SolarCostData.com
Home › City solar data › Dallas

How Much Is Solar in Dallas, TX? $2.25/W, 10.7–21.1-Yr Payback

In Dallas, TX, an 8 kW system at $2.25/W produces about 1,455 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 10.7–21.1 years at 15.9¢/kWh with the federal credit at $0.

1,455 kWh/kW/yrDallas production
1,455 kWh/kW/yrTexas average
15.9¢/kWhElectricity rate

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

On this page: CalculatorTableHow we calculatedSources

Jump to calculator ↓
System size: —
Annual production: —
Net cost (federal credit $0): —
Estimated year-1 saving: —
Estimated payback: —
25-year net position: —
Same model as the full savings calculator and the Texas page. Excludes fixed connection charges. Estimate, not a quote.
What changes if…

The slider reprices the calculator above instantly, and the URL keeps your scenario — share it as-is.

Dallas production
1,455 kWh/kW/yr
Texas average
1,455 kWh/kW/yr
Electricity rate
15.9¢/kWh
8 kW installed cost
~$18,000
2026 federal credit
$0
Payback (utility math)
10.7–21.1 years — export rule not verified with your utility

Why this number

In Dallas, an 8 kW system costs about $18,000 installed and generates roughly 10,476 kWh a year (1,455 kWh per kW, PVGIS-NSRDB, less a 10% real-roof derate). At Texas’s average residential rate of 15.9¢/kWh that is worth about $1,664/yr, for a payback of roughly 10.7 years — with the 2026 federal credit at $0. One honest caveat up front: Dallas’s electricity is deregulated, so no single utility rate exists here — your Retail Electric Provider contract sets both your rate and any solar buyback, and the state-average figure above is a starting point, not your number.

Dallas at 1,455 kWh per kW is the cluster our Texas state page is built on, and it sits close to the middle of a state with the widest useful solar spread in the country. Houston, the larger metro, runs 1,389. El Paso runs 1,784 — 28% more than Houston. On an 8 kW system that is 8.8 years to payback in El Paso against 11.2 on the Gulf coast.

An 8 kW system in Dallas, priced out

Table 1: How Much Is Solar in Dallas, TX? $2.25/W, 10.7–21.1-Yr Payback
Metric Estimate for Dallas Texas statewide
Production, unshaded 20° south 1,455 kWh per kW/yr 1,455 kWh per kW/yr
8 kW output after a 10% roof derate ~10,476 kWh/yr ~10,476 kWh/yr
Average residential rate 15.9¢/kWh (EIA) 15.9¢/kWh
Installed cost, 8 kW ~$18,000 at $2.25/watt ~$18,000
2026 federal credit $0 $0
Export rule Set by your utility or retail provider Set by your utility or retail provider
Export credit modeled your own rate (varies by provider) your own rate (varies by provider)
Annual value of that output ~$1,664 ~$1,664
Rough payback (your utility) 10.7–21.1 years 10.7 years (state-average model)
25-year net position $29,450 —

Only the first two rows differ. Everything financial — rate, tariff, price per watt — is inherited from Texas without change, which is the point: a city page that quietly used a different electricity rate from its state page would be guessing, not measuring.

Doing nothing is not free either. Twenty-five years of the electricity an 8 kW Dallas array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $56,839.

Solar aside, the EV vs. gas cost calculator runs Dallas’s 15.9¢/kWh rate against what a gas car costs to fill instead.

Run it with your own bill

Shared methodology · identical on every city page

  • Production figures are unshaded, south-facing, 20° PVGIS values. A real roof — its own pitch, orientation, a tree or a chimney — typically produces 10–25% less; every payback here already carries a 10% real-roof derate.
  • Paybacks include $150/yr of running costs and one $2,000 inverter replacement in year 14, which is why they run longer than paybacks quoted elsewhere.
  • State export rules cover investor-owned, state-regulated utilities. Municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives are exempt in most states and set their own terms.
  • Installed cost is the state-level EnergySage market figure, not a city quote; a swing of 50¢/W moves payback by roughly a year and a half either way. Get three quotes before trusting any payback — including ours.

