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Solar Panel Cost in San Antonio, TX 2026: ~27.3-Year Payback

In San Antonio, TX, an 8 kW system at $2.25/W produces about 1,457 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 27.3 years at 12.43¢/kWh with the federal credit at $0.

1,457 kWh/kW/yrSan Antonio 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

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San Antonio production
1,457 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)
27.3 years — export rule not verified with your utility

Why this number

In San Antonio, an 8 kW system costs about $18,000 installed and generates roughly 10,490 kWh a year (1,457 kWh per kW, PVGIS-NSRDB, less a 10% real-roof derate). Priced on San Antonio’s own utility figures — CPS Energy at 12.43¢/kWh (only monthly net exports are paid, at avoided cost): 27.3 years — with the 2026 federal credit at $0. Where exports are paid below retail, figures assume 40% of output is used on-site; the rest is exported at the credited rate. The Texas state-average model (15.9¢, statewide export rules) would say 10.7 years; the utility math above is the one that matches the bill San Antonio households actually get.

A kilowatt of panels in San Antonio produces about 1,457 kWh a year, placing it 4 of 7 among the Texas cities modeled here. The state spans El Paso at 1,784 down to Houston at 1,389, a 28% span, and San Antonio sits inside it at a payback of about 10.7 years.

An 8 kW system in San Antonio, priced out

Table 1: Solar Panel Cost in San Antonio, TX 2026: ~27.3-Year Payback
Metric Estimate for San Antonio Texas statewide
Production, unshaded 20° south 1,457 kWh per kW/yr 1,455 kWh per kW/yr
8 kW output after a 10% roof derate ~10,490 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 ~$1,666 ~$1,664
Rough payback (your utility) 27.3 years 10.7 years (state-average model)
25-year net position $29,523 —

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 San Antonio array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $56,907.

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.

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: Solar Panel Cost in San Antonio, TX 2026: ~27.3-Year 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 (this page) 1,457 10,490 kWh $1,666 10.7 yrs
Dallas 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, San Antonio runs 0.1% above Texas’s 1,455 kWh per kW — a payback 16.6 years longer than the statewide 10.7-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.

What sets San Antonio apart

Close to the Texas state figure and typical of the I-35 corridor, well behind the far west of the state.

Your utility, officially

Texas’s average residential rate is 15.9¢/kWh, but the bill in San Antonio comes from CPS Energy at 12.43¢ — 22% below the state figure. These are the residential figures San Antonio’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:

Table 3: Solar Panel Cost in San Antonio, TX 2026: ~27.3-Year Payback
Utility EIA ID Residential avg price Residential customers Net-metering (residential, self-reported)
CPS Energy 16604 12.43¢/kWh 865,914 not reported

How exports are treated matters as much as the headline price: CPS Energy is modeled here under avoided-cost net billing on monthly net exports, and that treatment is baked into every payback figure on this page.

San Antonio runs on CPS Energy, filed with EIA as “City of San Antonio” — a municipally owned utility with 865,914 residential electric customers in the 2024 EIA-861 data, which makes it one of the largest city-owned electric systems in the United States, with more residential customers than Austin Energy and Tacoma Power combined. Its 2024 average residential price of 12.43¢/kWh is the cheapest of any Texas city we track. As a municipal utility, CPS answers to its own board and to City Council, not to the Public Utility Commission’s retail-choice machinery, so the REP-shopping advice that dominates Texas solar guides is irrelevant here: there is one company, one tariff, and one set of solar rules.

Those rules are specific, and CPS publishes them. Per the Solar Billing Facts document on CPS Energy’s site (cpsenergy.com ), the meter tracks two registers: power delivered to you and surplus power you send back. Within each billing month the two net against each other kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour — you are billed only for the difference. But if your system out-produces your home over the month, the excess is not banked at retail. It is credited at the utility’s Net Excess Generation rate, which that document lists at $0.0165/kWh from October through May and $0.0202/kWh from June through September — figures we pulled from CPS’s own published example in September 2026, and which the utility can change.

Read that spread carefully: within-month netting is effectively full retail, while monthly surplus earns less than a fifth of the 12.43¢ average rate. The design rewards a system sized at or below your annual consumption and punishes oversizing harder than almost any tariff in this dataset. It is also the mirror image of Austin, eighty miles up I-35: Austin Energy credits every generated kilowatt-hour at one moderate rate regardless of use, while CPS gives you full value up to your own load and almost nothing beyond it. Two municipal neighbors, two opposite philosophies, neither of them net metering as the state pages define it.

CPS states plainly that it currently offers no residential solar rebate, pointing customers to federal incentives instead — and for a 2026 cash purchase the federal §25D credit is $0, so the math has to stand on the tariff alone. At 12.43¢ with sub-2¢ surplus credit, sizing discipline is the whole game in San Antonio.

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.

San Antonio against the rest of Texas

Same rate, same export rule, same installed price per watt — only the sunshine changes:

Table 4: Solar Panel Cost in San Antonio, TX 2026: ~27.3-Year Payback
City kWh per kW Payback
El Paso 1,784 8.8 years
Lubbock 1,682 9.3 years
Corpus Christi 1,479 10.5 years
San Antonio 1,457 10.7 years
Dallas 1,455 10.7 years
Austin 1,447 10.7 years
Houston 1,389 11.2 years

A 28% production span across one state is the reason a single statewide number is only ever a starting point.

What Texas pays San Antonio for exported power

Texas has no statewide export-credit requirement, and San Antonio 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 San Antonio 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 San Antonio?

Roughly 27.3 years on this model, using San Antonio’s own production figure of 1,457 kWh per kW and its own utility tariff (12.43¢/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 San Antonio better or worse for solar than the rest of Texas?

Against the state figure, San Antonio runs 0.1% above Texas’s 1,455 kWh per kW — a payback 16.6 years longer than the statewide 10.7-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.

Is solar worth it in San Antonio in 2026?

At 15.88¢/kWh and 1,457 kWh per kW, an 8 kW system in San Antonio 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 Texas