Is solar worth it in Florida?

The four variables

1. 1

   Your electricity rate

   Solar avoids a purchase, so the value of every kilowatt-hour you generate equals the price you would otherwise pay. A higher rate improves the case directly and proportionally.

2. 2

   Your consumption and its shape

   Total consumption sets how much production you can absorb. The shape matters too: a household at home during the day uses more of its own production directly, which is worth more than exporting it.

3. 3

   What your roof can produce

   Orientation, pitch, shading and usable area. Two identical houses on the same street can differ substantially if one has a large oak on its south side.

4. 4

   The installed price

   With the federal credit gone, the quoted price is much closer to the price you actually bear. This makes shopping the installed price more consequential than it was in 2024.

What Florida specifically brings

• Strong solar resource across the whole state, with less seasonal variation than northern states.
• High summer consumption driven by air conditioning, which coincides reasonably well with peak production.
• A sales tax exemption on equipment and a property tax exemption on added home value, both still in force.
• Net metering under PSC Rule 25-6.065 for investor-owned utility customers, which lets midday surplus offset evening consumption.
• Hurricane engineering and permitting requirements that add cost relative to lower-wind states.
• Municipal utility territories where the net-metering terms, and therefore the economics, are set locally.

How to get a real answer

Bring twelve months of bills, not one. Florida consumption swings hard between February and August, and a system sized on a winter bill will disappoint in summer. Then get the installed price in writing, and check what production figure the installer used and how they modelled it.