Texas is not one solar market

Across the 7 Texas cities with their own modeled figures, production spans 28% — Houston at 1,389 kWh per kW to El Paso at 1,784. Every column except production is identical down this table: same 15.9¢/kWh retail rate, same export regime, same $2.25/W installed cost. The payback differences are caused by weather and nothing else.

Table 2: How Much Is Solar in Dallas, TX? $2.25/W, 10.7–21.1-Yr Payback
Location kWh per kW per year 8 kW output Annual value Payback
El Paso 1,784 12,845 kWh $2,040 8.8 yrs
Lubbock 1,682 12,110 kWh $1,923 9.3 yrs
Corpus Christi 1,479 10,649 kWh $1,691 10.5 yrs
San Antonio 1,457 10,490 kWh $1,666 10.7 yrs
Dallas (this page) 1,455 10,476 kWh $1,664 10.7 yrs
Austin 1,447 10,418 kWh $1,654 10.7 yrs
Houston 1,389 10,001 kWh $1,588 11.2 yrs
Texas state average 1,455 10,476 kWh $1,664 10.7 yrs

Against the state figure, Dallas is the reference point: our Texas page uses 1,455 kWh per kW, which is this city. The value of this page is the comparison above, not a different headline number.

North Texas sun, without the Gulf

Dallas-Fort Worth gets continental rather than maritime weather: hot, frequently clear, and without the persistent morning marine cloud and afternoon convective build-up that costs Houston its 5%. Spring severe weather takes a bite, and hail is a genuine hardware risk in this metro in a way it is not in El Paso — worth a conversation about module warranty and homeowner’s policy coverage before you sign anything.

At 1,455 kWh per kW, Dallas is 10% above the national planning figure. It is a good, unremarkable solar location, which in Texas makes it the median case rather than the headline.

No single utility rate: Dallas is deregulated

Dallas sits in ERCOT’s retail-choice market, so there is no one utility whose price we can quote the way we do for regulated cities. Oncor Electric Delivery owns and maintains the wires and charges a delivery fee that appears on every bill, but the energy itself — the cents per kWh you actually pay, and whether your solar exports earn anything — is set by the Retail Electric Provider (REP) contract you choose. Texas has no statewide solar-export mandate: buyback exists only as specific REP plans, and terms differ even between plans from the same provider.

Practical consequences for the numbers on this page: the payback above uses the Texas average residential rate, because that is the only honest single figure available. Before trusting any payback estimate, rerun the calculator with the rate from your own REP contract, and if you are going solar, compare REP buyback plans on two numbers — what they charge you per imported kWh and what they credit per exported kWh — not on the headline rate alone. Solar sales in these metros also lean heavily on third-party ownership — a lease or PPA layered on top of the REP choice — so be clear which of the two contracts you are actually signing.

Dallas is the reference point for urban Texas solar on this site. Its PVGIS-modeled yield of 1,455 kWh per kW per year sits almost exactly on the state’s population-weighted middle — San Antonio models at 1,457 and Austin at 1,447, so the whole I-35/I-45 urban crescent is within about 1% of the Dallas number. The real variation lies west: El Paso, at 1,784 kWh/kW, out-produces the same panel in Dallas by about 23%, while Houston, at 1,389, runs about 5% behind. North Texas gets clean continental sun without the Gulf humidity that shades Houston, and that is worth real money over 25 years — but not as much money as the paperwork decisions below.

Here is the part the sunshine numbers cannot capture. Oncor delivers the power, but the price of every kilowatt-hour you buy — and the credit for every one you export — is set by whichever retail contract you sign. Our export-rules data classifies Texas as utility-dependent for a reason: there is no statewide mandate, buyback exists only as voluntary REP solar plans, and terms differ even between plans from the same provider. Our model uses a conservative 3.0¢/kWh export value; against the 16.44¢ statewide average residential rate the headline math runs on, that is more than a five-to-one spread. Two identical roofs in the same Dallas neighborhood can land on payback figures years apart purely on contract choice.

