If you are sitting on a couple of solar quotes and wondering whether to hold off for a government subsidy before you sign, here is the honest answer: there is nothing to wait for.
The number of government grants for household solar panels you can apply for in New Zealand today is zero. Not "small", not "means-tested". Zero. Anyone telling you a subsidy is about to land and you should sign tonight is describing a policy that is not law, from a party that has not won an election that has not been held.
There is no solar subsidy in New Zealand today
No national grant, no rebate, no feed-in tariff. EECA's page on home solar costs and savings lists bank loans and nothing else. Warmer Kiwi Homes co-funds insulation, a heat pump and LED downlights, but not a single solar panel. The one real government solar grant this year, Solar on Schools, is $30 million for up to 500 schools between 2026 and 2028: nothing for your roof. Today only your bank and your power company pay you anything toward solar.
One disclosure before the arithmetic: Solar Scout gets paid by installers when we introduce them to a homeowner, so if you wait we do not get paid. To stay honest we have used the government's own figures rather than an installer's, the bottom of EECA's savings range rather than the top, and left in the one scenario where waiting wins.
What you can actually get today
There are four banks offering discounted green lending that covers solar, all on EECA's home energy loans page, re-verified 14 July 2026.
EECA counts solar panels, batteries and inverters, or solar hot water (Kiwibank is not on the list). The catch runs through the whole table: every one is a top-up on a home loan you already hold with that bank, which rules out mortgage-free retirees, anyone who banks elsewhere, and renters. Labour reckons four out of five households cannot reach this finance; we could not verify that ratio, so treat it as Labour's claim, though the structural catch is real.
The other thing you can claim today has nothing to do with the government: what your power company pays you for the power you export, which varies more between retailers than anything any party has promised. Here is every retailer's buy-back rate.
We take the parties below in order of how much detail each has published, not our view or any poll. We report no polling.
Labour: SolarSaver, $160m and a $3,000 kickstart
Labour announced SolarSaver on 8 July 2026, and every figure here is off Labour's own SolarSaver page, re-verified 14 July 2026. It "costs $160 million over four years, funded by repurposing the Government's Gas Security of Supply fund". The centrepiece is a "kickstart subsidy of up to $3,000" for low and middle income households, renters included: Labour calls it a subsidy, not a grant, with no repayment. Alongside it sit a lines company loan repaid through your power bill, the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme (a loan attached to the property), and a $30 million community battery fund. An independent breakdown shows a chunk of that $160 million is scaffolding, EECA delivery and workforce training, rather than subsidy.
Two unpublished things matter more than the total. There is no income threshold, so you cannot check today whether you would qualify, the single biggest unknown here. And reporting cannot agree whether the $3,000 is repayable: Labour's page, RNZ and Stuff call it a subsidy, the NZ Herald a loan. The $750 and $1,000-a-year figures you will see are independent modelling from SEANZ and Rewiring Aotearoa on a larger 8 kilowatt system: projections, not savings.
The renter-facing part is plug-in solar, a two-panel kit Labour says "costs around $1,500, saves $300 to $400 a year". The catch, and the strongest verified fact here: plug-in "balcony" solar is currently illegal in New Zealand, because WorkSafe has prohibited the inverters these kits use, and Energy Minister Simeon Brown says making them legal takes about 12 months of standards work.
National: the Home Energy Fund is a loan, not a grant
National's pitch, announced 25 June 2026, is the Home Energy Fund, and it is a loan, not a grant: low-interest, long-term, repaid through your rates, no cash handout. Two conditions matter: your council has to opt in, and that is voluntary, so ratepayers in councils that do not join miss out; and you need 20% equity in your home, the same test a bank applies.
The Crown chips in $7 million for a 20% shareholding, with LGNZ expecting around $30 million to flow into the fund. The term is 10 or 15 years, the rate reported at about 2% below floating rates (near 5.8%), so roughly 3.8%, though National has not formally set it. It covers solar, batteries, insulation and heat pumps, and National would scrap the remaining council-consent rules for solar, though the government already cleared most of that from 1 October 2025. National expects 80,000 households over 15 years, about 5,300 a year.
One outlet asked what the fund offers that you cannot already get: access, not price. It is not cheaper than a green loan, it is available to more people. Put $11,500 on the table, EECA's typical installed cost for a 5kW system, and line the two up.
The fair point is cash flow: Westpac's 0% costs about $192 a month, National's about $84 for three times as long, so a household that cannot find $192 a month can still service the dearer loan. A wider door, not a cheaper one.
Both Labour's second loan route and National's entire fund run on the same plumbing: the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme. LGNZ describes it as "a new local government-led, low-cost loan scheme" with solar in scope, priced "typically 2% to 2.5% below equivalent bank floating mortgage rates" (LGNZ's claim, not a regulated rate). The business case is now with the government; without enabling legislation it cannot run, the clearest reason nothing on this page is claimable in 2026.
The Greens and the smaller parties
The Greens have had a solar policy longest, the Clean Power Payment, on the books since 2023, costed then at "grants of up to $6000 and interest free 10 year loans of up to $30,000" for home energy upgrades including rooftop solar, the last figures they published. Two caveats: those are 2023 dollars, and the party's own page for it returned a 404 on 14 July 2026. On 8 July 2026 the Greens called on Parliament to pass the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme before the House rises, offering "our 15 votes". They are the only party arguing the plumbing both loan routes depend on should be law now.
ACT openly opposes solar subsidies. Energy spokesperson Simon Court, put to RNZ: "ACT believes that if solar stacks up, Kiwis are going to invest without handouts." A real argument: a subsidy mostly pays people who were going to buy anyway. The counter, at equal strength: solar sits on roughly 1 in 35 New Zealand households, while in Australia, after about A$11.5 billion in grants that cut the upfront cost by around 30%, it is closer to 1 in 3, though Australia also has more sun, higher prices and a two-decade head start.
