How much do solar panels cost on average in your city and how you can work out how much solar will cost for your home?

Buying solar panels for your home is a big investment and so it is natural you want to do quite a lot of research before making a decision. Most people buying solar panels for their home want to know that they are getting a good quality solar power system and that they get a good price for the type of solar panels they are buying.

This article will give you details of current live solar offers in your area from solar companies near you and also explain the factors that might make buying solar for your home more or less expensive than the average home in your area.

How much do solar panels cost in your city today ?

The Inexpensive Solar Houston TX and Solar-Estimate websites each publish data on the prices they see for residential solar systems across America based on the interactions they see between consumers and local solar companies through their websites. Inexpensive Solar Houston TX and Solar-Estimate are both major destinations for consumers seeking competitive solar quotes for their homes and businesses

Inexpensive Solar Houston TX puts average residential solar panel cost across America as at September 2018 at $10,800 after claiming the 30% federal solar tax credit . This equates to a cost of $15,428 for a 5kw solar system before the tax credit which is $3.08 per watt. This is a cash solar price.

Consumers have many zero down solar finance options in 2018. Solar systems purchased by way of zero down solar loans are usually around $0.30 per watt more expensive, or around $1500 per system, dearer, (before the solar tax credit). This extra cost is because solar companies usually have to pay an origination fee to the solar finance companies to get you a cheaper rate on the loan.

You can find out more about the best solar loans available in your state by speaking to solar companies near you. Generally speaking each solar company will have a relationship with one or more solar financing providers and will be able to offer you loan options. Here is an article comparing Greenky and Dividend Solar two of the largest solar loan providers in the US.

Solar-Estimate.org is the other website that publishes solar panel cost for each city from current solar prices being offered by  local solar providers through that marketplace. This site does not publish a national average but it publishes state and city average solar prices for full installed residential systems.

Average solar panel cost for each state can be found on its home page but it also publishes solar panel cost data for specific cities based on the solar offers it is seeing in those cities at the time.

At the very bottom of this article are links to solar panel cost data for specific cities in some of the major solar markets around the country:

How much will solar cost for your home ?

Whilst it is great to have a ballpark average solar panel cost for your city your home is unlikely to be average and what you really want to know is how much it will cost to install solar panels on your home.

This is a much more complicated thing to work out because it depends on a number of factors including the location of your home, the size, tilt and orientation of your roof, any shading you may have, your electricity usage and the electric rates charged by your utility.

Generally speaking, the aim of a solar panel installation is to install a solar power system that will produce the same amount of electricity that your home uses. This is the case because the net metering laws in most states limit the size of eligible solar systems to a system size that produces a similar amount of energy to what your home uses.

In some cases, however, the aim may be a zero electric bill which means installing a solar system that produces more than your electric usage to cover fixed daily charges from your utility or make up for a lower rate being paid for excess solar power compared to what you are charged for power you buy (this is the case with APS in Arizona, NV Energy in Nevada and with the investor owned utilities in California under the NEM 2 net metering program )

So to work out the cost of installing solar panels for your home you first need to work out a few basics such as:

How much electricity does your home use?

Here is a link to an article that shows the average electricity use of homes in each state. This same article also answers the question how many solar panels do I need to power a house in each state assuming an average sized home with average electricity usage.

How many solar panels do you need for your home?

To answer this question more information is needed than state averages. You also need to know how much power you are actually using. In this regard there is a trade off between producing an easy estimate of the number of solar panels needed to power your home and producing a more accurate estimate. An easy estimate can be produced by a solar power calculator just from an average monthly power spend. This is often the way that online solar panel calculators work because it makes them super easy to use without requiring consumers to dig through their power bills.

However, to get a more accurate estimate of the amount of solar panels you need for your home you need to have more accurate information about your power usage and this requires copies of your power bills. When you speak to a solar company the first thing they usually ask you is for a copy of your power bill.

How much power do solar panels produce in your city on a south facing roof?

We are fortunate in America that the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (or NREL ) have produced sophisticated and accurate data that answers the question, how much electricity do solar panels produce (in Kwh) for each of the more than 3300 weather locations around America. This is why almost every solar energy calculator uses the NREL PVWatts data for their solar panels kwh production calculations

This will show you how much solar panels will produce per kilowatt of peak DC panels installed at your home. On the PVWatts calculator you can also vary the direction of your roof and it will change the forecast electrical output of the solar panels.

If all this is a bit hard you can use the links to the solar panels calculator above and elect to request quotes from solar providers near you. Solar companies hoping to get your business will do all of these calculations for you and give you an accurate solar estimate of how much solar panels will produce on your house, how many solar panels you need, the cost they will charge you to install them and the savings and return on investment you can expect.

How much will solar save you?

The solar savings estimator  will also calculate how much solar will save you. Solar savings come in the form of avoided utility power cost over the life of a solar system. The gross solar savings is the total avoided utility power cost and the net solar savings figure is the gross avoided cost less the cost of the solar panels and any interest you pay on your solar loan

Most consumers are surprised at how large solar savings become over the life of a system. Savings that begin at only $30 per month in the first year of a project can grow to savings of $500 per month in year 25 of a solar systems life and see you make a profit of as much as $100,000 (in some states) over the life of the system. The size of your solar savings depends largely on how expensive utility electricity is in your region and what the future rate of utility price inflation proves to be.