Ohio pays about 15.4¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity and receives about 4.2 kWh per square metre per day of sunlight — 20th and 41st respectively among the 50 states and DC tracked here. Those two numbers set the ceiling on what rooftop solar returns in Ohio, and they point in opposite directions.
Where Ohio sits against the rest of the country
Ohio is 0.6¢/kWh above the median residential rate across this dataset (14.8¢/kWh) and 0.4 kWh/m²/day below the median insolation (4.6 kWh/m²/day). Under this site's standard assumptions, that combination puts Ohio 36th of 51 for modeled payback speed, at 14.6 years against a dataset median of 13.5 years.
What actually drives payback in Ohio
Ohio is rate-led: upper half of the dataset for electricity price (20th), lower half for sunlight (41st). Swap Ohio's sunlight for the dataset median and payback moves to 13.5 years (1.1 years of swing). Swap its electricity rate instead and payback moves to 15.1 years (0.5 years of swing). The sunlight swap is the larger of the two, so how much sun the roof gets is the input deciding the outcome in Ohio.
State incentives on record
Recorded for Ohio: Net metering retained at generation rate (not full retail) for IOU customers; SREC market under Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard.
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 Ohio's sunlight level a 7 kW array produces roughly 8,370 kWh a year, worth about $1,289 in first-year bill savings at 15.4¢/kWh against an assumed $22,400 installed cost. A ten-year payback at this sunlight level would require a residential rate of about 24.0¢/kWh, which is 8.6¢ above what Ohio households pay today.
States with comparable economics
Ohio's closest analogues by modeled payback are Oklahoma (14.6 years), Mississippi (14.4 years), North Carolina (14.4 years). They arrive there from different rate and sunlight combinations, so their incentive rows are the useful comparison.
- Oklahoma — modeled payback 14.6 years
- Mississippi — modeled payback 14.4 years
- North Carolina — modeled payback 14.4 years