How Much Is Solar in New York City, NY? $2.76/W, 7.0-Yr Payback
In New York City, NY, an 8 kW system at $2.76/W produces about 1,255 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 7.0 years at 34.24¢/kWh with the federal credit at $0.
· Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (July 2026 data) · next EIA update ~Oct 23
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- New York City production
- 1,255 kWh/kW/yr
- New York average
- 1,270 kWh/kW/yr
- Electricity rate
- 29.9¢/kWh
- 8 kW installed cost
- ~$22,080
- 2026 federal credit
- $0
- Payback (utility math)
- 7.0 years
Why this number
New York City produces 1,255 kWh per kW — a fraction below the 1,270 statewide band and nothing special in national terms. It pays back in about 7.0 years anyway, because the city pays 34.24¢/kWh. Buffalo, at the other end of the state, makes 1,129 — 10% less — for a payback of 8.9 years on the identical system.
An 8 kW system in New York City, priced out
| Metric | Estimate for New York City | New York statewide |
|---|---|---|
| Production, unshaded 20° south | 1,255 kWh per kW/yr | 1,270 kWh per kW/yr |
| 8 kW output after a 10% roof derate | ~9,036 kWh/yr | ~9,144 kWh/yr |
| Average residential rate | 29.9¢/kWh (EIA) | 29.9¢/kWh |
| Installed cost, 8 kW | ~$22,080 at $2.76/watt | ~$22,080 |
| 2026 federal credit | $0 | $0 |
| Export rule | Full-retail net metering | Full-retail net metering |
| Export credit modeled | retail (29.9¢/kWh) | retail (29.9¢/kWh) |
| Annual value of that output | ~$2,702 | ~$2,734 |
| Rough payback (your utility) | 7.0 years | 7.9 years (state-average model) |
| 25-year net position | $58,570 | — |
Only the first two rows differ. Everything financial — rate, tariff, price per watt — is inherited from New York 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 New York City array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $92,294.
Electricity isn’t only for panels — the heat pump vs. furnace cost calculator compares heating costs at New York City’s own 29.9¢/kWh rate.
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.
New York is not one solar market
Across the 5 New York cities with their own modeled figures, production spans 13% — Syracuse at 1,114 kWh per kW to New York City at 1,255. Every column except production is identical down this table: same 29.9¢/kWh retail rate, same export regime, same $2.76/W installed cost. The payback differences are caused by weather and nothing else.
| Location | kWh per kW per year | 8 kW output | Annual value | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York City (this page) | 1,255 | 9,036 kWh | $2,702 | 8.0 yrs |
| Albany | 1,178 | 8,482 kWh | $2,536 | 8.5 yrs |
| Rochester | 1,137 | 8,186 kWh | $2,448 | 8.8 yrs |
| Buffalo | 1,129 | 8,129 kWh | $2,431 | 8.9 yrs |
| Syracuse | 1,114 | 8,021 kWh | $2,398 | 9.0 yrs |
| New York state average | 1,270 | 9,144 kWh | $2,734 | 7.9 yrs |
Against the state figure, New York City runs 1.2% below New York’s 1,270 kWh per kW — a payback 0.9 years shorter than the statewide 7.9-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
Why a coastal city at 40° north does this well
New York sits far enough south to keep a usable winter sun angle and close enough to the Atlantic to avoid the persistent lake-effect cloud that flattens the western half of the state. Winters are cold but comparatively bright; summer humidity and haze cost more than most people expect.
The city-specific constraints are not climatic. They are roof access, shading from adjacent buildings, co-op and condo board approval, and FDNY rooftop pathway requirements that can cut usable array area substantially on a small row-house roof. A production model that assumes an unobstructed roof plane — including the one on this page — will overstate a dense-borough installation more than it overstates a suburban one.
