A sales draft open on October 15, 2026 has a rooftop line with a blank where a watt rate used to go. Someone will want to fill it before the customer call. The NY-Sun Sustainable Future Program does not give you that number. NYSERDA announced the program on October 14, 2026. The announcement listed dollars and megawatts. It did not post a new dollar-per-watt. A proposal that prints a rate today is guessing, and the guess is the line the customer will remember.
Dollars and megawatts NYSERDA actually posted
The announcement is $200 million through the Sustainable Future Program, administered through NY-Sun, from the FY 2027 enacted budget. It is expected to support more than 565 MW. Funding begins to be deployed in the coming weeks. Incentives are paid when projects are completed. They are not paid at contract signing, and they are not paid when the interconnection application goes in.
The money is described in four buckets. Use the bucket names on the proposal. Do not collapse them into one statewide rebate.
- Large commercial and community solar: about $116 million, about 450 MW, for projects larger than 1 MW. This bucket includes expanded Statewide Solar for All incentives and a new incentive adder for rooftop projects.
- Midsize rooftop: about $31 million, about 75 MW, for commercial, governmental, and multifamily work. It continues the Multifamily Affordable Housing Incentive.
- Residential solar for low- and moderate-income households: about $20 million, about 40 MW.
- Flexible market funding: about $33 million, aimed at sectors where demand is strongest.
Adders were called out for carports, brownfields, landfills, floating systems, and agrivoltaics, along with steering development toward the built environment. Those adders were named. Their dollar-per-watt values were not. A proposal can list the adder that matches the drawing. It cannot price it.
The NY-Sun Sustainable Future Program did not publish a watt rate
Dividing a bucket's dollars by its megawatts is arithmetic, not an incentive rate. The announcement did not tell you to do that, and a proposal that does it has invented a price. About $116 million and about 450 MW describe a program pot that also includes community solar and Statewide Solar for All, not a posted rebate for one warehouse roof. About $31 million and about 75 MW describe the midsize rooftop pot, not a rate you can multiply by a school's kilowatts and drop into a contract.
The same problem hits the adder line. A new incentive adder for rooftop projects sits inside the large commercial and community bucket, and the amount was not published. Carport, brownfield, landfill, floating-system, and agrivoltaic adders were named separately. Name the adder that matches the drawing, and write that the October 14 announcement did not price it. Do not rename a carport or a landfill as a rooftop to borrow an unpriced line.
Flexible market funding is about $33 million, aimed at sectors where demand is strongest. That phrase is not a sector you assign on the customer's page. If no published rule puts this project in the flexible pot, leave the pot off the proposal.
Which rooftop line the project can actually claim
Pick the bucket from the size and the building, then say the rate is unpublished as of October 15, 2026.
A rooftop larger than 1 MW can be described as a candidate for the large commercial bucket, including the announced rooftop adder, inside about $116 million and about 450 MW that also covers community solar. A smaller roof on a store, a government building, or a multifamily building fits the midsize rooftop bucket, about $31 million and about 75 MW. The Multifamily Affordable Housing Incentive continues for housing that qualifies, and the announcement did not reprint a per-watt figure for it.
The announcement separates the large bucket and the midsize rooftop bucket by project size. It does not say a single roof collects both. The proposal names one intended bucket. Naming both, and adding the dollars together, is how a customer ends up with a rebate that was never offered.
Low- and moderate-income residential is its own pot, about $20 million and about 40 MW. A market-rate house does not become eligible because the statewide total is $200 million. If the customer is not in that income category, leave this bucket off the proposal. Do not relabel it as a general residential rebate to make a payment table close.
Payment timing belongs on the same line as the bucket. Funding begins to be deployed in the coming weeks, and incentives are paid when projects are completed. Do not show the incentive at signing or at interconnection approval.
Steering development toward the built environment is a direction, not a score you invent. Name a carport, brownfield, landfill, floating system, or agrivoltaic adder only when the drawing is that thing. Do not mark a house roof as a priority site. The large-project rooftop adder and the midsize rooftop bucket are the rooftop paths, and neither has a published watt rate.
Old residential blocks are not this announcement
Con Edison residential incentive block 10 was $0.15 per watt, for 18,000 kW. It opened March 10, 2025, and it closed May 29, 2025. It is not a live Con Edison residential block, and it is not the rate for the new low- and moderate-income pot. Take $0.15 per watt off the proposal, including any 2025 template that still prints it.
Upstate residential block 14 is limited to NYSEG, RG&E, and National Grid territories. The October 14 announcement does not say whether that block is open and does not give its rate. Do not describe block 14 as the Sustainable Future Program. If the upstate dashboard shows no rate, write that the rate is unconfirmed. Do not borrow the closed Con Edison figure, and do not divide the $20 million pot into a watt rate.
How the proposal page should read tomorrow morning
Athol prepares sales proposals for installers. The installer sells the job and builds it. The proposal should make the unpublished rate obvious.
A usable rooftop section has five lines and no guessed math.
- Program name: NY-Sun, Sustainable Future Program, announced October 14, 2026.
- Bucket: one of the four, chosen from project size and customer type, with the announced dollars and megawatts quoted as program size, not converted into a rate.
- Adder: only if the project is a carport, brownfield, landfill, floating system, agrivoltaic project, or a large rooftop that fits the announced rooftop adder. Write that the amount was not published.
- Payment: when the project is completed. Say that funding begins to be deployed in the coming weeks, which is not a statement that this project is already reserved.
- Source check: the dashboard or the written program rules, with the date you looked. If those rules are not posted yet, say that too.
Background for installers is in the NY-Sun program guide. What belongs in the customer document is in what a solar sales proposal should include. Athol builds that page under sales proposals. Midsize and large roofs go through commercial and utility design. Houses go through residential solar design, without a closed Con Edison block pasted onto the incentive line.
Leave the watt-rate cell blank until a rate is actually published. The $200 million is real. A number typed into that cell the morning after the announcement is not.