How Much Is Solar in Orlando, FL? $2.13/W, 9.7–18.8-Yr Payback
In Orlando, FL, an 8 kW system at $2.13/W produces about 1,458 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 9.7–18.8 years at 15.24–16.63¢/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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- Orlando production
- 1,458 kWh/kW/yr
- Florida average
- 1,475 kWh/kW/yr
- Electricity rate
- 15.0¢/kWh
- 8 kW installed cost
- ~$17,040
- 2026 federal credit
- $0
- Payback (utility math)
- 9.7–18.8 years
Why this number
A kilowatt of panels in Orlando produces about 1,458 kWh a year, placing it 3 of 4 among the Florida cities modeled here. The state spans Tampa at 1,498 down to Jacksonville at 1,416, a 5.8% span, and Orlando sits inside it at a payback of about 10.7 years.
An 8 kW system in Orlando, priced out
| Metric | Estimate for Orlando | Florida statewide |
|---|---|---|
| Production, unshaded 20° south | 1,458 kWh per kW/yr | 1,475 kWh per kW/yr |
| 8 kW output after a 10% roof derate | ~10,498 kWh/yr | ~10,620 kWh/yr |
| Average residential rate | 15.0¢/kWh (EIA) | 15.0¢/kWh |
| Installed cost, 8 kW | ~$17,040 at $2.13/watt | ~$17,040 |
| 2026 federal credit | $0 | $0 |
| Export rule | Full-retail net metering | Full-retail net metering |
| Export credit modeled | retail (15.0¢/kWh) | retail (15.0¢/kWh) |
| Annual value of that output | ~$1,578 | ~$1,596 |
| Rough payback (your utility) | 9.7–18.8 years | 10.6 years (state-average model) |
| 25-year net position | $27,666 | — |
Only the first two rows differ. Everything financial — rate, tariff, price per watt — is inherited from Florida 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 Orlando array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $53,901.
Not sure solar is the right move yet? The should-I-go-solar screener asks the four questions that matter before you get a quote.
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.
Orlando against the rest of Florida
Across the 4 Florida cities with their own modeled figures, production spans 5.8% — Jacksonville at 1,416 kWh per kW to Tampa at 1,498. Every column except production is identical down this table: same 15.0¢/kWh retail rate, same export regime, same $2.13/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tampa | 1,498 | 10,786 kWh | $1,621 | 10.4 yrs |
| Miami | 1,481 | 10,663 kWh | $1,603 | 10.6 yrs |
| Orlando (this page) | 1,458 | 10,498 kWh | $1,578 | 10.7 yrs |
| Jacksonville | 1,416 | 10,195 kWh | $1,532 | 11.0 yrs |
| Florida state average | 1,475 | 10,620 kWh | $1,596 | 10.6 yrs |
Against the state figure, Orlando runs 1.2% below Florida’s 1,475 kWh per kW — a payback 0.9 years shorter than the statewide 10.6-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
What sets Orlando apart
Inland central Florida, squarely between the coasts and close to the state average.
Your utility, officially
Florida’s average residential rate is 15.0¢/kWh, but the bill in Orlando comes from Orlando Utilities Comm at 15.24¢ — 1.4% above the state figure, one of 2 utilities serving the metro. These are the residential figures Orlando’s utilities 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando Utilities Comm | 14610 | 15.24¢/kWh | 248,683 | not reported |
| Duke Energy Florida, LLC | 6455 | 16.63¢/kWh | 1,793,067 | 94005 customers / 834.708 MW |
One thing we could not verify with Orlando Utilities Comm is its export rule, which is why the payback above is a range: ask the utility directly whether you get full-retail net metering or a lower export credit , because that one answer picks your end of the range.
Orlando is a two-utility city, and the split is the whole story. Inside much of the city proper, the Orlando Utilities Commission — a municipal utility owned by the city, 248,683 residential customers — bills homes at an average of 15.24¢/kWh on the 2024 EIA-861 file. Ring around it, through most of the suburbs and a good chunk of the metro, and you are a Duke Energy Florida customer at 16.63¢, the highest average of the four Florida utilities we track. That 1.39¢ gap is real money over 25 years of solar production, but the deeper difference is regulatory, and it runs the opposite direction from what the prices suggest.
Duke is investor-owned, which means the Florida Public Service Commission regulates it and the state’s full-retail net-metering rule (FAC Rule 25-6.065, in force since 2008) applies. Export a kilowatt-hour from your roof in Duke territory and it offsets a kilowatt-hour of consumption at retail. OUC, as a municipal, is exempt from that rule entirely. Its five-member commission and the city council set its rates and its solar terms, and nothing on our Florida state page can be assumed to bind it. We could not verify current program pages for either utility from here (both sites refused automated checks), so confirm the export terms on ouc.com or duke-energy.com directly before you model a system — and if you are in OUC territory, read whatever they call their current solar credit closely, because a municipal utility can change it by board vote rather than by commission docket.
