Modeled years to recover the initial cash outlay
Make sunlight
make sense.
One considered place to design solar, understand every kilowatt-hour and discover what your investment could actually return.
Your investment, in focus.
Present value of net future cash flows
Expected site-specific generation
Annual demand covered by solar energy
After operating costs and replacements
Discounted project cost per produced kWh
A year, illuminated.
Solar output split between your home and the grid.
The return curve.
Lifetime cumulative net project cash flow.
Where your energy goes.
Annual PV production and household consumption.
Better choices, backed by math.
Every opportunity below changes a real input.
Built for your roof.
Start with your address, size and panel geometry. Climate production updates when your PV configuration changes.
Where will it live?
Search a city or use roof coordinates.
Define your solar array.
Generation is calculated using this exact setup.
Roof-fit sketch.
Area-based planning, not a structural or electrical design.
Do not buy panels based on this area estimate alone. Confirm structural loads, setbacks, walkways and shading.
PVGIS estimates historical climate output for the chosen coordinates, geometry and mounting. This is not shade modeling.
Every hour matters.
Understand direct self-use and grid imports. Connect real 8,760-hour consumption data for higher-confidence energy matching.
Your electricity demand.
Use the variable tariff you can actually avoid.
Until you import matching hourly data, this is an assumption, not a meter-derived measurement.
Upgrade to hourly fidelity.
Private local meter data + actual PVGIS hourly history.
UTC-aligned 8,760-hour year, consumption in kWh. Nothing uploaded to our server.
No meter file loaded.
PVGIS hourly series not loaded.
Consumption meets generation.
Representative 24-hour shape; not a metered trace until aligned hourly data is imported.
Power for after sunset.
Compare PV alone with PV plus battery. See the real incremental financial impact, not a blanket promise that storage always wins.
Configure your battery.
The model includes conversion losses and annual capacity fade.
Without measured hourly usage, storage is an approximate monthly scenario. Backup behavior, replacement schedules and tariffs may differ.
Storage is a choice, not an assumption.
See whether extra self-consumption pays for the installed battery in your specific scenario.
PV-only vs PV plus storage.
Incremental value after added battery cost and energy losses.
| Configuration | Annual self-use | Energy independence | Net present value | Payback |
|---|
Explore the upside.
Compare grounded changes, size alternative PV arrays and preserve useful scenarios without guesswork.
Three levers worth testing.
Each delta is recomputed from your current inputs, not a generic savings claim.
How robust is the return?
These are deterministic stress scenarios, not probability forecasts.
Which array size fits your economics?
Alternative sizes scale baseline PVGIS yield linearly and installed cost per kWp; quotes and roof constraints must be verified.
Keep your best ideas.
Saved locally in your browser. Export JSON for a backup.
Every number. Accounted for.
Investment, annual cash flows, avoided electricity, export payments, debt, discounting, maintenance and replacements.
Actual price assumptions.
Replace defaults with the variable part of your real bill.
Long-term financial assumptions
Positive NPV means the modeled investment exceeds the discount-rate hurdle. It is not a guarantee.
Lifetime cash-flow ledger.
Annual production, savings, export income and costs.
| Year | Production | Self-use | Export | Bill avoidance | Export income | Opex / replacement | Net cash | Cumulative |
|---|
Evidence over exaggeration.
Know what is measured, derived, user-supplied or only illustrative. No secret supplier prices or invented panel measurements.
Solar climate source
European Commission PVGIS 5.3, monthly PV generation estimated over historical weather years. Real PVGIS results are source-labeled, not future guarantees.
Official API documentation ↗Location lookup
Open-Meteo geocoding provides city coordinates, not roof address validation. Manual coordinates remain available.
Open-Meteo documentation ↗What is assumed?
Hardware costs, tariff compensation, future inflation, performance aging, subsidies, insurance, rate discounting and self-use are inputs unless real meter data is imported.
The information behind your report.
Practical due diligence.
Check these outside the calculator before accepting a quotation.
PVGIS describes historical solar resource; it does not inspect the exact roof, predict future electricity prices, verify your bill, guarantee a subsidy or replace engineering or financial advice. When an upstream API is unavailable, results are explicitly marked illustrative. SolarPayback stores scenarios in your browser only; imported meter files remain in memory.