Your utility, officially
New York’s average residential rate is 29.9¢/kWh, but the bill in New York City comes from Consolidated Edison Co-NY Inc at 34.24¢ — 15% above the state figure. These are the residential figures New York City’s utility reported to the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Form EIA-861 for 2024 — computed as revenue ÷ sales from the official file, not estimated:
| Utility | EIA ID | Residential avg price | Residential customers | Net-metering (residential, self-reported) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consolidated Edison Co-NY Inc | 4226 | 34.24¢/kWh | 3,064,038 | 70078 customers / 397.341 MW |
How exports are treated matters as much as the headline price: Consolidated Edison Co-NY Inc is modeled here under the state’s full-retail net metering rules, and that treatment is baked into every payback figure on this page.
Consolidated Edison bills nearly every home in the five boroughs, and at 34.24¢/kWh (EIA-861, 2024) it charges more than any other utility on this site outside Hawaii. That is not a typo and it is not a peak rate — it is total residential revenue divided by total residential sales, the blended average across all 3,064,038 of ConEd’s residential customers. The upstate comparison is brutal: National Grid’s upstate territory averaged 16.67¢ the same year. One state, one public service commission, and a better-than-2x split in what a kilowatt-hour costs depending on which side of Westchester you live.
ConEd is investor-owned and state-regulated, which cuts two ways. The bad news is the rate. The good news is that every consumer protection on our New York state page — Phase One net metering, the VDER framework, PSC oversight of the interconnection queue — applies in full. Your bill splits into delivery (ConEd’s wires, fixed by tariff) and supply (the energy itself, which floats month to month unless you’ve chosen an ESCO). Solar offsets both when exports are credited at retail, which is precisely why a high-delivery-charge utility is where net metering is worth the most. Plans and riders vary; ConEd’s own solar pages (coned.com ) are the place to check which rate you are actually on before anyone models your payback.
The EIA filing also shows what the city’s rooftops physically are. ConEd reported 70,078 residential net-metered customers and 397.34 MW — an average system of about 5.7 kW, the smallest in any city we track in this batch. Upstate National Grid’s average runs closer to 7.8 kW. Manhattan brownstones, Queens rowhouses, and shared roofs simply do not fit 10 kW arrays, and any quote sized like a Texas suburb should make you suspicious.
One thing worth doing before you sign anything: the state’s NY-Sun incentive machinery is run by NYSERDA, not ConEd, and its current terms live at nyserda.ny.gov . We are deliberately not quoting NY-Sun dollar figures here — they step down by region and by installed capacity block, so any number printed on a static page goes stale. What does not go stale is the structure: in New York City the incentive stack runs through the state, the export credit runs through ConEd, and the two are decided by different institutions that do not move in lockstep.
Source: EIA Form EIA-861, 2024 final release , accessed 2026-09-02. Average price is total residential revenue divided by total residential sales for the year — your own rate depends on your tariff and usage tier.
Who else serves the metro
Most New York City accounts are billed by Consolidated Edison, but its EIA-861 territory spans six counties, and two other utilities there price power quite differently: Long Island Power Authority at 24.6¢ and New York State Electric & Gas at 17.8¢, both well under Con Edison’s 34.24¢. The gap to NYSEG alone runs about 16.4¢ — large enough that a payback built on the 34.24¢ headline rate would look nothing like one run on either neighboring system, especially once a different utility’s export rules apply. New York’s July 2026 state average, 29.9¢, is a later, separately calculated figure and doesn’t settle anything for one address. Only a ZIP code pins down which utility actually applies.
| Utility (EIA-861, same service counties) | 2024 avg residential price | Residential customers |
|---|---|---|
| Long Island Power Authority | 24.6¢/kWh | 1,029,955 |
| New York State Elec & Gas Corp | 17.8¢/kWh | 792,300 |
The exact answer is a ZIP question, not a city question: look up your utility by ZIP . Candidates: utilities EIA-861 lists in 6 service counties of the metro’s main utility; prices are 2024 revenue ÷ sales from the official file.
The stacked incentives are the real New York story
New York is unusual in still having a residential solar income-tax credit at the state level, and New York City adds a property-tax abatement on top of it. Between them they can move the effective cost of the $22,080 system modeled here by thousands of dollars — none of which is included in the 7.0-year payback above, because this page models the hardware case only.
