What decides the answer in New York
NYSERDA's NY-Sun Program Manual (April 2026, Version 22) says residential incentives are “provided directly to the contractor of record for the project, not to the customer or builder”, and that the customer agreement “must reflect the entire amount of the anticipated NYSERDA incentive”. Awards follow the declining megawatt block in effect when a complete application is submitted, first come, first served, and are not made until the project is approved. A NY-Sun award should therefore appear in the contract price rather than as a later payment to the homeowner: ask the installer to show it on the agreement, and do not subtract it a second time. This page applies no NY-Sun amount. [1]
NYSERDA's regional dashboards list block history as text and current block status in interactive charts. The Con Edison dashboard lists its residential blocks under historic incentive rates “from January 1, 2014 to May 29, 2025”; the last listed block, at 0.15 dollars per watt, closed on 05/29/2025. The Upstate dashboard states that “Upstate Residential Block 14 is limited to installations located in the NYSEG, RG&E, and National Grid electric service territories.” For households that qualify as low-to-moderate income, the Affordable Solar Residential Incentive is a total of 0.80 dollars per watt of nameplate capacity in the Con Edison and Upstate regions and 0.40 dollars per watt on Long Island. The current Upstate block rate, remaining capacity in any region and a household's income eligibility sit in the charts or the application process, which this check could not read; they are not verified here. [4] [5] [6]
New York's IT-255 instructions (2025 revision) describe a credit equal to 25% of qualified solar equipment expenditures, limited to 5,000 dollars, for equipment installed and used at the taxpayer's principal residence; a net-metering contract or compliance with the utility's net-metering schedule is required first. The credit cannot be refunded, but unused credit may be carried forward for up to five years. Leases and power-purchase agreements have their own conditions. The owned-system illustration assumes a usable credit received on a later return and also shows a no-credit row; it does not certify tax liability or eligible expenditure. Where two credit rows differ only in the receipt year and both receipts arrive before break-even, they show the same payback and 25-year total because the model is undiscounted; the later row simply carries 5,000 dollars less cumulative cash until the credit arrives. [2]
The customer benefit contribution applies to residential and small-commercial PV interconnected on or after January 1, 2022; NYSERDA's fact sheet (dated 1/22) says it does not apply to systems interconnected before that date or to community solar. The utility-calculated 2022 residential rates for net-metered PV ranged from 0.30 dollars per kW DC per month (LIPA) to 1.33 (Orange & Rockland), with Con Edison at 0.94 and NYSEG at 0.72; value-stack (VDER) residential rates were lower, for example 0.47 at Con Edison. These are 2022 figures: the fact sheet says the utilities file the values in PSC Case 15-E-0751, where the current rate for a given utility should be checked. On a 7 kW array the 2022 net-metered range is 25.20 to 111.72 dollars a year; added to the retail-value benchmark it gives a modeled payback of 9.1 to 9.4 years (10.4 to 10.8 at flat prices), against 9.1 (10.3) with no charge. A proportional per-kW charge does not by itself penalize a smaller array more: if cost and production also scale with kW, the percentage effect stays constant. The size check below uses an assumed charge and prints both cases. [3] [7]
How New York pays for an exported kilowatt-hour
Net metering, subject to eligible charges and surplus settlement. The household rows below credit exports at an assumed price; where that equals the import price, the self-use split has no arithmetic effect. They do not implement a utility's value-stack (VDER) calculation; the lower export credit row in the table below tests exports credited well under the import price at an assumed rate that is not a utility's value-stack price. The retail benchmark excludes the customer benefit contribution; the household rows deduct an assumed annual contribution and schedule conditional tax receipts separately.
No federal residential credit is applied by default in any calculator or state benchmark on this site (Section 25D expired at the end of 2025), and the mechanics of export regimes are covered in the net metering guide.
Sources for the New York section above
- NY-Sun Program Manual — Contractor receives the incentive, the customer agreement must reflect it, and block-based first-come awards follow approval.
Document: April 2026, Version 22; sections 1.2 and 1.4.1 and customer-agreement requirements (printed pp. 6, 12–13, 69). Effective/source period: April 2026 revision; retrieved September 24, 2026.
Applies to: Residential NY-Sun projects designed and installed by participating contractors. Relevant passage: “Incentives in the residential program will be provided directly to the contractor of record for the project, not to the customer or builder.”.
