Solar Panel Cost in Savannah, GA 2026: ~23.3-Year Payback
In Savannah, GA, an 8 kW system at $2.49/W produces about 1,420 kWh per kW and pays back in roughly 23.3 years at 15.49¢/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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- Savannah production
- 1,420 kWh/kW/yr
- Georgia average
- 1,385 kWh/kW/yr
- Electricity rate
- 16.3¢/kWh
- 8 kW installed cost
- ~$19,920
- 2026 federal credit
- $0
- Payback (utility math)
- 23.3 years
Why this number
A kilowatt of panels in Savannah produces about 1,420 kWh a year, the highest of the 3 Georgia cities modeled here — ahead of Augusta at 1,391, Atlanta at 1,387. On an 8 kW system that is a payback of about 22.6 years, against 23.0 years in Atlanta, on identical hardware at the same 16.27¢/kWh.
Savannah against the rest of Georgia
Across the 3 Georgia cities with their own modeled figures, production spans 2.4% — Atlanta at 1,387 kWh per kW to Savannah at 1,420. Every column except production is identical down this table: same 16.3¢/kWh retail rate, same export regime, same $2.49/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Savannah (this page) | 1,420 | 10,224 kWh | $863 | 22.6 yrs |
| Augusta | 1,391 | 10,015 kWh | $845 | 23.0 yrs |
| Atlanta | 1,387 | 9,986 kWh | $843 | 23.0 yrs |
| Georgia state average | 1,385 | 9,972 kWh | $842 | 23.1 yrs |
Against the state figure, Savannah runs 2.5% above Georgia’s 1,385 kWh per kW — a payback 0.2 years longer than the statewide 23.1-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
What sets Savannah apart
Coastal Georgia edges out Atlanta, with more clear days despite the humidity.
Your utility, officially
Georgia’s average residential rate is 16.3¢/kWh, but the bill in Savannah comes from Georgia Power Co at 15.49¢ — 4.8% below the state figure. These are the residential figures Savannah’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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia Power Co | 7140 | 15.49¢/kWh | 2,452,488 | 11208 customers / 73.363 MW |
How exports are treated matters as much as the headline price: Georgia Power Co is modeled here under the state’s net billing rules, and that treatment is baked into every payback figure on this page.
If an EV is in the picture, note that Georgia’s major utilities run the time-of-use tariffs our EV + TOU whole-home calculator ships presets for — worth running before sizing an array, because overnight charging is load daytime solar cannot touch. (And if the EV itself is still hypothetical, check where the EV tax credit stands in 2026 first.)
Savannah has no utility of its own. Georgia Power, the investor-owned monopoly regulated from Atlanta, bills the city the way it bills most of the state — one company, 2,452,488 residential homes, a 2024 EIA-861 average of 15.49¢/kWh — and every solar-relevant decision affecting a Savannah roof is made in Public Service Commission dockets 250 miles away. That has one genuine advantage: nothing about your address changes the rules, so the Georgia page on this site applies to Savannah without an asterisk. It also means Savannah homeowners inherit the state’s weak spot in full.
That weak spot is export compensation. Under Georgia Power’s Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources (RNR) framework, surplus power is credited at 3.2188¢/kWh on the 2026 figure our Georgia page carries — against a 15.49¢ retail rate — and the credit resets on a calendar-year cycle, so a quote built on last year’s number is already stale. Worse for the spreadsheet, the netting is instantaneous: only electricity leaving your meter at the same moment it is produced counts as exported. There is no monthly bank, no hourly averaging. Whatever your panels make while nobody is home and the water heater is idle earns the low rate, full stop.
Here is the genuinely local part. Savannah’s long, humid cooling season is the best defense the economics have. Air conditioning that runs through the middle of the day consumes solar power at the moment it is generated, which under instantaneous netting is the difference between a kilowatt-hour worth 15.49¢ and one worth 3.2¢. A coastal Georgia home with heavy summer AC can plausibly beat the 40% self-consumption default in the calculator above during the months that matter most — and a battery, which time-shifts the rest, does more work per dollar here than in any full-retail state. Run the numbers both ways before assuming solar fails the test.
