Vermont pays about 21.5¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity and receives about 4.0 kWh per square metre per day of sunlight — 10th and 48th respectively among the 50 states and DC tracked here. Those two numbers set the ceiling on what rooftop solar returns in Vermont, and they point in opposite directions.
Where Vermont sits against the rest of the country
Vermont is 6.7¢/kWh above the median residential rate across this dataset (14.8¢/kWh) and 0.6 kWh/m²/day below the median insolation (4.6 kWh/m²/day). Under this site's standard assumptions, that combination puts Vermont 12th of 51 for modeled payback speed, at 11.5 years against a dataset median of 13.5 years.
What actually drives payback in Vermont
Vermont is rate-led: upper half of the dataset for electricity price (10th), lower half for sunlight (48th). Swap Vermont's sunlight for the dataset median and payback moves to 10.1 years (1.3 years of swing). Swap its electricity rate instead and payback moves to 15.7 years (4.3 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 Vermont.
State incentives on record
Recorded for Vermont: Net metering tariff (Rule 5.100) with adjusters by location and resource type; sales tax exemption; property tax exemption.
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 Vermont's sunlight level a 7 kW array produces roughly 7,972 kWh a year, worth about $1,714 in first-year bill savings at 21.5¢/kWh against an assumed $22,400 installed cost. A ten-year payback at this sunlight level would require a residential rate of about 25.1¢/kWh, which is 3.6¢ above what Vermont households pay today.
States with comparable economics
Vermont's closest analogues by modeled payback are Colorado (11.8 years), New Jersey (12.1 years), Florida (12.1 years). They arrive there from different rate and sunlight combinations, so their incentive rows are the useful comparison.
- Colorado — modeled payback 11.8 years
- New Jersey — modeled payback 12.1 years
- Florida — modeled payback 12.1 years