South Carolina
Solar installers in South Carolina
The licences, the quote checklist and the red flags, without a ranking.
Get Solar Options
If you have done your research and want to speak with a solar professional, HyreSolar can help you explore available options.
South Carolina’s solar installation market
South Carolina had 40,055 rooftop systems in 2024, 1.55% of homes, with 2,040 added that year (EIA-861). Systems averaged 7.54 kW. Leased systems were 20.2% of the total, so most offers you see will be cash or loan purchases.
The market is split by utility more than by region: an installer used to Dominion’s time-of-use rider in the Midlands and Lowcountry models a home differently from one working mainly with Duke Energy Carolinas in the Upstate or Santee Cooper on the Grand Strand. Ask how many systems the company has connected on your utility.
South Carolina solar licences, certifications and insurance
Panels and components
"Solar Panel Installer" is a Residential Specialty registration with the Residential Builders Commission (SC LLR): fabricating, assembling, installing and replacing panels and related components.
Roof mounting
Roof mounting: a Residential Builder, a Residential Specialty Contractor with the Roofer classification, or a General Contractor with a roofing classification.
Wiring and connection
Wiring and connection: a Residential Builder, a licensed residential electrician, or a mechanical contractor with the electrical classification.
Structural upgrades
Structural roof upgrades: a Residential Builder, a Residential Specialty Contractor with the Carpenter classification, or a General Contractor with building or structural framing.
Insurance and local licences
Ask for a certificate of general liability and workers’ compensation insurance naming the company on the contract, and check whether your city requires a business license; the City of Charleston does.
Check every licence at SC LLR’s online lookup. How to verify a solar licence.
Types of solar installers in South Carolina
South Carolina homeowners meet three kinds of seller. Local installers design and install with their own crews.
Sales-led companies sign the contract and hand installation to a subcontractor, which changes who holds the workmanship warranty.
Utility-linked installers include Santee Cooper’s Solar Electric Trade Allies, the only route to Santee Cooper’s Solar Home rebate. Who actually installs your solar.
How South Carolina installers size and price systems
Installers size from your last twelve months of use and your roof.
Under South Carolina’s current export rules, power you use at home is worth your retail rate and exports earn less (4.19¢/kWh on Duke, 4.15¢ on Santee Cooper), so a sound proposal shows a self-use share, not only annual offset.
Berkeley Electric caps system size with a published rule: annual kWh ÷ 1,800.
Pricing is usually per watt DC. We do not publish a South Carolina price per watt until we hold enough dated local quotes. Solar cost in South Carolina lists the public fees and the arithmetic.
South Carolina solar quote comparison checklist
Lay three proposals side by side. A missing line is a question to ask, not a reason to guess.
Which tariff the savings figure assumes: Solar Choice (Dominion), Rider RSC (Duke), DG-25 (Santee Cooper) or your co-op’s rider.
Most SC residential riders cap at 20 kW AC; Santee Cooper also caps at your estimated maximum monthly demand.
The two numbers that decide savings under every SC export rule.
Panels, inverter or microinverters, racking, and any battery, each with its warranty term.
Dealer fees are often inside the system price, not the rate.
The 25% state credit needs ownership; a lease hands federal §48E to the lessor.
Panel installer registration, roof mounting and electrical, by name and number.
Who files each and which fees are included.
Separate from the manufacturer’s warranties; in writing.
Your three-business-day right on a home-solicitation sale.
Paste each proposal into the proposal analyzer.
Questions to ask a South Carolina solar installer
- Which licence covers my roof and my wiring?
- The panel installer registration alone does not.
- Which utility rider did you model?
- And at what self-use share.
- Who pulls the permit and files interconnection?
- And who pays the utility application fee.
- What design wind speed did you engineer for?
- Ask for the design wind speed used in the attachment engineering for your jurisdiction.
- Is the system SRCC-certified?
- The state credit requires it.
- Who services the system if you subcontract the install?
- Get the workmanship warranty holder in writing.
Solar warranties and equipment in South Carolina
South Carolina proposals should list three warranties separately: the panel manufacturer’s product and output warranties, the inverter warranty, and the installer’s workmanship warranty. On the coast, ask whether racking and fasteners are rated for salt exposure. Workmanship warranties and inverter types.
Batteries and financing each have their own pages: battery storage and financing.
Red flags in South Carolina solar sales
Third-party sales of electricity from a system on your property are not permitted in South Carolina.
§25D does not apply to systems placed in service after 31 December 2025.
New systems have not had one-for-one net metering since 1 June 2021.
Greer CPW has warned of door-to-door sellers falsely claiming to represent its net-metering program.
You can cancel a home-solicitation sale until midnight of the third business day after signing, by written notice (SC Code §37-2-502).
Leases are legal only from lessors certified by the Office of Regulatory Staff.
Sellers must comply with SC consumer-protection law (Title 37); the Office of Regulatory Staff can fine up to $2,500 per violation and void the agreement (SC Code §58-27-2660). Door-to-door solar sales.
South Carolina utility interconnection and the installer’s role
South Carolina installers usually file the interconnection application for you. Fees we verified: Santee Cooper $100, Berkeley Electric $150 plus a $50 inspection, Palmetto Electric $100. Greer CPW treats residential systems of 20 kW or less as Tier 1. Do not switch on before the utility’s written permission. How interconnection works.
South Carolina solar installers by city
Questions
Do solar installers need a licence in South Carolina?
How many solar quotes should I get in South Carolina?
Can I cancel a solar contract in South Carolina?
Who regulates solar sales in South Carolina?
Does HyreSolar recommend South Carolina solar companies?
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.