On exports, the state runs Phase One net metering alongside the VDER Value Stack, and which one applies depends on your utility and when you interconnect. Confirm your Customer Benefit Contribution charge with Con Edison before modeling: it is a per-kW monthly charge against your solar credit, and it is easy to miss in a quote.
What New York pays New York City for exported power
New York credits exported power at the retail rate under Phase One net metering + VDER Value Stack , so a kilowatt-hour a New York City array sends to the grid is worth the same as one you buy. That is the best case for solar economics and it is why the payback above is what it is.
It is also the assumption most likely to change. Twenty-two states have already moved to net billing. If New York did the same on typical terms, this system would take about 14.5 years instead of 7.0 — 7.5 years’ difference from a policy change, with no change to the hardware and none to New York City’s weather.
Customer Benefit Contribution values were not confirmed.
Sources and method
- Production: modeled with PVGIS v5.2 PVcalc (European Commission JRC) using the PVGIS-NSRDB radiation database — the same NREL satellite dataset PVWatts draws on for the Americas. Assumptions: 4 kWp, standard c-Si, 14% system loss, roof mounting, 20-degree tilt, due south, horizon shading on. The 1,255 kWh per kW figure for New York City is a modeled location point, not an interpolation from the New York average. PVGIS is free to use with JRC attribution requested; the underlying NSRDB is public domain (NREL/DOE).
- Real-roof derate: a separate 10% deduction for azimuth, pitch and shading, applied in the shared model rather than folded into the production data — so you can adjust it if your roof is genuinely unobstructed.
- Electricity rate: U.S. Energy Information Administration, average price by state . This is New York’s residential average; EIA does not publish a New York City figure, so the state rate is used and labeled as such.
- Export rules: Phase One net metering + VDER Value Stack , from our New York state page and the shared export-rules dataset behind it.
- State average rate: EIA Table 5.6.A, July 2026 data (released Sep 2026), used for every state-average comparison on this page.
- Payback model: shared with the solar savings calculator and the state pages — 2.5%/yr utility inflation, 0.5%/yr degradation, $150/yr running costs, one $2,000 inverter replacement in year 14, federal credit $0. The rest of the toolset — battery, sizing, financing — is under all calculators .
- Incentives: DSIRE . City and utility programs change more often than state ones — check yours directly.
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 New York City in 2026?
About $22,080 for a typical 8 kW system at $2.76 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 New York 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 New York City?
Roughly 7.0 years on this model, using New York City’s own production figure of 1,255 kWh per kW and its own utility tariff (34.24¢/kWh) with each utility’s real export treatment. That includes $150 a year of running costs and one inverter replacement, which many published paybacks leave out.
Is New York City better or worse for solar than the rest of New York?
Against the state figure, New York City runs 1.2% below New York’s 1,270 kWh per kW — a payback 0.9 years shorter than the statewide 7.9-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
Is solar worth it in New York City in 2026?
New York City’s 1,255 kWh per kW is unremarkable; its 34.24¢/kWh rate is not. Payback lands near 7.0 years before the state credit and the city property-tax abatement, both of which improve it further.
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 New York
- Solar panel cost in New York — The statewide picture: New York’s rate, incentives, export rules and the 1,270 kWh per kW average this page corrects.
- Solar panel cost in Albany — 1,178 kWh per kW and a 8.5-year payback — worse than New York City on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Rochester — 1,137 kWh per kW and a 8.8-year payback — worse than New York City on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Buffalo — 1,129 kWh per kW and a 8.9-year payback — worse than New York City on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Syracuse — 1,114 kWh per kW and a 9.0-year payback — worse than New York City on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Boston — 1,257 kWh per kW in Massachusetts — the closest production match to New York City in our data.
- Solar panel cost in Worcester — 1,252 kWh per kW in Massachusetts — the closest production match to New York City in our data.
- All city solar figures — The 66 US cities with their own modeled production data, and the spreads between them.