Original research
50 solar energy statistics, every one computed from federal data
US residential solar in numbers, from the mandatory annual census of American electric utilities.
Written by HyreSolar Research team Research and analysis
Audited by HyreSolar Research team Data audit and fact check
The headline
Where these numbers come from, and what that changes
Most solar statistics pages are aggregations. A figure is taken from a trade report, which took it from a survey, which sampled a subset of the market, and by the time it reaches a listicle nobody can say what it counted or when.
These 50 are computed from Form EIA-861, which every US electric utility is legally required to file. It is a census, not a sample. We downloaded the 11 annual releases, extracted them by script, and derived the ratios EIA does not publish itself.
The check that matters: our residential price derivation reproduces EIA's own published price series across 357 state-years to within 0.005¢/kWh, EIA rounds to two decimals, so that is rounding and nothing else. That is the evidence the extraction is right, and it is why the ratios built on the same handling can be trusted.
The national picture, statistics 1 to 10
- 1 3.55% of US households with a utility electricity account have net-metered rooftop solar
5,077,543 systems against 143,144,185 residential accounts. About one household in 28. HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 2024.
- 2 5,077,543 residential net-metered solar systems are installed in the United States
The count every utility reported at year end 2024. EIA-861.
- 3 Those systems total 34,226 MW of capacity
Residential net-metered photovoltaic capacity, 2024. EIA-861.
- 4 The average installed system is 7 kW
Capacity divided by system count across the whole installed fleet, not the size of a system quoted today, which is larger. HyreSolar analysis.
- 5 143,144,185 US households buy electricity from a utility
Residential customer accounts, counted across filing Parts A, B and D to avoid double-counting restructured markets. EIA-861.
- 6 The average residential electricity price is 16¢/kWh
Residential revenue divided by residential sales. Reproduces EIA's published figure exactly. HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861.
- 7 The average household electricity bill is $142 a month
$1,707 a year. Revenue divided by customers. HyreSolar analysis. Bills by state →
- 8 The average household uses 10,359 kWh of electricity a year
Residential sales divided by residential customers. HyreSolar analysis. Consumption by state →
- 9 2,031 MW of residential solar sits outside net metering entirely
Reported on a separate EIA schedule and missing from most solar statistics. EIA-861.
- 10 Rooftop solar is 7.9× larger than it was in 2014
From 642,276 systems to 5,077,543. HyreSolar analysis.
State extremes, statistics 11 to 20
- 11 Hawaii leads the country at 22.0% of households
More than one home in 5. HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 2024.
- 12 California is second at 14.7%
And holds 41% of every residential solar system in the country, 2,090,983 of 5,077,543.
- 13 Nevada is third at 10.2%, Arizona fourth at 10.1%
The only other jurisdictions above 10% of households.
- 14 Tennessee is last at 0.0027%, 86 systems
Not an absence of solar but an absence of net metering: the Tennessee Valley Authority runs distributed generation through its own programmes.
- 15 The gap between first and last is roughly 8,164 to one
No other household technology varies this much between US states. HyreSolar analysis.
- 16 17 of 51 jurisdictions are below 1% of households
Rooftop solar remains a minority technology almost everywhere.
- 17 The top two states hold 43% of all US residential solar systems
HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 2024.
- 18 California has the most systems in absolute terms: 2,090,983
Followed by Arizona (317,033) and Florida (289,774).
- 19 The West holds 61% of America's residential solar
On 22% of its households. Regional penetration: 10.0%.
- 20 The Midwest sits at 0.85%, 12× below the West
The widest regional gap in the data. Full state ranking →
Growth and the 2024 reversal, statistics 21 to 28
- 21 US households added 527,942 solar systems in 2024
Down from 761,174 the year before. HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861.
- 22 That is a fall of 30.6%: the sharpest in the eleven-year series
The only previous falls were 2017 and 2018, and 2024 is larger than both together.
- 23 One state accounts for 49% of the national decline
California, following its April 2023 net billing tariff change.
- 24 New connections peaked at 761,174 in 2023
Inflated by systems pulled forward before California's grandfathering deadline.
- 25 2024's 527,942 connections still exceed every year before 2022
The sharpest fall in the series is not the lowest level in it: a distinction most coverage misses.
- 26 Household penetration rose from 0.50% to 3.55% across the series
A 7.1-fold increase in eleven years.
- 27 Average system size grew from 5 kW to 7 kW
The installed fleet average, which lags the size of systems being sold today.
- 28 Residential electricity prices rose 32% over the same eleven years
From 13¢ to 16¢ per kWh, in nominal terms.
