About $150 is what Brian McGowan says he paid for electricity last year at his home in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. After installing additional solar panels in the fall, he expects the bill to be even lower. Before going solar and electrifying his home, he would have paid more than $2,000 a year for electricity, about $1,000 for gas and over $2,000 for heating oil.
McGowan, an engineering technician, drives an electric vehicle and uses a mini-split heat pump for most heating, so he no longer buys gas or burns heating oil. What began as a few panels to run a kettle, coffee machine and emergency lights has grown into a complete system with battery storage and a heat pump. He now operates both an off-grid array used during long outages and a grid-tied array of 30 rooftop panels tied to batteries.
He recalls the first time the neighborhood lost power: his house only registered a flicker while the rest of the block went dark. The area typically sees three or four outages a year, some lasting days, and McGowan expects reliability pressures to increase as energy demand from data centers and other sources grows.
Retiree John Spezia in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, installed solar 13 years ago and recently added a heat pump, allowing him to shut off his gas service. He says the savings are noticeable: without gas bills and monthly base charges, his household saves perhaps $400–$500 a year. In some months they export more power than they use and bank credits to cover colder periods.
The US Energy Information Administration reported that electricity customers experienced an average of 11 hours of service interruptions in 2024, roughly double the prior decade’s average. A Stanford University study examined how homeowners could use solar plus batteries to endure outages and found that about 60% of households would also benefit financially — though that calculation included a federal tax credit that has since been rescinded.
How much homeowners can save depends on many variables: how much power the site can generate, system size, installation costs (equipment, labor, permits), local electricity rates and how utilities credit exported power. In net metering regimes, utilities credit exported electricity at the retail rate the customer pays. In net billing systems, credits are based on wholesale rates, which can be much lower. In California, for example, net billing credits can be roughly 25% of the retail price, making on-site batteries more attractive so households can store and consume their own generation.
Payback periods vary widely. Ben Delman of Solar United Neighbors says in states with strong incentives and renewable energy credits, payback can be 2–5 years; in states with weaker incentives or cheaper electricity, it can be 7–11 years. “Your payoff is very much influenced by how much you’re already paying for electricity,” he notes.
About 5 million US households now have metered rooftop solar, roughly one in 30 residential homes, according to a report from the Environment America Research and Policy Center. Rooftop adoption has risen in every state, driven both by environmental concerns and by homeowners’ desire for energy stability and control.
Getting started can take several paths. Although the federal tax break for residential systems was rolled back, many states still offer tax credits, and financing or leasing options may be available locally. Policy changes in some states have reduced compensation for exported solar or added fees for solar customers; in response, some homeowners opt to add batteries and reduce grid dependence. McGowan advises anyone considering solar to include battery storage.
Energy efficiency remains a high-impact, low-cost complement to generation. McGowan installed a drain water heat exchanger to recover heat from wastewater and, combined with his heat pump, now uses far less energy for hot water. Spezia recommends an energy audit, sealing leaks, improving insulation, and switching appliances and heating to electric before investing in generation.
Beyond direct financial calculations, homeowners should weigh resilience: how much they would pay to avoid interruptions and maintain uninterrupted service. For many, the combination of rooftop solar, batteries and electrification provides both lower bills and greater energy security.
Edited by: Tamsin Walker