Solar Panel Cost in Florida: $2.13/W, 10.6-Year Payback

Solar in Florida costs about $17,040 for 8 kW at $2.13/W and pays back in roughly 10.6 years at 15.0¢/kWh with the federal credit at $0.

Updated September 2026 · Source: EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.A (July 2026 data) · next EIA update ~Oct 23

By SolarCostData Data Desk · Reviewed September 2026 · Corrections log

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Why this number

Solar panels in Florida cost about $2.13 per watt — $17,040 for a typical 8 kW system — and pay back in roughly 10.6 years at the state’s 15.0¢/kWh average rate, with the 2026 federal credit at $0. Full-retail net metering is assumed; confirm with your utility.

Everything below uses Florida’s real average residential electricity rate (15.0¢/kWh, EIA) and a production band of about 1,475 kWh per kW per year. Both are stated openly because they are the two inputs that decide the answer. These are estimates for sanity-checking a quote, not a quote.

Run it with your own numbers

Why Florida’s payback lands where it does

Florida’s residential rate actually eased slightly again this year, averaging 15.0 cents per kilowatt-hour in July 2026 versus 15.11 cents in July 2025, a small decline that still leaves the state at a middle-of-the-pack rank of 36. What makes Florida solar work despite a rate that isn’t especially high is the sun itself: yield of 1,475 kilowatt-hours per installed kilowatt is well above the national average, pulling the payback down to about 10.6 years. Florida Power & Light, the largest utility in the country by residential customer count at over 5.2 million, prices below the state average at 13.7 cents, so FPL customers are working from cheaper power than the state blend suggests. Full retail net metering credits exported kilowatt-hours at that same rate, which combined with the strong yield makes Florida’s payback among the fastest outside the higher-rate coasts.

Electric utilities in Florida

The state average hides real spreads between utilities. The largest residential utilities EIA-861 lists for Florida, with each one’s own average bundled residential price (2024 — revenue ÷ sales, the audited annual figure, not this month’s tariff):

Your utility decides Florida’s real number — the ZIP lookup finds it in three clicks; the 2024 annual utility averages above sit apart from the June-2026 monthly 15.0¢ state figure.

Florida’s rate, the last 24 months

July 2025 → July 2026: 15.11¢ → 15.03¢. The rate tracker has every month against the US average.

An 8 kW system in Florida, priced out

The $2.13/W used above comes from EnergySage marketplace quotes (August 2026). Those are quotes in a competitive online market, not signed contract prices.

For comparison, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Tracking the Sun reports $3.99/W for Florida in 2025 (n=971) — 1.87x higher. The two measure different things: LBNL records prices actually reported to incentive programs, including dealer-fee financing and full retail channel costs, while EnergySage reflects what a price-sensitive online shopper is quoted. The real market median is probably between them. At the LBNL price this system would cost $31,920 and take about 19.1 years to pay back, against 10.6 at the quote-based figure — treat that as the upper case.

⚠️ The largest gap between sources anywhere: EnergySage $2.13/W against LBNL’s $3.99/W, a 1.87x difference. Treat the low figure with real caution.

Read that table with one caveat: $2.13/W is Florida’s market average, and it is the input most likely to differ for you. A quote $0.50 per watt above or below the $2.13 used here moves the payback by roughly a year and a half in either direction.

How much sun Florida actually gets

A kilowatt of panels in Florida produces about 1,475 kWh a year on an unshaded, south-facing roof at a 20-degree pitch. Sites that swap Florida’s 1,475 kWh for a single national average are how Arizona and Washington end up with identical paybacks despite a 1.6x real difference in output.

That figure is a five-point cluster around Miami, so it reflects where most of Florida’s population lives rather than the sunniest corner of the state.

City-level figures for Florida

We have separately modeled production for 4 Florida cities, and they are 6% apart — Jacksonville at 1,416 kWh per kW against Tampa at 1,498. Installed cost held at $2.13/W; paybacks use each city’s own utility tariff and export treatment where we have official EIA-861 data, which is why some differ sharply from this page’s state-average model.

• Tampa — 1,498 kWh per kW, payback about 10.7 years (on its own utility’s tariff)
• Miami — 1,481 kWh per kW, payback about 11.5 years (on its own utility’s tariff)
• Orlando — 1,458 kWh per kW, payback about 9.7–18.8 years (on its own utility’s tariff)
• Jacksonville — 1,416 kWh per kW, payback about 14.3–23.1 years (on its own utility’s tariff)

Those are real PVGIS-NSRDB location points, not the state figure scaled by guesswork. All Florida and other city figures .

Two adjustments matter before you apply this to your own roof:

• Shading and orientation. The 1,475 kWh figure assumes an unobstructed south-facing array. A real Florida roof — its own azimuth and pitch, a tree or a chimney — typically produces 10-25% less; this page models 90% of the ideal, so the 10,620 kWh/year above is already derated from 11,800. A genuinely unshaded south roof can adjust upward in the calculator.
• Year-to-year weather moves output by roughly ±5% either way.

Why Florida’s ranking is better than its price suggests

Here is the part a rate table alone will not tell you. Florida ranks 36th of 50 on electricity price, but 27th on what a kilowatt of panels actually earns in a year — because a kW here produces about 1,475 kWh, well above what a cloudier state manages. Sunshine moves Florida up 9 places. Anyone ranking states purely by electricity price is understating this one. Its immediate neighbors on price are North Carolina (15.2¢) just above and Montana (15.0¢) just below.

