How much do solar panels cost?
Estimate what a rooftop solar system costs, what it saves, and when it pays for itself. Prices here are what people actually paid in your state, not a quote from someone selling panels.
Typical range $28,016 – $39,552
- Solar system, installed$32,960
- Battery storage$0
- Federal tax credit (expired)$0
- Total$32,960
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§ 02 The return
Prices from LBNL are gross and pre-incentive, and cover only the 12 states with mandatory installer reporting; other states fall back to the national median. Savings assume you use or net-meter everything you generate, which depends on your utility.
Where the money goes
Does it pay back?
Cumulative cash flow. The line crosses zero the month your accumulated savings have repaid what you spent.
By the numbers
- LBNL: the median household in the 12 states that require installers to report paid about $4.12 per watt for rooftop solar, based on project-level data from systems people actually bought. That is the price paid, not a quote.
- EIA: real US residential rooftop systems produced about 1644 kWh per kW installed last year. That is measured fleet output, not a simulation.
- IRS: the 30 percent federal solar tax credit (section 25D) is gone. It does not apply to any system placed in service after December 31, 2025, and what counts is when installation is finished, not when you pay or sign the contract.
Where every number above comes from
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Tracking the Sun (the dataset itself, on DOE's Open Energy Data Initiative lake, which is what we actually read). LBNL's own landing page at emp.lbl.gov returns 403 to every non-browser client, so we cannot verify it and will not cite what we cannot fetch.
data.openei.org -
Energy prices
U.S. Energy Information Administration, electricity data
eia.gov -
IRS
IRS, Residential Clean Energy Credit (section 25D)
irs.gov
What this assumes, and where it could be wrong
Every one of these is a place the number could be off. They are here because you should be able to check our working, not because we are hedging.
The price per watt is the median actually paid by households in your state, from LBNL's project-level dataset.
The 30 percent federal tax credit expired for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. Most solar calculators still apply it. This one does not, because it no longer exists.
Production is what real rooftop systems measured out at, nationally. Your roof's pitch, shading, and latitude will move it, so adjust the figure if you have a quote with a production estimate.
Payback assumes your electricity rate holds steady. In reality rates tend to rise, which shortens payback, so treat this as the conservative case.