Solar
Solar Payback Calculator
Estimate solar payback period, lifetime savings and investment returns using your actual energy and financial assumptions.
System Cost
Solar Generation
kWh/year
Use a location-specific solar production estimate from your installer or a validated solar-yield model.
%
%/year
Self-consumption is the share of solar electricity used on-site rather than exported. Degradation is editable; use your module or system warranty data where available.
Electricity Value
/kWh
/kWh
%/year
Enter 0% if you do not want to assume future tariff increases.
Operating Costs
%/year
Financial Analysis
years
%
A discount rate above 0% enables discounted payback and NPV analysis. Leave at 0% if you only want nominal cash-flow results.
Simple Payback Period
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—
Net Upfront Cost
—
Year-1 Gross Energy Value
—
Year-1 Net Savings
—
Lifetime Net Cash Benefit
—
NPV
—
Discounted Payback
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Annual Cash Flow
| Year | Generation | Energy Value | O&M | Net Cash Flow | Cumulative |
|---|
Methodology:
net upfront cost = installed cost − incentives.
Each year’s solar generation is reduced by the entered degradation rate.
Self-consumed generation is valued at the retail electricity tariff, while exported generation is valued separately at the export/feed-in tariff.
Annual O&M expenses are deducted from energy savings.
Simple payback is the point at which cumulative nominal net cash flow recovers the upfront investment.
Discounted payback uses the entered discount rate.
NPV equals the present value of future net cash flows minus the initial net system cost.
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