New Jersey pays about 18.4¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity and receives about 4.4 kWh per square metre per day of sunlight — 12th and 34th respectively among the 50 states and DC tracked here. Those two numbers set the ceiling on what rooftop solar returns in New Jersey, and they point in opposite directions.
Where New Jersey sits against the rest of the country
New Jersey is 3.6¢/kWh above the median residential rate across this dataset (14.8¢/kWh) and 0.2 kWh/m²/day below the median insolation (4.6 kWh/m²/day). Under this site's standard assumptions, that combination puts New Jersey 14th of 51 for modeled payback speed, at 12.1 years against a dataset median of 13.5 years.
What actually drives payback in New Jersey
New Jersey is rate-led: upper half of the dataset for electricity price (12th), lower half for sunlight (34th). Swap New Jersey's sunlight for the dataset median and payback moves to 11.6 years (0.5 years of swing). Swap its electricity rate instead and payback moves to 14.5 years (2.5 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 New Jersey.
State incentives on record
Recorded for New Jersey: Successor Solar Incentive (SuSI) program issues SREC-II credits at fixed price; sales tax exemption; property tax exemption; 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 New Jersey's sunlight level a 7 kW array produces roughly 8,769 kWh a year, worth about $1,613 in first-year bill savings at 18.4¢/kWh against an assumed $22,400 installed cost. A ten-year payback at this sunlight level would require a residential rate of about 22.9¢/kWh, which is 4.5¢ above what New Jersey households pay today.
States with comparable economics
New Jersey's closest analogues by modeled payback are Florida (12.1 years), Texas (12.3 years), Michigan (12.3 years). They arrive there from different rate and sunlight combinations, so their incentive rows are the useful comparison.