carolina electricity prices by utility
Average residential price in 2024: residential revenue ÷ residential sales. Self-used solar avoids roughly this rate; exports earn the credit beside it.
| Utility | Average price, 2024 | Export credit for a new system |
|---|---|---|
| Dominion Energy South Carolina | 14.59¢/kWh | Netted by period; surplus paid each November at avoided cost |
| Duke Energy Carolinas | 13.99¢/kWh | 4.19¢/kWh net excess |
| Santee Cooper | 11.38¢/kWh | 4.15¢/kWh |
| Berkeley Electric Cooperative | 14.93¢/kWh | 6.03¢/kWh |
| Palmetto Electric Cooperative | 12.79¢/kWh | 4.662¢/kWh (2026–27) |
| Greer Commission of Public Works | 11.80¢/kWh | Not verified |
| City of Rock Hill (municipal electric) | 12.55¢/kWh | Not verified |
US EIA Form EIA-861 2024, HyreSolar calculation; export credits from each utility’s tariff.
South Carolina solar cost scenarios with example inputs
Every input is an example, not a price: contract values, a yield of 1,300 kWh per kW per year, and 60% of output used at home. Replace them with your quote, a PVWatts estimate for your roof, and your own bills.
| Scenario | Contract (example) | State credit | Net cost | Output (example) | Year-1 saving | Simple payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small: 4 kW, Duke Energy Carolinas | $15,000 | $3,750 (used over 2 yrs) | $11,250 | 5,200 kWh | $524 | 21.5 years |
| Medium: 7 kW, Santee Cooper | $25,000 | $6,250 (used over 2 yrs) | $18,750 | 9,100 kWh | $772 | 24.3 years |
| Large: 10 kW, Berkeley Electric | $35,000 | $8,750 (used over 3 yrs) | $26,250 | 13,000 kWh | $1,478 | 17.8 years |
HyreSolar arithmetic. Self-used kWh valued at the utility’s 2024 average price (EIA-861), exports at its current credit. No fixed charges, rate changes, degradation or financing are included.
How the scenario math works, line by line
The medium scenario shows the steps. A 7 kW system at an example 1,300 kWh per kW produces 9,100 kWh a year. At 60% self-use, 5,460 kWh replace Santee Cooper power at 11.38¢, worth $621. The other 3,640 kWh export at 4.15¢, worth $151.
The $10 monthly solar charge ($120 a year) would come off that saving, and Santee Cooper’s Solar Home rebate of $0.95 per watt AC (up to 6 kW AC, Trade Ally installs only) would come off the cost.
The state credit on the example $25,000 contract is $6,250, but no more than $3,500 a year and no more than half your state tax liability. Spread over two years, it reaches you later than a cash rebate would. How the credit is used year by year.
Raising self-use is the strongest lever. In the same example, moving from 60% to 80% self-use adds 1,820 kWh valued at retail instead of export, about $132 a year more.
South Carolina solar costs that sit outside the panels
The state credit excludes “structural elements of the building such as walls and roofs”, so a re-roof is paid in full. Roof before solar?
Some older panels cannot take a solar breaker. Panel upgrade check.
A separate line item. Whether it qualifies for the state credit is not settled in the statute. Battery storage.
Often built into the system price. Dealer fee calculator.
Minimum bills and monthly solar charges are not offset by production.
Comparing South Carolina solar quotes on cost
South Carolina quotes are only comparable when they assume the same tariff.
Ask each one to state the utility rider it modeled, the self-use share, the annual output, the price with and without financing, and who claims which credit.
A quote that applies 30% federal credit to a 2026 system is wrong: §25D does not apply to systems placed in service after 31 December 2025.
Run each one through the proposal analyzer, then your own figures through the savings calculator and payback calculator. How cost per watt works explains the unit installers quote in.
South Carolina solar cost by city
Questions
How much does solar cost in South Carolina?
What fees do South Carolina utilities charge solar customers?
How long is solar payback in South Carolina?
Does the SC tax credit cover a new roof?
Is solar cheaper to run on Santee Cooper or Duke?
Written and audited by
HyreSolar Research
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is why the rest can be checked.
- 160
- primary sources read and cited
- 228
- figures with a retrieval date
- 115
- federal and state government sources
- 66
- researched pages published
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Statutes from the legislature’s own publishing system, federal data from the agency that collects it, code text from the adopted edition, manufacturer claims from the data sheet. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we go and read the source.
- Every figure carries its provenance. A named document and the date we retrieved it, so you can check it and so you know how old it is. Retrieval dates are not decoration: an EIA rate from May is a different fact from an EIA rate from August.
- We publish what we could not verify. Every research page carries a section naming the things we tried to establish and could not, and why. A paywalled standard, a state website that refused the request, a manufacturer that publishes no figure at all.
- We separate measurement from modeling from our own reasoning, and label which is which on the page. A laboratory measurement, an assumption inside a modeling tool and our own inference are three different kinds of claim and they are never presented as one.
- We do not sell solar, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of Last verified: 5 October 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.