Solar Panel Cost by City: Real Per-City Production Data

Updated September 2026 · Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (July 2026 data) · next EIA update ~Oct 23

Most city-level solar pages are a state page with the city name pasted in. This one is not, and the reason is simple: we only publish a city if it has its own PVGIS-NSRDB modeled yield. That limits us to 66 cities across 22 states, and it means every number on these pages is measured rather than assumed.

The spreads are larger than most people expect.

Three of those deserve a second look. Kaneohe produces 39% less than Honolulu, twelve miles away over one mountain range. Everett produces 8% less than Seattle inside the same metropolitan area, because the Puget Sound convergence zone parks a cloud band over south Snohomish County. And El Paso beats Houston by 28% inside the same state, under the same retail electricity market.

Every one of those gaps is invisible in a state average, and all of them are larger than the difference a good installer quote makes.

What is the same on every page

Only production changes between a city page and its parent state page. The electricity rate (EIA state residential average), the export regime (from our state export-rules dataset) and the installed cost per watt are inherited without modification, so a city page can never contradict its state page on anything except the figure it exists to correct.

Cities we would like to add

If a city is not listed here, it is because no per-city figure has been modeled for it yet — not because it does not matter. We would rather publish 66 honest pages than 500 interpolated ones.

Production figures last verified 30 August 2026. Unshaded, 20-degree, south-facing; a 10% real-roof derate is applied separately in the shared model.