Can you lease a home battery in Florida?

Terms come from each company's own pages and change often, so get the current version in writing. Duke Energy's PowerPair battery rebate is for its North Carolina customers and doesn't apply in Florida.

Yes, when the payment is fixed. In Florida, only a utility can sell electricity to a home: in PW Ventures v. Nichols (1988), the Florida Supreme Court held that selling power even to one customer made the seller a public utility. That's why per-kWh power purchase agreements aren't offered to Florida homes.

Leases are different. In 2018 the PSC ruled that Sunrun's residential lease wasn't a sale of electricity because the payments didn't depend on how much power the system made, and Sunrun's proposal included an option to add batteries. The PSC reached similar rulings for Tesla and IGS Solar in 2019.

We found no PSC order on a battery-only lease. A fixed monthly payment for the equipment fits the leases the PSC has cleared; a plan that charged you per kWh would not. You still connect through your utility under its normal interconnection and net metering rules. See solar lease vs. buy.

Because the leasing company can still claim a federal credit that buyers can't. The homeowner credit (25D) ended for systems completed after 2025. A company that owns a battery and leases it to you can claim the business credit (Section 48E), and some of that value can show up as a lower payment.

Batteries keep that credit longer than leased panels. Law-firm summaries of the 2025 tax law put the storage credit at full value for projects that begin construction through 2033, 75% in 2034, 50% in 2035 and nothing from 2036. Leased solar faces a much earlier cutoff: projects starting after July 4, 2026 must be in service by the end of 2027, a deadline that doesn't apply to storage. The dates turn on when the leasing company starts construction, so ask how your contract handles them.

They can cost the leasing company its credit. For projects that begin construction in 2026 or later, a battery qualifies only if enough of its cost comes from suppliers not tied to prohibited foreign entities: at least 55% for 2026, rising 5 points a year to 75% after 2029. The IRS issued interim guidance on the test in Notice 2026-15 in February 2026.

The law-firm guidance we found doesn't address home batteries specifically. For you, the practical questions are whether your payment assumes the credit, and whether the price or terms change if the leasing company can't claim it.

Battery leases rarely publish prices, so compare totals. Buying one 13.5 kWh battery costs about $13,000 in our estimate, the high end of EnergySage's October 2026 Florida prices, with no rebate. With a 3% yearly increase like Tesla's, 12 years of payments add up to about 170 times the first monthly payment.

So a lease that starts above about $76 a month costs more over 12 years than buying, before counting what your cash could earn elsewhere or the maintenance a lease includes.

Either way, a battery here is for backup, not savings. Florida's net metering already credits solar at the full retail rate, so storing it to use later adds little, and FPL, Duke Energy Florida and Tampa Electric have no open program that pays homeowners for a battery. Duke's Hunter's Creek pilot uses utility-owned batteries in a limited number of homes. See what a home battery costs and utility programs that pay you.

• The buyer takes over the lease, or you pay it off. Sunrun's transfer process requires the buyer to pass a credit check.
• A filing may show up on the title. Leasing companies often record a UCC-1 fixture filing, which the sale has to deal with.
• Leased equipment doesn't add appraised value. Fannie Mae's guidelines leave leased solar equipment out of a home's value.
• A buyout can simplify a sale. Tesla's Powerwall lease allows a buyout after year five at the price in the contract.
• An existing solar lease adds a step. If your panels are leased, adding a battery usually needs the solar owner's permission and often its installer.

See buying a home with solar for how leases look from the buyer's side.

1. 1

   Payment, increase and total

   Get the first payment, the yearly increase and the total over the full term in writing.

2. 2

   Deposit and buyout

   Ask what's due up front, when you can buy the battery and how that price is set.

3. 3

   Who claims the tax credit

   Ask whether your payment assumes the federal credit and what happens if the battery fails the foreign-entity sourcing rules.

4. 4

   What stays on in an outage

   Get the backed-up circuits listed, including whether central air is covered.

5. 5

   Maintenance and monitoring

   Confirm who repairs the battery, how fast, and whether there's an availability guarantee.

6. 6

   End of term and selling

   Ask whether you can buy, renew or have it removed, and how a transfer to a buyer works.

Florida requires a separate written disclosure for solar sales and leases (s. 520.23); a battery-only contract may not fall under it, so read the contract closely. For hurricane backup, compare a lease with buying or a generator: see whole-home battery backup and generator vs. solar battery.