Rankings · Utilities

Lowest solar payback by state

Standard rooftop solar payback.

Simple payback for a standard 1 kW rooftop system: NREL PVWatts annual output multiplied by the local residential electricity rate, against NREL’s $2.68/W residential benchmark (2023 dollars). It assumes every generated kWh offsets retail electricity, with no incentives, financing, taxes, maintenance, degradation, net-metering limits, battery, roof work, shading or local installation-price differences. Treat this as a consistent resource-and-rate comparison, not a quote or investment return.

  1. 1Hawaii4.2
  2. 2California4.8
  3. 3Massachusetts6.5
  4. 4Rhode Island6.7
  5. 5Maine6.9
  6. 6Connecticut7.0
  7. 7New York7.3
  8. 8New Hampshire7.7
  9. 9District of Columbia7.8
  10. 10New Jersey8.3
  11. 11Maryland8.6
  12. 12Vermont8.9
  13. 13Arizona9.7
  14. 14New Mexico9.7
  15. 15Colorado9.9
  16. 16Michigan9.9
  17. 17Pennsylvania10.1
  18. 18Illinois10.4
  19. 19Alaska10.5
  20. 20Wisconsin10.5
  21. 21Delaware10.6
  22. 22Texas11.1
  23. 23Florida11.2
  24. 24Nevada11.3
  25. 25Ohio11.4
  26. 26Alabama11.5
  27. 27Indiana11.6
  28. 28Kansas11.7
  29. 29South Carolina11.7
  30. 30Virginia11.8
  31. 31Minnesota11.9
  32. 32Wyoming12.0
  33. 33Georgia12.5
  34. 34Mississippi12.7
  35. 35North Carolina12.7
  36. 36South Dakota12.8
  37. 37Oklahoma12.9
  38. 38Utah12.9
  39. 39Iowa13.5
  40. 40West Virginia13.5
  41. 41Missouri13.6
  42. 42Nebraska13.8
  43. 43Louisiana14.1
  44. 44Arkansas14.2
  45. 45Oregon14.2
  46. 46Kentucky14.3
  47. 47Tennessee14.3
  48. 48Montana14.6
  49. 49Idaho14.9
  50. 50North Dakota15.3
  51. 51Washington17.1
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Source: NREL PVWatts; NREL Annual Technology Baseline; EIA Form 861. · How this is built