Shrink your electric bill

We price residential solar at roughly $2.80–$3.25 per watt installed. A 7 kW system therefore lands around $19,600–$22,750 before any local rebate. Until the end of 2025 a homeowner could knock 30% off that with the federal credit. As of September 2026 that credit is gone for owned systems, and anyone still quoting it is working from an old script.

Without the credit, simple payback on a purchased system in a full-retail net-metering territory often stretches into the low-to-mid teens of years, and longer where export credits are below retail. We won’t give you a single number here, because the honest answer swings with your usage, your roof’s orientation, your rate plan and how much of your production you use yourself versus export.

If you finance, the monthly loan payment has to be compared with the bill it replaces. With loans in the roughly 7.7–9% APR range we offer, some households come out ahead from month one and some don’t until the loan is paid off. We show both lines side by side rather than a blended “savings” number.

Colorado has one of the most varied net-metering landscapes in the country. In most Xcel Energy territory, exports are credited kilowatt-hour for kilowatt-hour against what you buy, and unused credits roll forward. That 1:1 treatment is what makes a purchased system pencil out without a federal credit.

Elsewhere the rules are different. Longmont Power & Communications credits systems installed from 2025 onward at a value-of-solar rate below retail. Fort Collins Utilities credits exports at the time-of-day rate in effect when you export. Colorado Springs Utilities approved a restructure on September 22, 2026 that gives new solar customers either a daily fee with time-of-use credits or a demand charge. In those places the goal shifts toward using your own power, which is where a battery starts to earn a role.

A leasing company or PPA provider that owns the system can still claim the commercial §48E credit if the system is placed in service by the end of 2027, and some of that value shows up as a lower price. Our lease and PPA offers typically run 20–30% below the utility’s retail rate, with payments commonly in the $125–$240 a month range and an annual escalator of 0–3%.

That’s real savings with no money down, but read the escalator. A 3% escalator compounds; if utility rates rise slower than that over 20-plus years, your advantage narrows. A 0% escalator is simpler to reason about. We’ll put both in front of you along with a cash and a loan scenario.

If your bill is already under about $60 a month, the fixed costs of a system are hard to recover. The same goes for heavily shaded lots, roofs that need replacing within a few years (unless you do both at once), and homes you expect to sell soon if you’d be paying cash.

We’d rather tell you that on the first call than sell you a system that disappoints. If the numbers are thin, a lease, a smaller system, or waiting are all legitimate answers.