Virginia pays about 14.5¢ per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity and receives about 4.7 kWh per square metre per day of sunlight — 29th and 22nd respectively among the 50 states and DC tracked here. Those two numbers set the ceiling on what rooftop solar returns in Virginia, and they point in opposite directions.
Where Virginia sits against the rest of the country
Virginia is 0.3¢/kWh below the median residential rate across this dataset (14.8¢/kWh) and 0.1 kWh/m²/day above the median insolation (4.6 kWh/m²/day). Under this site's standard assumptions, that combination puts Virginia 30th of 51 for modeled payback speed, at 14.0 years against a dataset median of 13.5 years.
What actually drives payback in Virginia
Virginia is sunlight-led: 22nd for insolation but only 29th for electricity price. Swap Virginia's sunlight for the dataset median and payback moves to 14.2 years (0.3 years of swing). Swap its electricity rate instead and payback moves to 13.8 years (0.2 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 Virginia.
State incentives on record
Recorded for Virginia: Net metering retained; Solar Freedom Act expansion; Dominion residential rider for shared solar; property tax exemption (locality-dependent).
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 Virginia's sunlight level a 7 kW array produces roughly 9,367 kWh a year, worth about $1,358 in first-year bill savings at 14.5¢/kWh against an assumed $22,400 installed cost. A ten-year payback at this sunlight level would require a residential rate of about 21.4¢/kWh, which is 6.9¢ above what Virginia households pay today.
States with comparable economics
Virginia's closest analogues by modeled payback are Louisiana (14.1 years), Minnesota (14.2 years), Alabama (13.8 years). They arrive there from different rate and sunlight combinations, so their incentive rows are the useful comparison.