Arizona's 2026 Solar Law: What an Off-Grid Buyer Must Now Be Handed

Arizona's solar consumer statute reads like it was written for rooftop water heaters: it talks about collectors, heat exchangers and storage units. The complaints today are different: a lease whose payments start before the system does, a warranty shorter than the loan, a roof that needs replacing with 24 panels bolted to it.

In June 2026 the Legislature rewrote it. Senate Bill 1419 became Laws 2026, Chapter 175, approved by the Governor on 19 June 2026 and filed with the Secretary of State on 22 June. It amends § 44-1761 (definitions), § 44-1762 (warranties and installation) and § 44-1763 (sale and lease agreements). The bill states no effective date of its own; the general effective date for 2026 legislation is 12 September 2026, following the session's adjournment on 13 June.

What counts as a solar energy device now

The new § 44-1761 keeps the old broad core (heating, cooling, electrical or mechanical power, or daylighting from collected solar energy) and narrows it. A solar energy device is now limited to a system used primarily to serve on-site demand at a residential dwelling unit or multifamily structure. Three things are expressly excluded: a utility-scale solar project, a system installed on a commercial, industrial or institutional structure, and a system designed primarily to serve an off-site load. It also defines a "trombe wall" (a massive, equator-facing wall painted dark to absorb heat) as the example of a passive device, as opposed to an ordinary window.

The companion term is "distributed energy generation system": a device that generates or stores electricity, above one kilowatt or one kilowatt-hour, used primarily for on-site consumption, excluding generators intended for occasional use. That is the term § 44-1763 hangs on.

§ 44-1762: the installer's duties

The existing duties survive: a two-year warranty on collectors, heat exchangers, storage units and their installation (or an energy production output guarantee), one year on everything else, a written warranty and performance statement on an ROC-approved form, a certificate of compliance, and a licensed solar contractor doing the work. Two things are new.

Installation standards now include the manufacturer. Installations must comply with local building codes and with the manufacturer's installation requirements, as well as fire and safety codes. Inverter and battery manuals carry clearance, ventilation and temperature requirements, and ignoring them is now a statutory failure, not just a warranty risk.

The roof-integrity evaluation. New subsection I: where a licensed contractor installs a device on a roof, the contractor must evaluate whether the roof and roofing components can support the installation, recommend an inspection by a licensed roofing contractor, is deemed to have accepted the roof surface, and must repair damage the installation causes. The duty does not apply to a structure used primarily for shade, including shade for vehicles or livestock. Failing it is grounds for ROC discipline.

For most off-grid builds here this matters less than it sounds, because the array is on the ground or a shade structure and both are carved out. It matters if the panels go on the house, a container roof, or a metal building that is not primarily shade.

§ 44-1763: what the contract must say, in bold, with your initials

The pre-existing form rules stand: signed and dated by the buyer or lessee, at least ten-point type, no material blanks (any blank shown to you and initialled), and a separately acknowledged right to rescind for at least three business days after signing and before installation.

The amendments add or tighten the following, each disclosed, acknowledged, in bold and separately initialled:

• Warranty periods for the system, its major components and labor on a purchase; on a lease, any warranty shorter than the lease term. "Major components" is now defined: photovoltaic panels, inverters, racking, and battery energy storage systems.
• Money: total price or total cost over the agreement; interest, installation, document and service fees; for financed or leased systems, the number, frequency, amount and due dates of payments; and if the contractor extends credit, the repayment schedule.
• Lifetime running costs: a summary of estimated total cost to maintain and operate the system over its life, and whether maintenance and repairs are included and what you pay if not.

Also required: tax incentives and rebates with their conditions (now for leases too), transaction privilege tax and any duty to hand over tax credits, whether warranty and maintenance obligations can be transferred, restrictions on modifying or transferring the system or the property, a bold all-capitals warning that utility rates and incentives may change and so may projected savings, and the basis for any savings estimate: rates used, assumed increases, estimated production, and compensation for exported energy.

The permission-to-operate rule for leases

One sentence with teeth: recurring payments under a distributed energy generation system lease may not begin until the lessee is granted permission to operate by a local utility and the system is energized and interconnected by the lessor.

Read that against an off-grid property. There is no utility to grant permission and no interconnection. On a plain reading, a lease on such a system could never start its payments, a strong hint the Legislature was thinking about grid-tied rooftop leases and that off-grid systems are, in practice, purchased. If someone offers you a lease or power-purchase agreement off-grid, that clause is the first thing to ask a lawyer about.

The roof acknowledgment, and the real-estate exemption

New subsection F of § 44-1763: before a residential solar purchase or lease, the licensed contractor must obtain your written acknowledgment that the roof or structure may need repair or replacement before the agreement ends; that unless the contractor's installation caused the damage, you may bear the cost of removing and reinstalling the system for roof work; and that doing so may void warranties and limit the contractor's liability.

And the exemption: the section does not apply where the system is sold as part of a sale of the real property. Buying a parcel with an existing off-grid system gets you none of these disclosures from the land seller. Write the original agreement, warranty statement and certificate of compliance into the purchase contract, because the statute will not.

What to ask for in writing

If you are installing it yourself, § 44-1762 subsection F exempts owner-installed devices from the warranty, statement, certificate, standards and licensed-contractor subsections, and § 44-1763 governs agreements with a seller or lessor, so it does not apply. Our installer directory covers that trade-off; the sizing guide covers the design.

What we could not confirm

Both the PDF and the HTML of Chapter 175 loaded and agree. The chaptered law states no effective date; the 12 September 2026 date comes from a professional association's session wrap-up and the usual general-effective-date rule, not from the bill text, and the House summary gives none either. Verify it if a contract signed between June and September is in dispute.

The lease clause's effect on a system with no utility is our reading of the plain words; we found no Registrar or Attorney General guidance on it. Nothing here is legal advice. If a contract is in front of you, a lawyer who reads Title 44 is cheaper than a battery bank you cannot return.

If you want the system quoted rather than the statute explained, tell us the parcel and the job and a licensed local contractor will call you to quote it.