Choose your state
Ranked by how quickly a typical system pays for itself.
Most people assume sunshine is the deciding factor. It isn't — your electricity price is. Solar earns its money by replacing power you would otherwise buy, so the more expensive that power, the faster the system pays off. That is why cloudy, expensive states routinely beat sunny, cheap ones.
The second factor is what your utility pays for exported power. Full retail net metering makes the grid behave like a free battery. Where exports earn well below retail, the value shifts sharply toward using your own production as it is generated.
Data vintage: Electricity: EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.B (residential, May 2026 YTD). Solar resource: PVGIS v5.3 (EU JRC), ERA5 2005-2023. Gasoline: AAA state averages. Natural gas: EIA residential by state. Heating degree days: NOAA CPC population-weighted normals. Residential consumption: EIA Electric Sales, Revenue, and Average Price Table 5.A, average monthly kWh per residential customer, 2024. Vehicle miles: FHWA Highway Statistics 2023. Retrieved 2026-08-03/04 and 2026-08-21. Install costs, net-metering status, time-of-use spreads and outage hours remain estimates.