- New York IT-255 instructions — Credit percentage and cap, net-metering precondition, nonrefundability and carryforward.
Document: IT-255-I (2025), General information and Amount of credit. Effective/source period: 2025 instructions posted as the current form, retrieved September 24, 2026; check filing-year instructions.
Applies to: Taxpayers with qualifying equipment at a New York principal residence; ownership/lease/PPA rules differ. Relevant passage: “You cannot request a refund for any unused portion of this credit; however, you may carry it forward for up to five years.”.
- NYSERDA 2022 CBC fact sheet — CBC start date, exclusions, 2022 per-utility rates and where current values are filed.
Document: Customer Benefit Contribution, residential and small commercial (SUN-RSC-cbc-fs-1-v1, 1/22); 2022 CBC rate tables and footnote 1. Effective/source period: Applies to interconnections on or after January 1, 2022; 2022 rates only, not a current price.
Applies to: SC-1 residential and small-commercial net-metered and value-stack PV; not pre-2022 systems or community solar. Relevant passage: “Residential and small commercial customers who interconnect solar PV at their site on or after January 1, 2022 will be subject to a new Customer Benefit Contribution (CBC) billing item.”.
- NYSERDA NY-Sun Con Edison dashboard — Residential block history and the Con Edison affordable-solar amount; live chart status not read.
Document: Affordable Solar Residential Incentive; Historic Incentive Rates table. Effective/source period: Retrieved September 24, 2026; last listed residential block closed 05/29/2025.
Applies to: Con Edison region residential and affordable-solar projects. Relevant passage: “Con Edison Residential Incentive Rates from January 1, 2014 to May 29, 2025”.
- NYSERDA NY-Sun Upstate dashboard — Block 14 territory limit and the Upstate affordable-solar amount.
Document: Residential Solar; Affordable Solar. Effective/source period: Retrieved September 24, 2026; current block rate and capacity not verified.
Applies to: Upstate region residential projects; Block 14 limited to NYSEG, RG&E and National Grid territories. Relevant passage: “Upstate Residential Block 14 is limited to installations located in the NYSEG, RG&E, and National Grid electric service territories.”.
- NYSERDA NY-Sun Long Island dashboard — Long Island affordable-solar amount.
Document: Affordable Solar Residential Incentive. Effective/source period: Retrieved September 24, 2026; current block status not verified.
Applies to: Long Island region affordable-solar residential projects. Relevant passage: “Projects eligible for the Affordable Solar Residential Incentive will receive a total incentive of $0.40/W of nameplate capacity in the Long Island region.”.
- NY DPS Case 15-E-0751 — Where utilities file current CBC values; this page did not extract a 2026 rate.
Document: Matter Master 15-02703 / Case 15-E-0751. Effective/source period: Docket index retrieved September 24, 2026; no current CBC value read from it.
Applies to: Electric utilities' distributed-energy filings, including CBC values per the NYSERDA fact sheet. Relevant passage: “In the Matter of the Value of Distributed Energy Resources”.
“Source documents checked 2026-09-24” means each linked document was retrieved on that date and the passage quoted under it is the text the claims in this section rely on. The date covers only those claims. It is not a household eligibility decision or a guarantee that a tariff is still current, so check the linked live documents before signing a contract, and report corrections via the contact page.
Reproduce the New York household comparisons
These are hypothetical households, not customer results or offers. All start from an assumed 7 kW array producing 9147.41 kWh in year one; any row that changes production (a battery or a production-stress row) says so. The sunlight input is NSRDB data via PVWatts v8 for one location per state (request and response in state-insolation-pvwatts.json; see the methodology), not a production estimate for your roof. No federal credit is applied. No loan, income-tax effect on incentive revenue, battery replacement or future tariff change is modeled.
The benchmark row prices every kWh at the EIA average cited above. Where another row applies a published figure (for example a tariff or rider rate or charge, a program incentive rate, a statutory fee schedule, or a tax credit's rate, cap or carryforward period), that figure comes from a document in the sources list above. Every other price, consumption share, cost, fee, receipt date and amount of tax a household can use in a year is assumed. Eligibility remains conditional. The annual split does not reproduce monthly netting, time-of-use periods, credit caps, curtailment or minimum bills. Annual fees represent incremental solar costs, not charges you would pay with or without solar.
