Duke Energy PowerPair rebate in 2026: amounts & availability

PowerPair is Duke Energy’s rebate for North Carolina homeowners who install new solar panels and a battery together: an estimated $0.36 per watt-AC of solar (up to $3,600) plus $400 per kWh of battery capacity (up to $5,400), for a combined maximum of roughly $9,000. The urgent part in 2026 isn’t the math — it’s availability. Duke Energy Progress closed to new applicants in late 2025, and Duke Energy Carolinas has been running out of room since spring. Treat every figure here as an estimate and confirm live program status with Duke Energy before you count on a dollar of it.

What PowerPair pays

The program launched in May 2024 as a pilot approved by the NC Utilities Commission, with a capacity budget of about 30,000 kW of solar in each of Duke’s two NC subsidiaries — enough for a few thousand homes per territory, not an open-ended entitlement. The incentive itself has two parts, and you need both a new solar array and a new battery to claim either:

Component	Rate (estimate)	Cap	Maximum
Solar	$0.36 per watt-AC	10 kW-AC	$3,600
Battery	$400 per kWh	13.5 kWh	$5,400
Combined			~$9,000

A 10 kW-AC array with a 13.5 kWh battery — conveniently the size of one popular wall-mounted battery — maxes out both lines. On a solar-plus-storage project that might run $38,000–$45,000 installed, $9,000 back is a meaningful dent, especially now that the federal residential tax credit is $0 for 2026 purchases (IRC §25D expired December 31, 2025 — see what replaced the federal credit).

Availability in mid-2026: one door closed, one closing

PowerPair is capacity-capped and first-come, first-served, and the two Duke subsidiaries fill independently:

• Duke Energy Progress (DEP) — eastern NC, including Raleigh and much of the Triangle — reached capacity in October 2025 and stopped accepting applications that November. Its waitlist filled within weeks. As of mid-2026 there’s been no announced extension.
• Duke Energy Carolinas (DEC) — Charlotte, the Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem), and western NC — still had limited capacity as of mid-2026, but the trend is one-directional: installers reported roughly 40% of capacity remaining in February 2026 and about 15% by April, with Cohort B fully waitlisted since late April. Remaining room sits mostly in the time-of-use enrollment path.

If an installer tells you PowerPair will cover part of your system, ask them to show you the current capacity status for your specific Duke subsidiary in writing, the day you sign. A rebate that was available when you got the quote can be waitlisted by the time your paperwork lands.

Cohort A vs. Cohort B: the rate-plan catch

PowerPair enrollment runs through two paths, and they commit you to different Duke rate structures:

Cohort A pays the upfront incentive only. It requires Duke’s Solar Choice successor tariff — a time-of-use rate with critical peak pricing (Rider RSC). Your battery stays entirely yours; Duke never dispatches it.

Cohort B pays the same upfront incentive plus optional battery-control credits: let Duke draw on your battery during grid events and you earn extra monthly bill credits — installer-reported figures run roughly $52–$92 per month depending on whether you install one battery or several. Cohort B rides on the Net Metering Bridge rate (Rider NMB), which doesn’t force time-of-use pricing — but NMB is scheduled to close permanently to new applicants at the end of 2026, and DEC’s Cohort B was already waitlisted by late April.

Which cohort suits you depends on your load pattern: a household that can shift usage away from critical peaks may do fine on RSC, while set-and-forget households historically preferred the NMB path. The mechanics of both riders — and what happens to exported power under each — are covered in North Carolina solar incentives.

Eligibility checklist

• You own the home and are a Duke Energy Carolinas or Duke Energy Progress residential customer in North Carolina.
• The project is a new solar + new battery installation — no battery retrofits onto existing arrays, no expansions of existing systems.
• The installer is a Duke Energy Trade Ally, using equipment on Duke’s approved vendor list.
• The system has internet connectivity for monitoring, and grid export stays at or below 20 kW-AC.
• Program capacity is still open in your subsidiary’s territory when your application is submitted.

What it stacks with — and what’s gone

There’s less to stack in 2026 than solar marketing sometimes implies. The federal §25D credit is $0 for systems installed this year. North Carolina’s 35% state tax credit expired December 31, 2015, and the 2025 bill to revive it (H131) stalled in committee without a vote. What remains is durable but modest: the 80% property tax exclusion under G.S. §105-275(45) on the appraised value solar adds to your home, plus whatever net-metering value your rider delivers. That’s the full 2026 picture — PowerPair, if you can still get it, is the single largest incentive left in the state.

If you missed the window

Don’t buy a battery just to chase a rebate that may be gone. A 13.5 kWh battery adds roughly $10,000–$15,000 to a project; without PowerPair, its value rests on backup power during outages and shifting your solar into evening hours under a time-of-use rate. Work through whether a solar battery is worth it on its own economics first, then check what solar alone costs in our North Carolina cost breakdown and whether the numbers still work in is solar worth it in North Carolina? — for many Duke customers they do, rebate or not. Run your own bill and usage through the solar payback calculator with the rebate set to zero; if the project only pencils out with $9,000 of contingent money, that’s worth knowing before you sign.

Every dollar figure in this guide is an estimate based on program terms as reported in mid-2026. Capacity status changes week to week — verify directly with Duke Energy and DSIRE before making a purchase decision.