So when you compare buyback plans, compare both sides of the meter. A plan advertising a generous export credit often carries a higher import rate or monthly fee that claws it back; a cheap-import plan may credit exports at little or nothing. Multiply your expected annual production — about 1,455 kWh for each kW installed — by the plan’s actual credit terms, alongside what your consumption costs under that same plan, before signing. Contracts are typically short; the panels are not. Assume you will re-shop this decision many times over the system’s life.

On cost, Texas quotes are among the cheapest in the country at $2.25 per watt in EnergySage’s August 2026 marketplace data — but LBNL’s realized installed prices for Texas run $4.04/W across 2,670 systems, a 1.8x gap. Getting multiple quotes is worth more here than in almost any state we track. And for 2026, the federal residential credit is $0 on a cash or loan purchase; the 30% credit survives only through third-party-owned systems — a lease or PPA claiming it under §48E — so a “30% off” pitch on a system you would own outright is describing a law that no longer applies.

In Texas, your retail plan matters more than your roof

Texas has no statewide net-metering requirement at all. What you are paid for surplus power is set by your retail electricity provider, plan by plan, and two plans from the same company can treat exports completely differently. In deregulated Dallas that is a shopping decision, not a regulatory fact.

It is also the single largest variable in your payback — larger than the difference between Dallas and El Paso sunshine. Get the buyback terms in writing, check whether the credit is capped at your monthly consumption, and check whether the plan’s energy rate is inflated to fund a generous-looking buyback.

What Texas pays Dallas for exported power

Texas has no statewide export-credit requirement, and Dallas is no exception. What you are paid for surplus power is set by your utility or retail provider — REP solar buyback plans — not by state law.

The headline range runs from full-retail credit (the best case) to a reduced credit of 3.0¢/kWh with 40% of generation used on site — roughly 21.1 years against the full-retail figure — because the export rule is not verified with your utility. That single contract term outweighs the entire production gap between El Paso and Houston — get the buyback terms in writing.

No statewide mandate. Terms are set by your retail electricity provider and differ between plans from the same provider.

Sources and method

Electricity rate, export regime, production figure and installed cost on this page were last verified on 30 August 2026. Export credits reset on annual tariff cycles and incentive budgets run out mid-year, so treat every figure as a snapshot at that date and confirm current terms before acting. Nothing here is tax or financial advice.

Frequently asked questions

How much do solar panels cost in Dallas in 2026?

About $18,000 for a typical 8 kW system at $2.25 per watt, before any incentive. With the federal credit at $0 in 2026 that is close to your net cost. Note that the price per watt is a Texas market average — there is no reliable city-level cost data, so treat it as a starting point and get three quotes.

What is the solar payback in Dallas?

Roughly 10.7 years on this model, using Dallas’s own production figure of 1,455 kWh per kW and Texas’s 15.9¢/kWh average rate and its set by your utility or retail provider export rule. That includes $150 a year of running costs and one inverter replacement, which many published paybacks leave out.

Is Dallas better or worse for solar than the rest of Texas?

Against the state figure, Dallas is the reference point: our Texas page uses 1,455 kWh per kW, which is this city. The value of this page is the comparison above, not a different headline number.

Is solar worth it in Dallas in 2026?

Dallas is a straightforward Texas case: 1,455 kWh per kW, 15.9¢/kWh, payback near 10.7 years. The variable that will actually move your result is which retail provider’s solar buyback plan you sign.

How we calculated this

Year-1 saving = production (kW × the city’s modeled kWh per kW) × the blended kWh value (retail rate for self-use, the state export rule for exports). Payback = net cost ÷ year-1 saving, with the federal credit at $0 for 2026 purchases and cost per watt from the state’s installed-price band. Production is modeled from PVGIS/NSRDB irradiance for the city.

Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) electricity rates · DSIRE incentive records · public IRS/OBBBA guidance. Figures are modeled estimates, not quotes or tax advice. See our methodology.

Compare with the rest of Texas