The adoption data shows Duke’s side of the line is well traveled: 94,005 residential net-metering customers and 834.708 MW reported to EIA for 2024 — about one Duke home in nineteen, averaging 8.9 kW per system. OUC reported no residential net-metering totals in the file we use, so its uptake cannot be compared honestly.
Practical upshot: before you collect quotes, find out which utility bills you — the answer is on your bill, not on a map of city limits, because the OUC service area does not match Orlando’s boundaries neatly. In Duke territory the state page’s full-retail math applies as written and the higher 16.63¢ rate makes each solar kilowatt-hour worth more. In OUC territory the rate is lower and the export rules are whatever the commission currently says they are. Same sunshine, two different spreadsheets.
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
Orlando’s utility picture has two names on it — Orlando Utilities Commission at 15.24¢ and Duke Energy Florida at 16.63¢ — and the 32-county EIA-861 area around them adds Florida Power & Light at 13.7¢, Clay Electric at 13.1¢, and Sumter Electric at 13.1¢, all cheaper than either. That’s about 2.1¢ below OUC and roughly 3.5¢ below Duke, enough to move a solar payback, especially since each utility sets its own net-metering terms. Florida’s July 2026 average, 15.03¢, is a separately timed figure and doesn’t map onto any single 2024 number here. Which utility bills a property comes down to ZIP code, not the address on the envelope.
| Utility (EIA-861, same service counties) | 2024 avg residential price | Residential customers |
|---|---|---|
| Florida Power & Light Co | 13.7¢/kWh | 5,236,277 |
| Clay Electric Cooperative, Inc - (FL) | 13.1¢/kWh | 171,179 |
| Sumter Electric Coop, Inc | 13.1¢/kWh | 228,855 |
| Central Florida Elec Coop, Inc | 13.6¢/kWh | 32,771 |
The exact answer is a ZIP question, not a city question: look up your utility by ZIP . Candidates: utilities EIA-861 lists in 32 service counties of the metro’s main utilities; prices are 2024 revenue ÷ sales from the official file.
Orlando against the rest of Florida
Same rate, same export rule, same installed price per watt — only the sunshine changes:
| City | kWh per kW | Payback |
|---|---|---|
| Tampa | 1,498 | 10.4 years |
| Miami | 1,481 | 10.6 years |
| Orlando | 1,458 | 10.7 years |
| Jacksonville | 1,416 | 11.0 years |
A 5.8% production span across one state is the reason a single statewide number is only ever a starting point.
What Florida pays Orlando for exported power
Florida credits exported power at the retail rate under FAC Rule 25-6.065 , in force since 2008, so a kilowatt-hour a Orlando 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 Florida did the same on typical terms, this system would take about 19.0 years instead of 9.7–18.8 — 9.3 years’ difference from a policy change, with no change to the hardware and none to Orlando’s weather.
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 1,458 kWh per kW figure for Orlando is a modeled location point, not an interpolation from the Florida 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 Florida’s residential average; EIA does not publish a Orlando figure, so the state rate is used and labeled as such.
- Export rules: FAC Rule 25-6.065 , from our Florida 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 Orlando in 2026?
About $17,040 for a typical 8 kW system at $2.13 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 Florida 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 Orlando?
Roughly 9.7–18.8 years on this model, using Orlando’s own production figure of 1,458 kWh per kW and its own utility tariffs (15.24–16.63¢/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 Orlando better or worse for solar than the rest of Florida?
Against the state figure, Orlando runs 1.2% below Florida’s 1,475 kWh per kW — a payback 0.9 years shorter than the statewide 10.6-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
Is solar worth it in Orlando in 2026?
At 15.03¢/kWh and 1,458 kWh per kW, an 8 kW system in Orlando pays back in about 10.7 years on this model. Treat that as a starting point for reading real quotes rather than as a quote: your roof’s orientation, its shading and the price you are actually offered will move it more than your city does.
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 Florida
- Solar panel cost in Florida — The statewide picture: Florida’s rate, incentives, export rules and the 1,475 kWh per kW average this page corrects.
- Solar panel cost in Tampa — 1,498 kWh per kW and a 10.4-year payback — better than Orlando on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Miami — 1,481 kWh per kW and a 10.6-year payback — better than Orlando on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Jacksonville — 1,416 kWh per kW and a 11.0-year payback — worse than Orlando on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in San Antonio — 1,457 kWh per kW in Texas — the closest production match to Orlando in our data.
- Solar panel cost in Dallas — 1,455 kWh per kW in Texas — the closest production match to Orlando in our data.
- All city solar figures — The 66 US cities with their own modeled production data, and the spreads between them.