Ask ten homeowners in Wayne County what’s on their home improvement wish list, and you’ll hear the same answers over and over. A new kitchen. A finished basement. Maybe a deck or a pool. Solar with battery backup almost never makes the list — until the lights go out, or until the next PPL bill lands in the mailbox and someone says, “Wait, how much?”
Here’s what most homeowners don’t realize: solar plus battery backup quietly outperforms almost every other home upgrade on the two metrics that actually matter, long-term savings and protection against the things that disrupt your life. A new kitchen looks great. A solar plus battery system pays you back month after month for the next 25 years, keeps your home running when your neighbors are sitting in the dark, and increases your property value while it’s at it.
At Buselli Solutions, we’ve been installing solar and battery systems across Northeast PA and Eastern New York for years. And the homeowners who pull the trigger almost always say the same thing afterward: I wish I’d done this sooner. Let’s talk about why.
The Quiet Math Problem in Every PPL Customer's Mailbox
You’ve probably noticed your electric bill creeping up. You’re not imagining it.
In the past 18 months, Pennsylvania ratepayers have absorbed multiple increases. Capacity costs through PJM (the regional grid operator) jumped dramatically starting in June 2025. PPL’s Price to Compare reset on December 1, 2025 and a distribution rate settlement approved in early 2026 is set to bump bills another 4.9% starting July 1.
Three increases in about a year. And here’s the kicker, the distribution piece is locked in for two years, but the supply side will keep resetting twice a year based on volatile wholesale electricity markets driven by surging data center demand and aging power infrastructure.
Translation: your electric bill is on a ratchet that only moves one direction.
Now imagine an upgrade that lets you generate a meaningful portion of your own power, store it for when you need it, and keep collecting net metering credits from PPL for any excess. Every kilowatt-hour your roof produces is one you don’t have to buy at tomorrow’s rate, whatever that rate ends up being.
Solar Alone Has a Surprising Weakness
Plenty of homeowners install solar panels and stop there. It saves them money on their monthly bill. But there’s a quirk in how grid-tied solar works that catches people off guard the first time it happens:
When the grid goes down, a typical solar-only system shuts down too. Even on a sunny day.
A Real-World Day with Solar Plus Battery
Let’s walk through what a typical day looks like in a home with solar plus battery, because the way these systems work in practice is often clearer than any technical explanation.
Early morning: Your home draws from the battery, which charged up the day before. You make coffee, run the shower, get the kids ready. The grid stays untouched.
Mid-morning to afternoon: Your panels hit their stride. They’re producing more electricity than your home is using. The excess pours into the battery first to refill it, then flows out to the grid where PPL credits your account through net metering.
Late afternoon (peak rate hours): Your battery is full. Your home runs on solar production. If clouds roll in, the battery covers the gap before the grid ever gets touched.
Evening: The sun sets. Your home shifts to running off the battery, exactly during the hours when grid electricity is most expensive.
Overnight: If the battery runs low, the system seamlessly pulls from the grid at off-peak rates.
During an outage: If the grid goes down at any point, the system disconnects from PPL within milliseconds and keeps your home powered from solar plus battery. Lights stay on. The fridge keeps humming. Your work-from-home setup doesn’t miss a beat.
You won’t manage any of this. The system handles it automatically through smart controls. You just watch your bill shrink and your reliability go up.
What About the Tax Credit?
This is where we have to give you a straight answer, because there’s a lot of misinformation floating around.
The federal Residential Clean Energy Credit, the 30% credit that helped fund residential solar for years, expired for new homeowner-owned systems on December 31, 2025. If you’re buying a system in 2026 with cash or a loan, you do not qualify for the federal credit. Period. Anyone telling you otherwise is either misinformed or hoping you are.
That sounds like bad news, and we won’t pretend otherwise, it definitely changes the calculation. But the headline doesn’t tell the whole story:
- Pennsylvania net metering is still in effect, and it’s still favorable. Every kilowatt-hour you export earns credit toward your bill.
- Equipment prices have dropped significantly over the past several years, partially offsetting the loss of the credit.
- Electricity rates have risen significantly, which directly accelerates your payback period whether the credit exists or not.
- Battery-only installations may have different incentive options in certain scenarios, and third-party ownership structures (leases and PPAs) still have some federal pathways available.
The bottom line: solar with battery backup in 2026 isn’t free money the way it might have been a few years ago, but with rising rates, falling equipment costs, and a 25-plus-year system lifespan, the long-term math still works for the right home. We’ll show you the actual numbers for your specific situation, not a generic sales pitch.
