Maryland pays about 17.4¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity and receives about 4.5 kWh per square metre per day of sunlight — 13th and 28th respectively among the 50 states and DC tracked here. Those two numbers set the ceiling on what rooftop solar returns in Maryland, and they point in opposite directions.
Where Maryland sits against the rest of the country
Maryland is 2.6¢/kWh above the median residential rate across this dataset (14.8¢/kWh) and 0.1 kWh/m²/day below the median insolation (4.6 kWh/m²/day). Under this site's standard assumptions, that combination puts Maryland 18th of 51 for modeled payback speed, at 12.4 years against a dataset median of 13.5 years.
What actually drives payback in Maryland
Maryland is rate-led: upper half of the dataset for electricity price (13th), lower half for sunlight (28th). Swap Maryland's sunlight for the dataset median and payback moves to 12.2 years (0.2 years of swing). Swap its electricity rate instead and payback moves to 14.3 years (1.8 years of swing). The rate swap is the larger of the two, so what a kilowatt-hour costs is the input deciding the outcome in Maryland.
State incentives on record
Recorded for Maryland: Residential Clean Energy Rebate ($1,000 flat per system, while funded); SREC market under RPS; sales and property tax exemptions; net metering.
No federal credit is applied above (Section 25D expired 31 December 2025), and export terms often matter more than the headline rate (net metering guide).
The modeled system, in numbers
At Maryland's sunlight level a 7 kW array produces roughly 8,968 kWh a year, worth about $1,560 in first-year bill savings at 17.4¢/kWh against an assumed $22,400 installed cost. A ten-year payback at this sunlight level would require a residential rate of about 22.4¢/kWh, which is 5.0¢ above what Maryland households pay today.
States with comparable economics
Maryland's closest analogues by modeled payback are Michigan (12.3 years), Texas (12.3 years), Florida (12.1 years). They arrive there from different rate and sunlight combinations, so their incentive rows are the useful comparison.