I bought solar panels I understand I get the 26% tax credit now to pay off my loan. Turbo Tax has it down as being carried forward. I need the money now what do I do?

[SteamTrain]

Not sure what you can do at this late date, since most  options o do anything had to be done before 31 December.

BUT

Have you entered ALL your income yet?

You need to actually have some taxable income (after deductions) in order to use up that credit

........so if you don't have all your income in yet, the carry-forward is meaningless at this point, since that can change after you have entered EVERYTHING....W-2 income, 1099-R income, all your interest, dividends and 1099-B investment income and Mutual Fund distributions...etc/....

[JohnW152]

There's nothing you can do about this.

Apparently, other credits that you are entitled to have offset the taxes you owe, before your energy credit could be applied. 

By federal law, if you can't use all of your Residential Energy Credits in one year because you've already offset some or all of your tax liability for that year, the unused portion has to be carried forward to the next tax year.

To see the prioritization of credits – that is, the credits that would be applied to tax before the Form 5695 credit – please see the Residential Energy Efficient Property Credit Limit Worksheet—Line 14 in the Instructions for Form 5695.