Pennsylvania pays about 17.0¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity and receives about 4.2 kWh per square metre per day of sunlight — 15th and 41st respectively among the 50 states and DC tracked here. Those two numbers set the ceiling on what rooftop solar returns in Pennsylvania, and they point in opposite directions.
Where Pennsylvania sits against the rest of the country
Pennsylvania is 2.2¢/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 Pennsylvania 24th of 51 for modeled payback speed, at 13.4 years against a dataset median of 13.5 years.
What actually drives payback in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is rate-led: upper half of the dataset for electricity price (15th), lower half for sunlight (41st). Swap Pennsylvania's sunlight for the dataset median and payback moves to 12.4 years (1.0 years of swing). Swap its electricity rate instead and payback moves to 15.1 years (1.7 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 Pennsylvania.
State incentives on record
Recorded for Pennsylvania: SREC market under AEPS (depressed prices in 2026); net metering retained at full retail for IOU customers under PUC rules; PA Sunshine ended in 2013.
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 Pennsylvania's sunlight level a 7 kW array produces roughly 8,370 kWh a year, worth about $1,423 in first-year bill savings at 17.0¢/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 7.0¢ above what Pennsylvania households pay today.
States with comparable economics
Pennsylvania's closest analogues by modeled payback are South Carolina (13.5 years), Kansas (13.5 years), Wisconsin (13.4 years). They arrive there from different rate and sunlight combinations, so their incentive rows are the useful comparison.
- South Carolina — modeled payback 13.5 years
- Kansas — modeled payback 13.5 years
- Wisconsin — modeled payback 13.4 years