Production degrades by assumed 0.5% per year. The main result increases both import and export prices by assumed 3% per year; the flat-price column sets that to zero. Neither escalation is a tariff forecast. Fixed fees and scheduled receipts do not escalate. Energy savings accrue uniformly within a year for interpolation; incentives arrive only at year end.
Download exact scenario inputs and all 25 yearly results (JSON)Modeled results, not guarantees. No break-even means no crossing inside 25 years, not a calculated date beyond year 25.| Scenario | Initial cash cost | Year 1 energy value | Year 1 net cash incl. receipts | Payback | Flat-price payback | 25-year net cash after cost |
|---|
| Common retail-value benchmark — no incentives | $22,400.00 | $2,234.71 | $2,234.71 | 9.1 years | 10.3 years | Modeled $53,784.66 |
|---|
| Hypothetical household — no incentives | $22,400.00 | $2,286.85 | $2,202.85 | 9.1 years | 10.4 years | Modeled $53,462.19 |
|---|
| Illustrative higher cash price — no incentives | $26,880.00 | $2,286.85 | $2,202.85 | 10.7 years | 12.6 years | Modeled $48,982.19 |
|---|
| Conditional usable tax credit in year 1 | $22,400.00 | $2,286.85 | $7,202.85 | 7.3 years | 8.0 years | Modeled $58,462.19 |
|---|
| Conditional usable tax credit in year 3 | $22,400.00 | $2,286.85 | $2,202.85 | 7.3 years | 8.0 years | Modeled $58,462.19 |
|---|
| Assumed lower export credit (10 cents) — no incentives | $22,400.00 | $1,600.80 | $1,516.80 | 12.7 years | 15.3 years | Modeled $30,073.54 |
|---|
Inputs, receipts and annual arithmetic: Common retail-value benchmark — no incentives
Historical state-average import value for ALL production; only a comparison, not an address-specific tariff.
Assumed initial cash cost $22,400.00, not reduced by any upfront credit or rebate; any receipt is listed below and arrives at year end. Import 24.430¢/kWh; export 24.430¢/kWh; self-use 100%; incremental fixed annual cost $0.00.
Year-one modeled energy value = 9147.41 × [(100/100 × 24.43/100) + ((1 − 100/100) × 24.43/100)] = $2,234.71. Subtract the annual fixed cost and add only that year's receipts for net cash. Display rounds cents; the downloadable calculation retains full precision.
Incentive basis: None; no eligibility or benefit assumed. Modeled total receipts inside 25 years: $0.00. These are not subtracted from initial cash cost.
The exact input fields and all 25 modelled years for this row are in the JSON download above.
Inputs, receipts and annual arithmetic: Hypothetical household — no incentives
Assumes a Customer Benefit Contribution (CBC) of 1 dollar per kW DC per month on 7 kW, 84 dollars a year; not a 2026 utility quote. NYSERDA's CBC fact sheet lists final 2022 residential rates for net-metered PV from 0.30 (LIPA) to 1.33 (Orange & Rockland) dollars per kW a month. No NY-Sun award subtracted.
Assumed initial cash cost $22,400.00, not reduced by any upfront credit or rebate; any receipt is listed below and arrives at year end. Import 25.000¢/kWh; export 25.000¢/kWh; self-use 50%; incremental fixed annual cost $84.00.
Year-one modeled energy value = 9147.41 × [(50/100 × 25/100) + ((1 − 50/100) × 25/100)] = $2,286.85. Subtract the annual fixed cost and add only that year's receipts for net cash. Display rounds cents; the downloadable calculation retains full precision.
Incentive basis: None; no eligibility or benefit assumed. Modeled total receipts inside 25 years: $0.00. These are not subtracted from initial cash cost.
The exact input fields and all 25 modelled years for this row are in the JSON download above.
Inputs, receipts and annual arithmetic: Illustrative higher cash price — no incentives
Same production, prices, consumption share and fees, but cash cost is 20% higher; not a market-price estimate.
Assumed initial cash cost $26,880.00, not reduced by any upfront credit or rebate; any receipt is listed below and arrives at year end. Import 25.000¢/kWh; export 25.000¢/kWh; self-use 50%; incremental fixed annual cost $84.00.
Year-one modeled energy value = 9147.41 × [(50/100 × 25/100) + ((1 − 50/100) × 25/100)] = $2,286.85. Subtract the annual fixed cost and add only that year's receipts for net cash. Display rounds cents; the downloadable calculation retains full precision.
