About Us
StraightWatt answers one question with arithmetic instead of an opinion: what rooftop solar actually costs and returns, in the 11 US states where we have read every input from a primary source.
Why this exists
Most solar calculators are lead-generation forms with arithmetic attached. They are free because your details are the product, which means the number they show you has a job other than being right. We sell nothing, pass on nothing, and take no commission on anything you decide — so the figure here has only one job.
In 2026 that matters more than usual. The federal credit a buyer could claim has gone, while a leasing company can still claim one; several states have closed retail net metering to new customers. A calculator built before those changes is not badly made — it is out of date, which is the same thing to the person relying on it. We surveyed what public tools state, including our own errors.
How the numbers are made
One calculation engine produces every figure on this site, at build time for the pre-rendered pages and in your browser for the calculator, so the two cannot disagree. Every input carries the source it was read from and the date it was read. A value we have not verified is left empty and the page says so; we do not type in a plausible number. The formulas are published in full on the methodology page.
- Policy is data, not code. Federal credit rates live in a file keyed by year. Nothing in the calculation knows the number 30.
- A state is published only when all four of its inputs are sourced — the electricity rate, the production data, the installed cost and the export rule. A fallback on any one of them disqualifies it, which is why we publish 11 states and not fifty.
- Understating a return is treated as the same failure as overstating one. An incentive on file that the engine cannot pay out stops the page publishing at all.
- Mistakes are published. 3 so far, in the corrections log, including the times we made a state look worse than it is.
Rates: EIA 2026-07. Production: PVWatts v8 (verified). Federal policy verified 2026-09-05. Export rules verified 2026-09-05.
Who writes it
Where to start
- The federal solar tax credit in 2026
Gone for buyers, still 30% for leases. What ended, what survives, computed and cited.
- Is solar worth it in 2026?
With no federal credit for buyers, the answer turns on your rate, your export rule and your state - not on how sunny it is.
- Lease, loan or cash for solar in 2026
The three ways to pay, run on the same house, year by year, in every state we publish.
- What solar costs in 2026
Two price bases, by state and by bill, and why they are 60% apart.
Or go straight to the calculator, or to your state.
How this is paid for
Nothing on this site is sponsored, and no link on it pays us. If that ever changes — advertising, or a link that earns a commission — it will be named on the page it appears on and in the privacy policy before it goes live, and it will not be allowed to change a number.
Contact and corrections
hello@straightwatt.com, or the contact form — both reach a person. Checking a figure for a story, or want the working behind one? Ask; every number here traces to a record with a source and a date, and we would rather explain it than have it quoted wrongly.
If a number here is wrong, the data file it came from is wrong, and we would rather know. Tell us which page and what you found. What we get wrong is published in the corrections log — including the times we understated a return, not only the times we flattered one.