What would it cost you
Start with your electricity bill, which you already know, rather than kilowatt-hours, which you would have to go and look up. Everything else is prefilled from your state and can be overridden with a real quote.
About 5,713 kWh a year at 33.6¢
Needs a 3.6 kW array, about 9 panels
Median in this state is $4.36. Got a quote? Divide its price by the system watts and type that in.
after paying for the system
per kWh, against 33.6¢ from the utility
kWh over 25 years
Assumes 0.5% output loss a year, 2.5% annual electricity price rises, and that what you generate is worth the retail rate you pay, less a 30% haircut because this state no longer credits exports at retail. A shaded or north-facing roof produces less than this. It is an estimate, not a quote.
Three things worth knowing before you trust it
There is no federal credit in these numbers. The 30% residential credit ended for systems finished after 31 December 2025. If a quote you are holding still shows one, that is a sales document written against repealed law, and it is worth asking the company about. What actually changed.
The payback assumes your generation is worth retail. Under full net metering it is. Several states have moved away from that, and where we know about it the calculator applies a haircut and says so. Check your own utility’s export rate before believing any payback figure, ours included.
Your roof is not the model’s roof. Production is modelled facing due south at a 20 degree tilt with nothing shading it. A roof facing east or west loses perhaps 15%, and a single badly placed tree can cost more than that. An installer’s site survey is the only thing that settles it.
Publish about solar? A compact version of this, payback by state, is free to embed on your own site.
Three competing quotes beat any amount of comparing panel brands
Sales cost and margin are over a third of an installed price, and they are the part that competition removes. A single quote from whoever reached you first is how people end up in the top quarter of what their neighbours paid.
Plain outbound links. We take no phone numbers and sell no leads: you give your details to the company that will actually call you, not to us.
Prices and rules change. We will tell you when they do
Berkeley Lab publishes installed prices once a year, the EIA updates electricity rates every month, and Congress changed the tax treatment of all of this in 2025. One email when something on this site actually changes, and nothing else.
Email address only. No phone field, no passing you to installers, unsubscribe in one click.