Texas is Florida’s closest comparable-rate analogue — 15.9¢/kWh, roughly 1,455 kWh per kW, and a payback within about a year of this one (10.7 vs 10.6 years). If you find Florida quotes hard to sanity-check, Texas numbers are broadly transferable.

The export question worth asking your Florida utility

Florida credits exported power at the retail rate — full net metering — under FAC Rule 25-6.065, in force since 2008, so a kilowatt-hour you send 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 15.6 years to pay back instead of 10.6 — 5.0 years’ difference from a policy change, with no change to the hardware. The households best placed for that day are the ones already storing their surplus, which is why what a home battery actually costs is worth knowing even while full retail holds.

One limit worth knowing: this reflects investor-owned, state-regulated utilities; Florida’s municipal utilities and co-ops are exempt in most cases and set their own terms.

What is actually left in Florida

The 30% federal credit ended for systems completed after December 31, 2025, so it is $0 here as everywhere. What remains is state, utility and local — and it varies far more than the federal rule ever did.

Florida offers no state-level solar tax credit or rebate. Utility-level rebates, and the tax exemptions below, are where any remaining help comes from — those are set locally, so DSIRE and your own utility are the places to look.

Tax exemptions

Sales tax is exempt (6.0% state rate), which keeps roughly $1,022 off the upfront cost of the system modeled here.

Property tax is fully exempt on the added value, so the system does not raise your assessment.

If that list looks thin, it is — the solar incentives hub shows which states still put real money on the table, and where Florida sits among them.

Is solar worth it in Florida at 15.0¢/kWh?

Florida is the interesting kind of case: an unremarkable 15.0¢ rate rescued by genuinely strong sun. At about 1,475 kWh per kW — well above the national planning figure — output volume compensates for what each unit is worth.

If you want a fast gut check before running the numbers above, the should-I-go-solar screener asks the four questions that matter most in a mid-rate state like Florida.

Two numbers put that in context. At Florida’s rate, the electricity an 8 kW system would produce is worth about $1,596 a year, so the system costs roughly 10.7 years of that output to buy outright — a simple division, before costs. The headline 10.6-year figure above is the full model: it additionally counts 2.5%/yr rate inflation, $150/yr of running costs and one inverter replacement, which is why the two differ slightly. And doing nothing is not free: 25 years of that same electricity, with rates rising at 2.5% a year, comes to about $54,516.

For a 15-year payback in Florida — given its sunshine rather than a national average — the electricity rate would need to be about 11.2¢/kWh. Florida is at 15.0¢, which is comfortably above that line.

Sources and method

• Electricity rate: U.S. Energy Information Administration, average price by state — EIA Table 5.6.A, July 2026 data (released Sep 2026). Rate shown is Florida’s residential average.
• Production: PVGIS v5.2 with the PVGIS-NSRDB radiation database, 1,475 kWh/kW for a five-point cluster around Florida’s largest metro, then the 90% real-roof factor; the assumptions, the ERA5 cross-check and the attribution are on the methodology page .
• Incentives: DSIRE — Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency, NC Clean Energy Technology Center. Verify current amounts and fund status before relying on them.
• Federal credit status: IRS, Residential Clean Energy Credit . See our 2026 energy tax credit guide .
• Payback model: shared with the solar savings calculator — 2.5%/yr utility inflation, 0.5%/yr degradation, federal credit $0.

Florida’s rate (15.0¢, EIA Table 5.6.A, July 2026 data (released Sep 2026)), export regime, production factor, installed cost and programs were last verified on 25 September 2026; Florida’s export credit resets on its tariff cycle and incentive budgets run out mid-year, so confirm current terms before acting. Not tax or financial advice.

Frequently asked questions

How we calculated this

Worked for Florida: 8 kW × 1,000 × $2.13/W = $17,040 gross (federal credit $0, so net before state incentives); 10,620 kWh a year × the blended kWh value at 15.0¢ retail ≈ $1,596 year-1 saving; payback ≈ $17,040 ÷ $1,596 = 10.6 years with 2.5%/yr rate growth, 0.5%/yr degradation and one inverter replacement in the 25-year model.

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.

States with a comparable tariff picture

• Why is my electric bill so high? — Splits a bill jump into weather, rate and usage — with Florida’s own EIA rate history built in.
• Time-of-use rate simulator — Florida Power & Light’s RTR-1 (Residential TOU Rider, on RS-1 base service) schedule is preset from its own tariff sheet — see whether off-peak pricing beats your flat rate.
• Electricity rate tracker — Florida’s last 24 months of EIA rates, charted against the US average.
• Find your rate by ZIP — Florida averages hide utility gaps — look yours up from EIA-861 in three clicks.
• Net metering by state (2026 table) — Every state’s export regime with program, date and source — the rule behind Florida’s payback.
• Solar panel cost in Montana — Same export regime at 15.0¢/kWh and a 15.2-year payback — the closest tariff comparison to Florida.
• Solar panel cost in Washington — Same export regime at 14.7¢/kWh and a 18.5-year payback — the closest tariff comparison to Florida.
• Solar panel cost in Wyoming — Same export regime at 14.4¢/kWh and a 18.1-year payback — the closest tariff comparison to Florida.