Incentive basis: None; no eligibility or benefit assumed. Modeled total receipts inside 25 years: $0.00. These are not subtracted from initial cash cost.
The exact input fields and all 25 modelled years for this row are in the JSON download above.
Inputs, receipts and annual arithmetic: Conditional usable tax credit in year 1
Assumes qualified cost equals installed price and sufficient liability to use the capped credit on that return; no NY-Sun incentive is included or double-subtracted. Timing comparison (modeled): “Conditional usable tax credit in year 1”: 7.3 years, 25-year 58,462.19 dollars; “Conditional usable tax credit in year 3”: 7.3 years, 25-year 58,462.19 dollars. All of these rows have the same 25-year total because the model does not discount future dollars: a receipt inside 25 years adds the same amount whenever it arrives. Payback is the same for any receipt that arrives within 7.3 years, the point at which this household would break even if the receipt arrived by the end of year 1; a receipt that arrives later sets payback at the end of the year it arrives, or at the no-receipt break-even (9.1 years) if that comes first. What timing does change is the cash position on the way: this row's cumulative cash is end of year 1 minus 15,197.15 dollars, end of year 2 minus 12,937.47 dollars, end of year 3 minus 10,619.54 dollars.
Assumed initial cash cost $22,400.00, not reduced by any upfront credit or rebate; any receipt is listed below and arrives at year end. Import 25.000¢/kWh; export 25.000¢/kWh; self-use 50%; incremental fixed annual cost $84.00.
Year-one modeled energy value = 9147.41 × [(50/100 × 25/100) + ((1 − 50/100) × 25/100)] = $2,286.85. Subtract the annual fixed cost and add only that year's receipts for net cash. Display rounds cents; the downloadable calculation retains full precision.
Incentive basis: Assumed usable credit min(25% × cash price, 5,000 dollars), received at year-1 end. IT-255-I: unused credit cannot be refunded but may be carried forward for up to five years. Modeled total receipts inside 25 years: $5,000.00. These are not subtracted from initial cash cost.
- Assumed receipt at end of year 1: $5,000.00
The exact input fields and all 25 modelled years for this row are in the JSON download above.
Inputs, receipts and annual arithmetic: Conditional usable tax credit in year 3
Assumes qualified cost equals installed price and sufficient liability to use the capped credit on that return; no NY-Sun incentive is included or double-subtracted. Timing comparison (modeled): “Conditional usable tax credit in year 1”: 7.3 years, 25-year 58,462.19 dollars; “Conditional usable tax credit in year 3”: 7.3 years, 25-year 58,462.19 dollars. All of these rows have the same 25-year total because the model does not discount future dollars: a receipt inside 25 years adds the same amount whenever it arrives. Payback is the same for any receipt that arrives within 7.3 years, the point at which this household would break even if the receipt arrived by the end of year 1; a receipt that arrives later sets payback at the end of the year it arrives, or at the no-receipt break-even (9.1 years) if that comes first. What timing does change is the cash position on the way: this row's cumulative cash is end of year 1 minus 20,197.15 dollars, end of year 2 minus 17,937.47 dollars, end of year 3 minus 10,619.54 dollars.
Assumed initial cash cost $22,400.00, not reduced by any upfront credit or rebate; any receipt is listed below and arrives at year end. Import 25.000¢/kWh; export 25.000¢/kWh; self-use 50%; incremental fixed annual cost $84.00.
Year-one modeled energy value = 9147.41 × [(50/100 × 25/100) + ((1 − 50/100) × 25/100)] = $2,286.85. Subtract the annual fixed cost and add only that year's receipts for net cash. Display rounds cents; the downloadable calculation retains full precision.
Incentive basis: Assumed usable credit min(25% × cash price, 5,000 dollars), received at year-3 end. IT-255-I: unused credit cannot be refunded but may be carried forward for up to five years. Modeled total receipts inside 25 years: $5,000.00. These are not subtracted from initial cash cost.
- Assumed receipt at end of year 3: $5,000.00
The exact input fields and all 25 modelled years for this row are in the JSON download above.
Inputs, receipts and annual arithmetic: Assumed lower export credit (10 cents) — no incentives
Tests exports credited well below the assumed 25-cent import price, as under a value-stack (VDER) credit. The 10 cents is an assumption, not a utility's VDER calculation; the 84-dollar CBC charge is kept.
