PG&E Generator and Battery Rebate Is Full for 2026

PG&E's Generator and Battery Rebate Program, which paid up to $300 toward a portable generator or power station for customers in high fire-risk areas, has stopped accepting new applications for 2026 because its funding is exhausted. Summaries of the program page from late August 2026 direct customers to check back in January 2027. The program's published rules still carry a December 31, 2026 application deadline, and that date is now a ceiling rather than an open window.

The product at the center of this is a specific one: a portable battery between 290 and 1,000 watt-hours, small enough to carry to the garage and large enough to keep a refrigerator or a CPAP running through a Public Safety Power Shutoff. Plenty of those boxes were bought this summer in the foothills and the North Bay on the understanding that $300 would come back, or $500 for a household on CARE or FERA. Some are still sitting unopened, because PG&E does not let anyone apply until the product has been delivered.

For anyone who heard about the rebate from a neighbor or a February article and is about to buy on the strength of it, the rebate is no longer available this year. It is not the only backup-power money in California, but the other programs are nearly all closed as well.

The terms themselves are unchanged. According to PG&E's Generator and Battery Rebate Program page, the rebate is up to $300 per customer account, one per account, with an additional $200 for CARE or FERA participants. The account has to be in a Tier 2 or 3 High Fire-Threat District, a High Fire Risk Area, or on a circuit covered by Enhanced Power Safety Settings. Generators must be CARB-compliant and on PG&E's qualified-product list, and batteries must fall between 290Wh and 1,000Wh, with the 1kWh maximum strictly enforced. Applications are due within 12 months of purchase or by December 31, 2026, whichever comes first. Rebates are awarded first-come, first-served.

The evidence for the closure comes in two strengths, and they should be kept apart. For the rebate program itself, the source is aggregated search snippets of the PG&E page from late August 2026, which say 2026 applications are closed because funding is full and tell customers to return in January 2027. For two companion programs, the closure notices appear directly on PG&E's own pages. The Backup Power Transfer Meter Program page carries this banner:

The Reliability Battery Initiative installed a 10 to 15 kWh home battery, valued at over $10,000, at no cost to customers on circuits with above-average outage problems. Its page says: "Applications for 2026 are closed. The Reliability Battery Program is full for 2026 and is not accepting new applications." Customers who already applied, or who left a message with the contractor Resource Innovations, do not need to reapply and will be contacted. The transfer meter page offers no waitlist and tells customers to keep watching the page.

The rebate was never built to last the calendar year. It paid first-come, first-served from a fixed pot. A consumer-finance explainer published in February, Exspenditure's guide to the rebate, put it plainly months before the pot ran dry: "Once program funds are depleted, PG&E will cease accepting applications." The December 31 date on the page was always the last day a claim could be filed, and never a promise that money would still be there.

The backup-power programs filled during wildfire season. PG&E's transfer meter page presents the closures as a cluster, with three outage-preparedness programs reaching capacity in the same year and the demand coming from fire-prone service areas. The larger statewide incentive had already closed. According to selfgenca.com, the Self-Generation Incentive Program's General Market, Equity and Equity Resiliency budgets closed to new applications on December 31, 2025, and the federal 30% Residential Clean Energy Credit for battery storage expired on the same date. That left no federal battery incentive for 2026 purchases. With the large rebates gone, the small ones were likely to draw heavier demand.

This has happened before. The CPUC's SGIP participation page records an earlier cycle in which the Equity Resiliency budget in PG&E territory was exhausted and moved to a waitlist.

If the battery is already bought. Do not assume a 2027 program will cover a 2026 purchase. Under the current rules, a claim must be filed within 12 months of purchase and after delivery. A September purchase would fall inside that window by date. PG&E has not said whether a reopened program will keep the same rules, the same product list or the same budget. Anyone with an unfiled claim, or a delivery that arrived after the closure, should write to [email protected] and keep the receipt and proof of delivery together.

If the battery is not yet bought. Price it without the rebate. The $300 is not available this year, and a purchase that only makes sense with the rebate should wait.

If the household is income-qualified. One SGIP pathway in PG&E territory still accepts names. The statewide SGIP program metrics tracker, which updates nightly, showed on September 28, 2026 that every PG&E budget category was closed except RSSE-AB 209, which was on waitlist status with $496,486.55 nominally listed. Every other category also shows a dollar balance, but the tracker's "Closed" label means those steps cannot be reserved, whatever figure appears beside them. The RSSE budget is for lower-income households and covers installed home batteries, alone or paired with solar. It does not cover portable power stations, so it replaces the rebate only for households prepared to take on a much larger project. Per the SGIP San Diego budget page, RSSE storage incentives were $1.10/Wh and solar paired with storage could reach $3.10/W. The same page says waitlisted applications are funded only as existing reservations are cancelled, in the order received.

Homeowners cannot join the waitlist themselves. PG&E's SGIP page says of each closed category, "This rebate is closed. To submit a waitlist application, please contact your contractor." PG&E says it will notify waitlisted customers when funds become available. In practice, the first step toward that waitlist is getting quotes from installers who are registered SGIP developers and asking each one whether it will file the RSSE waitlist application on your behalf.

If the household spans two utilities. SGIP is administered separately in each territory, and the tracker lists SCE and SoCalGas with their own step structures and statuses. A second property or account in SCE or SDG&E territory therefore has its own SGIP status, which is not set by PG&E's. Eligibility follows the address on the account, so a PG&E home cannot use another utility's budget. A separate account can be checked on its own merits.

PG&E has not published a reopening date for the Generator and Battery Rebate Program. "January 2027" appears on the companion programs' banners and in the snippets about this one, and it is an instruction to check back, not a commitment to reopen. None of these sources show how much the rebate program spent in 2026, how many customers it paid, or when during the year it has reopened in the past. Nothing has been said about whether 2027 funding, rebate amounts or eligible products will match this year's.

Some sources conflict on older details. An industry explainer on SGIP Equity Resiliency from the California Energy Initiative still describes stacking the 30% federal credit on top of a battery rebate. According to selfgenca.com, that credit expired on December 31, 2025.

For a buyer, the portable battery is the same product it was in August: 1,000 watt-hours or less, enough to keep a refrigerator running through a shutoff. What has changed is the price. Without the rebate, the full cost is paid now, and whether any of it can be recovered depends on a program that will not say until January.