NZ First: we could not locate a 2026 rooftop solar policy. Deputy leader Shane Jones told RNZ he was "quite interested" in the council loan scheme, but told Rewiring Aotearoa he is "very leery of creating a subsidy trap". Te Pāti Māori has previously floated a $1 billion Pūngao Auaha fund for Māori-owned community energy, plus solar on marae, kura and papakāinga, but that sourcing is from September 2023 and we found no 2026 restatement.
What the current government did when it looked at this
The best guide to how long these promises take is the last three years. Ministers looked hard at Australia's grant model and decided not to copy it. Officials told them the up-front costs "take time to pay back", while noting that rebates accelerate uptake. What got done instead, from 1 October 2025: a no-consent clarification, fast-tracked consents for solar new-builds, and wider permitted voltage for export, tweaks officials rated "not clear and expected to be minor". Told by its own officials that rebates work, a government three years in office still chose not to have one.
The constraint none of the four policies mentions
None of the four policies mentions the one thing that actually caps what your roof can earn: your network's export limit, set by your lines company, varying from network to network, and applying whoever wins in November.
This is our live registry, built from the Electricity Authority's shift-to-10kW tracker and each network's published limits as at May 2026. Most now wave through the 10kW default; on the handful that do not, the system you can buy is smaller than the one in the brochure.
So when could any of this actually arrive?
Here is the calendar, from the parties' own words. Election day is Saturday 7 November 2026. A government forms in the weeks after, our estimate late November into December. Labour's promise is "up and running within 12 months of taking office", so around late 2027. Making plug-in solar legal adds about 12 months of standards work. And both loan routes wait on the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme: pass the legislation first, then 12 to 18 months to stand it up. A homeowner who waits today is looking at a minimum of about 16 months, realistically longer. Round it to 18 months, an estimate.
What waiting costs, including the case where waiting wins
Now the number you came for, on stated assumptions: a 5kW system at $11,500 installed (EECA's figure, not an installer's), saving $1,000 a year. EECA's regional range runs from $1,047 in Southland up to $1,467 in Marlborough, and we have rounded down to $1,000 on purpose. It assumes a house using a fair bit of daytime power; if that is not you, your saving and your cost of waiting are both smaller. The arithmetic is simple: $1,000 a year, foregone for a year and a half, is $1,500 you never banked.
And $1,500 is the floor, because the bill solar offsets keeps climbing. Ahead of this winter the Electricity Authority flagged retailers adding around 8% to bills, on top of about 8% the year before (individual increases run 1% to 11%), its worked example about $16 a month on a $200 bill.
One last part of your bill solar cannot touch is the daily fixed charge: the low-user cap comes off on 1 April 2027, after stair-stepping up to a $1.80 cap over four years. Solar shaves the variable units you use, not the fixed line, and we pull the real change apart from the scare story wrapped around it in our piece on the 1 April 2027 shock.
Right of reply, and our corrections policy
We could not find a current 2026 rooftop solar policy on the Green Party, NZ First or Te Pāti Māori sites, so we have said exactly that in the text rather than guess at their positions. If any party thinks we have them wrong, or Labour or National spot a figure we have got wrong, tell us and we will publish it and update this page. Corrections go at the top of this page, not buried at the bottom.
Keep reading
Sources
All fetched 14 July 2026.
Government and regulator (primary)
- General Election to be held on 7 November, Beehive
- Solar on schools to boost future resilience, Beehive
- Government announces new Solar on Schools programme, MBIE
- Mid-point review of the phase-out of the low fixed charge regulations, MBIE
- Electricity Authority takes closer look at price increases, Electricity Authority
- Understanding why changes to lines charges may impact your electricity bill, Commerce Commission
- Breaking down home solar costs and savings, EECA
- Understand home energy loans, EECA
- Warmer Kiwi Homes programme, EECA
Party and sector (primary)
- SolarSaver, New Zealand Labour Party
- Green Party calls on Parliament to get on with solar loans before election, Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Clean Power Payment, Green Party (returned HTTP 404 on 14 July 2026)
- Ratepayer Assistance Scheme, Local Government New Zealand
- Political Power: Shane Jones, NZ First, Rewiring Aotearoa
Journalism (secondary, attributed in the text)
- Labour promises subsidies, new loan schemes for installing solar, RNZ, 8 July 2026
- National promises homeowners low-cost loans to install solar power, RNZ, 25 June 2026
- What would National's solar scheme offer that we can't currently get?, RNZ
- Which political parties would subsidise your rooftop solar panels?, RNZ, 16 April 2026
- Council loans for rooftop solar still waiting on government green light, RNZ, 19 May 2026
- Government kicked the tyres on solar subsidies but went with minor tweaks instead, RNZ, 3 March 2026
- Households paying more for power because of low-user tariff phase-out, RNZ, 9 April 2025
- Labour reveals solar power policy with $3000 kickstart subsidies, plug-in rule changes for renters, Stuff
- Labour's latest policy SolarSaver offers subsidies and loans for home solar power, NZ Herald
- Labour promises low interest rate schemes, subsidies and plug-in options for renters, interest.co.nz
- No matter who the next government is, Aotearoa is going solar, The Spinoff
- Shining a light on the parties' solar policies, Carbon News (dated 20 September 2023, historical)
- Power prices predicted to surge, Consumer NZ
- Power prices in NZ, Powerswitch
- Low user vs standard user, Selectra (the post-2027 daily charge range on this page is the author's estimate, not a regulated figure)
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