Assumed initial cash cost $22,400.00, not reduced by any upfront credit or rebate; any receipt is listed below and arrives at year end. Import 25.000¢/kWh; export 10.000¢/kWh; self-use 50%; incremental fixed annual cost $84.00.
Year-one modeled energy value = 9147.41 × [(50/100 × 25/100) + ((1 − 50/100) × 10/100)] = $1,600.80. Subtract the annual fixed cost and add only that year's receipts for net cash. Display rounds cents; the downloadable calculation retains full precision.
Incentive basis: None; no eligibility or benefit assumed. Modeled total receipts inside 25 years: $0.00. These are not subtracted from initial cash cost.
The exact input fields and all 25 modelled years for this row are in the JSON download above.
Does a per-kW charge disproportionately affect a smaller array?
Assumed charge: 1 dollar per kW DC per month, a round figure, not a current utility rate. The utility-calculated 2022 residential CBC rates for net-metered PV in the NYSERDA fact sheet cited above ranged from 0.30 dollars (LIPA) to 1.33 dollars (Orange & Rockland) per kW DC per month. Cost, generation and charge all scale with size; import/export prices and load share stay fixed. No incentives or extra fixed fees are included in this size check.
Modeled 7 kW: annual charge $84.00, 3.673% of year-one energy value; payback without charge 8.9 years, with charge 9.1 years.
Modeled 14 kW: annual charge $168.00, 3.673% of year-one energy value; payback without charge 8.9 years, with charge 9.1 years.
The same proportional effect in both cases is why a per-kW charge alone does not establish a small-array disadvantage.
Formula and modeling limitations · Use the editable calculator below to test your own cash price and energy split. It cannot confirm utility enrollment or tax eligibility.
Assumptions behind the New York retail-value benchmark
A common full-retail comparison, not an address-specific forecast. Size alone does not change payback when cash cost and production both scale proportionally. Use the worksheet to vary cash price, production, self-consumption, export value and recurring costs.
- System modeled
- 7 kW DC
- Assumed installed cost
- $22,400 (assumed $3.20/W DC)
- Annual production, year 1
- 9,147 kWh
- Production basis
- NSRDB daily sunlight on a 20° south-facing panel at New York's 2020 Census population center (4.59 kWh/m²/day, via PVWatts v8). Annual production = system kW × this input × 365 × assumed performance ratio. PVWatts' own modelled AC output for the same request is 1,253.3 kWh per kW, or 8,773 kWh for 7 kW, so this shortcut runs 4.3% above it; on the PVWatts figure the benchmark payback would be 9.4 years.
- Performance ratio (system losses)
- 0.78
- EIA state-average retail rate
- 24.43¢/kWh — Calendar year 2024 annual average
- Panel degradation
- 0.5%/yr
- Assumed electricity price escalation
- 3.0%/yr, not a forecast
- Model horizon
- 25 years
- Federal tax credit applied
- None included in this benchmark
- State or utility incentives applied
- None deducted in this benchmark. Where a household scenario above applies a published tariff rate or a conditional receipt, its row says so; this benchmark applies none of them
- Assumed value of all production
- Full retail rate, including exports; not a utility tariff lookup
- Recurring operating costs applied
- None in this benchmark; editable in worksheet
How the payback figure reconciles
- Modelled $22,400 ÷ modelled $2,235 of year-one savings = 10.0 years — the straight division, if electricity prices never move and the panels never age.
- With 0.5%/yr degradation and prices held flat: 10.3 years.
- With the same degradation and electricity prices rising 3.0%/yr: 9.1 years — the retail-value benchmark, not a household forecast.
- Production stress test, same assumed prices: 20% less production (shading, a poorer roof angle) gives 11.0 years; 20% more production gives 7.7 years. This is a what-if range, not a confidence interval.
These price-growth rates are assumptions, not forecasts of your utility's tariff. None of these cases models financing, taxes, battery dispatch or actual utility settlement. No crossing within 25 years does not establish a crossing later. Full wording on the methodology.
Estimate only. State comparisons are common retail-value benchmarks, not forecasts for your roof. Custom scenarios depend on the cash price, production, import/export prices, self-consumption and other assumptions entered. They are not quotes or guarantees. Listed incentives do not establish eligibility or a payment date. The Residential Clean Energy Credit (
Section 25D, the 30% federal tax credit) expired for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. Verify all numbers with a licensed installer and your utility before making a purchase decision. See
full disclaimer.