Statewide, Georgia Power reported 11,208 residential net-metering customers to EIA for 2024 — about one home in 219, the lowest uptake of any utility we track with reported figures. On rate structure, Georgia Power sells a menu of residential plans, including time-of-use options, rather than a single price; the current lineup is at georgiapower.com . If you are quoted a payback that assumes full retail credit for exports, the quote is for some other state.
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.
An 8 kW system in Savannah, priced out
| Metric | Estimate for Savannah | Georgia statewide |
|---|---|---|
| Production, unshaded 20° south | 1,420 kWh per kW/yr | 1,385 kWh per kW/yr |
| 8 kW output after a 10% roof derate | ~10,224 kWh/yr | ~9,972 kWh/yr |
| Average residential rate | 16.3¢/kWh (EIA) | 16.3¢/kWh |
| Installed cost, 8 kW | ~$19,920 at $2.49/watt | ~$19,920 |
| 2026 federal credit | $0 | $0 |
| Export rule | Net billing — exports credited below retail | Net billing — exports credited below retail |
| Export credit modeled | 3.22¢/kWh | 3.22¢/kWh |
| Annual value of that output | ~$863 | ~$842 |
| Rough payback (your utility) | 23.3 years | 23.1 years (state-average model) |
| 25-year net position | $1,923 | — |
Only the first two rows differ. Everything financial — rate, tariff, price per watt — is inherited from Georgia 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 Savannah array would produce, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to roughly $56,804.
Solar aside, the EV vs. gas cost calculator runs Savannah’s 16.3¢/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.
Savannah against the rest of Georgia
Same rate, same export rule, same installed price per watt — only the sunshine changes:
| City | kWh per kW | Payback |
|---|---|---|
| Savannah | 1,420 | 22.6 years |
| Augusta | 1,391 | 23.0 years |
| Atlanta | 1,387 | 23.0 years |
A 2.4% production span across one state is the reason a single statewide number is only ever a starting point.
What Georgia pays Savannah for exported power
Georgia does not credit exports at the retail rate, and that rule reaches Savannah unchanged. The program is Georgia Power RNR, instantaneous netting , in force since 2026, crediting surplus power at a published rate of 3.22¢/kWh against a retail rate of 16.3¢.
Because a typical home uses only about 40% of its generation as it is produced, most of what a Savannah array makes is sold at that lower rate. That is why the payback above is 23.3 years and not the 11.7 years the same hardware would return under full-retail net metering. Raising self-consumption is the lever that closes the gap.
Instantaneous netting means only genuinely simultaneous surplus is exported — a stricter test than hourly or monthly netting.
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 1,420 kWh per kW figure for Savannah is a modeled location point, not an interpolation from the Georgia 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 Georgia’s residential average; EIA does not publish a Savannah figure, so the state rate is used and labeled as such.
- Export rules: Georgia Power RNR, instantaneous netting , from our Georgia 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 Savannah in 2026?
About $19,920 for a typical 8 kW system at $2.49 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 Georgia 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 Savannah?
Roughly 23.3 years on this model, using Savannah’s own production figure of 1,420 kWh per kW and its own utility tariff (15.49¢/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 Savannah better or worse for solar than the rest of Georgia?
Against the state figure, Savannah runs 2.5% above Georgia’s 1,385 kWh per kW — a payback 0.2 years longer than the statewide 23.1-year estimate on the same hardware at the same price.
Is solar worth it in Savannah in 2026?
At 16.27¢/kWh and 1,420 kWh per kW, an 8 kW system in Savannah pays back in about 22.6 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 Georgia
- Solar panel cost in Georgia — The statewide picture: Georgia’s rate, incentives, export rules and the 1,385 kWh per kW average this page corrects.
- Solar panel cost in Augusta — 1,391 kWh per kW and a 23.0-year payback — worse than Savannah on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Atlanta — 1,387 kWh per kW and a 23.0-year payback — worse than Savannah on identical hardware.
- Solar panel cost in Bend — 1,418 kWh per kW in Oregon — the closest production match to Savannah in our data.
- Solar panel cost in Jacksonville — 1,416 kWh per kW in Florida — the closest production match to Savannah in our data.
- All city solar figures — The 66 US cities with their own modeled production data, and the spreads between them.