SGIP: California's main home-battery rebate in 2026
SGIP, the Self-Generation Incentive Program, is California's main home-battery rebate, administered through the CPUC. The General Market tier pays roughly $150 to $200 per usable kWh, and the Equity Resiliency tier pays up to about $1,000 per kWh for qualifying high-fire-threat or medical-baseline homes.
In 2026, if you are a Californian buying a home battery outright, SGIP is the incentive that matters. It is the state's main battery rebate, and with the federal homeowner credit gone, it is doing most of the heavy lifting on the incentive side.
What SGIP is
SGIP is the Self-Generation Incentive Program, run by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) through the major utilities (PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, and SoCalGas). It pays a rebate based on your battery's usable capacity in kilowatt-hours. More usable kWh, larger rebate. It comes in tiers (CPUC SGIP, verified 2026):
- General Market: roughly $150 to $200 per usable kWh. This is the standard tier most customers fall into.
- Equity Resiliency: up to roughly $1,000 per usable kWh, for homes in high fire-threat districts or on a medical baseline. This tier is far richer because it targets households where an outage is a safety risk.
The program is funded in rounds, the money is limited, and it is not guaranteed to be open year-round. Confirm current availability and your tier on the CPUC SGIP portal, and check with your installer and utility before counting on a specific amount.
Why SGIP carries so much weight in 2026
Here is the part that reframes the whole incentive question. The federal residential clean-energy purchase credit (Section 25D), the one homeowners used to claim on a battery they bought, expired on December 31, 2025. A 2026 cash buyer of a home battery gets nothing from the federal government. There is no federal rebate or credit on an outright residential purchase anymore.
The only surviving federal pathway is Section 48E, and it applies to commercial or third-party-owned systems, not to a homeowner who buys. That route runs through a lease or PPA, where a company owns the battery and can claim the credit itself.
So for a Californian buying a battery outright in 2026, SGIP is effectively the incentive. That is exactly why it deserves attention.
How to use it
Treat SGIP as real but conditional. The dollars are meaningful, especially in the Equity Resiliency tier, but they depend on funding availability and your eligibility, neither of which you should assume. Get your tier and the current per-kWh amount confirmed in writing by your installer, and verify against the CPUC SGIP portal.
When you model the economics, fold the rebate into the upfront cost, not the savings. Our Worth It calculator lets you enter California incentives so the payback reflects your real net price. For the surrounding context, the export rules that push Californians toward storage are covered in NEM 3.0, and the full state picture is in the California report.