See how many years a commercial solar system takes to pay for itself. Set your state, system size, electricity rate, and installed cost for a live estimate.
Estimate only. Uses a typical production yield for your state, the certificate prices shown by the incentive hub, and a single electricity rate; demand charges and time-of-use windows are not modelled.
Enter your state, the system size you are being quoted, the rate you pay for power, and the installed cost per kW. The calculator applies the certificate value your postcode zone qualifies for, subtracts it from the quoted cost, and divides what is left by the electricity your business stops buying each year. The answer is the number of years before the system has paid for itself.
Payback is a ratio, so only two things move it far: what you pay per kilowatt hour, and how much of the generation you use on site instead of exporting. A business that runs its load through the middle of the day, such as a factory, a cold store, or a busy office, keeps more of what the panels make and pays the system back sooner than a site that only gets going after dark.
If a quote you are holding shows a payback far shorter than the figure here, look at the assumptions behind it. The usual culprits are an electricity rate that ignores discounts, an assumed self-consumption share that no one measured, and savings that quietly include export credits at full retail value.
This is a first-pass number from four inputs, so it does not model your demand charges, your time of use windows, or the shape of your load through the year. It also excludes ongoing LGC revenue on capacity above the STC ceiling (1 MW of site capacity for installs from 1 October 2026, 100 kW before), which is treated separately. For a figure built from your actual bill rather than a typical rate, run the free Solar Insight estimate below.
The calculator above uses a typical rate. Solar Insight uses your electricity spend, your state, and your business type to size a system and estimate the savings behind the payback.
No account or password needed. The free estimate takes about two minutes.
Businesses get a free estimate for their site. Solar companies get Amperage: every size, payback, and a branded proposal.
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