What "The Right Home" Actually Looks Like
We won’t sell you a system that doesn’t make sense for your home. Here’s how to simply check whether you might be a good candidate:
Your roof or property: South-facing roof exposure is ideal, but east and west work too. Heavy tree shading is the main reason a home may not be the best candidate for solar. If your roof spends most of the day in the shade, panels won’t produce enough to be worth it. Ground-mount systems are a great alternative for homeowners with the right yard space.
Your electric bill: If your monthly bill is consistently above $150–$200, solar is probably worth a serious look. The higher your usage, the more there is to offset.
Your future plans: Solar makes the most sense if you plan to stay in your home for at least 7–10 years. That said, a properly designed system also increases home resale value, so it’s not a total loss even if you move sooner.
Your desire for resilience: If you’ve ever lost power for a weekend and thought, “I never want to do that again,” battery backup belongs in the conversation.
Your willingness to play the long game: Solar isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a slow, steady, decades-long offset against an electric bill that keeps climbing. The homeowners who love their systems are the ones who think in terms of where their utility bills will be in 2035, not just next month.
The Equipment We Trust
Buselli Solutions is factory-certified across the brands that dominate professional residential solar:
Enphase Energy builds microinverters that sit under each individual panel. That panel-level architecture means one shaded or underperforming panel doesn’t drag down the whole array, and the monitoring app shows you exactly what each panel is producing in real time.
SolarEdge uses a power optimizer approach that delivers similar panel-level visibility and excellent efficiency, paired with their own inverter platform.
Generac PWRcell 2 is a modular battery system that scales from 9 to 36 kWh of storage capacity. It’s specifically designed to integrate with Generac home standby generators, which matters for homeowners who want the ultimate resilience setup, solar and battery backup for daily savings and short outages, generator for extended emergencies.
Fortress Power offers robust lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery storage built for serious backup applications, prized for their thermal stability and long cycle life.
Our team holds NABCEP certification, which is the highest professional credential in the North American solar industry. It’s not something you can buy or fake, it requires documented field experience, continuing education, and a rigorous exam. When we design a system for your home, you’re working with installers who’ve proven they know what they’re doing.
The Real Reason This Upgrade Gets Overlooked
Most homeowners skip solar plus battery for one of three reasons: they think it’s too expensive, they think it’s too complicated, or they assume their roof isn’t right for it.
Here’s the honest truth on each:
Cost: A full solar plus battery installation is a meaningful investment, typically in the same range as a kitchen remodel or a finished basement. The difference is that the kitchen doesn’t lower your monthly utility bills, doesn’t keep your home running during outages, and doesn’t add the same kind of long-term value. Synchrony Bank financing through Buselli Solutions makes the monthly payment manageable for most households, and in many cases the monthly payment is offset by what you’re saving on your electric bill.
Complexity: Modern systems are essentially self-managing. You don’t toggle settings or babysit anything. You’ll have an app if you want to geek out on production data, and many homeowners do, but the system runs itself.
Roof concerns: A lot of homeowners assume their roof isn’t a good fit, then are surprised to learn it absolutely is. The only way to know is a professional site evaluation, which we do for free.
Why Homeowners in NEPA Call Buselli
We’ve been a family-owned local contractor since 1984. We don’t outsource installations to traveling crews. We don’t pressure you into a system that doesn’t fit your home. And we don’t disappear after the sale.
When you choose Buselli Solutions for solar and battery backup combo, you get:
- A free, no-obligation consultation with honest energy analysis
- NABCEP-certified design and installation by our own factory-trained team
- Multiple equipment options so we can match the right system to your home
- Flexible Synchrony Bank financing with payment plans built around real household budgets
- Long-term local support for service, monitoring, and any future expansions
- A single trusted partner who can also handle your generator, HVAC, and electrical needs
We treat every home like it’s our own, because around here, your neighbors are our neighbors.
Schedule Your Free Solar + Battery Consultation
Your electric bill isn’t going down. Outages aren’t getting rarer. The next big storm is on its way at some point, and the next rate hike is, too.
Find out whether solar plus battery backup is the right move for your home. It costs nothing to ask, and you’ll walk away with real numbers, your actual roof potential, your projected savings under current PPL rates, and a clear picture of what the investment looks like over time.
Family-owned and locally trusted since 1984. Serving Northeast Pennsylvania and Eastern New York with solar, battery storage, generators, HVAC, and electrical, the complete home energy partner your home deserves.