Solar Panel Cost in Rochester, NY 2026: ~15.5-Year Payback
In Rochester, NY, an 8 kW system at $2.76/W produces about 1,137 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 15.5 years at 17.76¢/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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- Rochester production
- 1,137 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)
- 15.5 years
Why this number
A kilowatt of panels in Rochester produces about 1,137 kWh a year, placing it 3 of 5 among the New York cities modeled here. The state spans New York City at 1,255 down to Syracuse at 1,114, a 13% span, and Rochester sits inside it at a payback of about 8.8 years.
An 8 kW system in Rochester, priced out
| Metric | Estimate for Rochester | New York statewide |
|---|---|---|
| Production, unshaded 20° south | 1,137 kWh per kW/yr | 1,270 kWh per kW/yr |
| 8 kW output after a 10% roof derate | ~8,186 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 | ~$2,448 | ~$2,734 |
| Rough payback (your utility) | 15.5 years | 7.9 years (state-average model) |
| 25-year net position | $50,447 | — |
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 Rochester array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $83,618.
If a battery is part of the plan, the battery buy vs. TPO calculator prices owning one against a lease or TPO deal.
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 | 1,255 | 9,036 kWh | $2,702 | 8.0 yrs |
| Albany | 1,178 | 8,482 kWh | $2,536 | 8.5 yrs |
| Rochester (this page) | 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, Rochester runs 10% below New York’s 1,270 kWh per kW — a payback 7.6 years longer than the statewide 7.9-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
What sets Rochester apart
Sits between Albany and Syracuse, sharing the lake-effect cloud but slightly less of it.
Your utility, officially
New York’s average residential rate is 29.9¢/kWh, but the bill in Rochester comes from Rochester Gas & Electric Corp at 17.76¢ — 41% below the state figure. These are the residential figures Rochester’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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rochester Gas & Electric Corp | 16183 | 17.76¢/kWh | 351,481 | 2805 customers / 22.882 MW |
How exports are treated matters as much as the headline price: Rochester Gas & Electric Corp is modeled here under the state’s full-retail net metering rules, and that treatment is baked into every payback figure on this page.
Rochester is the only major New York city billed by Rochester Gas and Electric, a compact investor-owned utility of 351,481 residential customers — roughly a tenth the size of Con Edison, a quarter the size of National Grid’s upstate operation — that is part of the Avangrid group. Small does not mean cheap: RG&E’s 2024 average residential price of 17.76¢/kWh in the EIA-861 file is the highest of the three upstate utilities we track, about a cent above National Grid next door. It is still barely half of Con Edison’s 34.24¢, so the statewide 29.5¢ used in this page’s headline model overstates what a Rochester household actually pays per kilowatt-hour; put 17.76 into the calculator above for the version of this page that matches your bill.
The most striking Rochester fact in the federal data is how little solar there is. RG&E reported just 2,805 residential net-metered customers and 22.88 MW for 2024 — 0.8% of its households, half the adoption rate of National Grid’s territory and a third of Con Edison’s, in a state where exports are credited at full retail. The average installed system, about 8.2 kW, is the largest in New York, which fits Monroe County’s housing stock; there just are not many of them. Whether that gap reflects the utility’s interconnection experience, installer thinness in the market, or simply lake-cloud pessimism, the numbers cannot say. But it means a Rochester homeowner shopping today is early in a way that Albany and Buffalo homeowners no longer are.
As an investor-owned utility, RG&E falls under the same state export framework as the rest of this page: Phase One net metering credited at retail, VDER as the alternative compensation track, and a Customer Benefit Contribution charge whose current value we could not confirm from a primary source. RG&E bills split delivery from supply, and the supply charge follows the market unless an ESCO fixes it; the specific rate schedule you are on decides how solar credits apply. We were unable to reach RG&E’s website from our infrastructure to verify its current program pages, so we will not link or paraphrase them — confirm net-metering terms, the interconnection queue, and any monthly solar charges directly on the utility’s own site before you sign an installation contract. Get the CBC figure in the quote, in writing, per kilowatt per month.
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.
Rochester against the rest of New York
Same rate, same export rule, same installed price per watt — only the sunshine changes:
| City | kWh per kW | Payback |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | 1,255 | 8.0 years |
| Albany | 1,178 | 8.5 years |
| Rochester | 1,137 | 8.8 years |
| Buffalo | 1,129 | 8.9 years |
| Syracuse | 1,114 | 9.0 years |
A 13% production span across one state is the reason a single statewide number is only ever a starting point.
What New York pays Rochester 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 Rochester 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 15.8 years instead of 15.5 — 0.3 years’ difference from a policy change, with no change to the hardware and none to Rochester’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 1,137 kWh per kW figure for Rochester 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 Rochester 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 Rochester 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 Rochester?
Roughly 15.5 years on this model, using Rochester’s own production figure of 1,137 kWh per kW and its own utility tariff (17.76¢/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 Rochester better or worse for solar than the rest of New York?
Against the state figure, Rochester runs 10% below New York’s 1,270 kWh per kW — a payback 7.6 years longer than the statewide 7.9-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
Is solar worth it in Rochester in 2026?
At 29.9¢/kWh and 1,137 kWh per kW, an 8 kW system in Rochester pays back in about 8.8 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 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 New York City — 1,255 kWh per kW and a 8.0-year payback — better than Rochester on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Albany — 1,178 kWh per kW and a 8.5-year payback — better than Rochester on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Buffalo — 1,129 kWh per kW and a 8.9-year payback — worse than Rochester on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Syracuse — 1,114 kWh per kW and a 9.0-year payback — worse than Rochester on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Eugene — 1,156 kWh per kW in Oregon — the closest production match to Rochester in our data.
- Solar panel cost in Kaneohe — 1,157 kWh per kW in Hawaii — the closest production match to Rochester in our data.
- All city solar figures — The 66 US cities with their own modeled production data, and the spreads between them.