What the annual flow looks like
The cumulative curve above is smooth. The annual flow underneath it is not, and it is the flow that tells you what the market is doing right now.
Batteries and storage, statistics 29 to 34
- 29 5.9% of US solar systems have a paired battery
297,550 of 5,077,543. The installed-fleet rate, not the share of new sales, which is far higher. HyreSolar analysis.
- 30 California holds 74% of every paired residential battery in the country
Roughly 221,123 of 297,550.
- 31 Michigan has the highest attachment rate at 18.4%
Among states with at least 10,000 systems. HyreSolar analysis.
- 32 Hawaii is at 18.2%: it ended retail net metering in 2015
The leaders are, without exception, states where exporting stopped paying retail value.
- 33 Most states sit below 2% battery attachment
Storage tracks tariff design far more closely than it tracks how much solar a state has.
- 34 EIA has collected battery data for two years only
The columns were added for the 2023 data year, so 2023 and 2024 are the entire series. Full battery analysis →
Who owns it, statistics 35 to 39
- 35 29.1% of US residential solar is third-party owned
1,474,863 systems are leased or on a power purchase agreement rather than owned by the household. HyreSolar analysis.
- 36 A household on an investor-owned utility is 4.1× more likely to have solar than one on a cooperative
5.5% against 1.4%. HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 Utility Data joined to Net Metering.
- 37 Cooperatives serve 17.0% of US households and hold 5.2% of the solar
18,189,014 customers, 244,668 systems. Co-op analysis →
- 38 Investor-owned utilities serve 66.1% of households and hold 83.5% of the solar
The concentration is structural, not preferential.
- 39 Third-party ownership ranges from under 1% to over 55% depending on the state
Set by state incentive design, not household preference.
The grid behind it, statistics 40 to 50
- 40 83.8% of US residential electricity meters are now interval (AMI) meters
123,758,084 of 147,612,180. The precondition for any hourly export tariff. Smart meter analysis →
- 41 Only 11.1% of residential customers are on a time-varying tariff
15,832,411 households. Solar economics run on the marginal rate, and for the other 88.9% there is no time-varying marginal rate to respond to.
- 42 10,658,027 US households are enrolled in residential demand response
7.5% of all metered households, 36× the number with a solar battery. Demand response analysis →
- 43 Demand response saved 247,973 MWh of residential electricity in 2024
EIA-861 Demand Response schedule.
- 44 The median state loses 297 minutes of power per customer per year
SAIDI, IEEE standard, including major event days. Outage analysis →
- 45 Excluding major event days, the median falls to 121 minutes
The difference is storms. EIA-861 Reliability.
- 46 The median household experiences 1.36 interruptions a year
SAIFI, IEEE standard, with major event days.
- 47 Utility efficiency programmes saved 10,200,084 MWh of residential electricity
Equal to 0.69% of all residential sales. EIA-861 Energy Efficiency.
- 48 US summer peak demand reached at least 1,104,571 MW
Against a winter peak of 970,925 MW. Read as a floor rather than a total: West Virginia reports 10 MW across 866,456 accounts (12 watts per account against a national median of 7,533) which is a filing failure, not a measurement. EIA-861 Operational Data.
- 49 5.6% of reported residential PV capacity sits outside net metering
Which is why a net-metering-only ranking misreads several states badly.
- 50 1.06% of Texan households show net-metered solar, but 64% of Texas residential PV capacity is not net-metered
The single largest measurement gap in US solar statistics.
The national series, 2014–2024
| Year | Systems | Added that year | Capacity (MW) | Avg. size | Household share | Residential price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 642,276 | — | 3,453 | 5.38 kW | 0.50% | 12.52¢ |
| 2015 | 958,850 | 316,574 | 5,357 | 5.59 kW | 0.74% | 12.65¢ |
| 2016 | 1,321,277 | 362,427 | 7,627 | 5.77 kW | 1.01% | 12.55¢ |
| 2017 | 1,626,283 | 305,006 | 9,487 | 5.83 kW | 1.23% | 12.89¢ |
| 2018 | 1,911,892 | 285,609 | 11,357 | 5.94 kW | 1.43% | 12.87¢ |
| 2019 | 2,283,702 | 371,810 | 13,863 | 6.07 kW | 1.69% | 13.01¢ |
| 2020 | 2,661,029 | 377,327 | 16,433 | 6.18 kW | 1.95% | 13.15¢ |
| 2021 | 3,157,429 | 496,400 | 19,929 | 6.31 kW | 2.28% | 13.66¢ |
| 2022 | 3,788,427 | 630,998 | 24,668 | 6.51 kW | 2.71% | 15.04¢ |
| 2023 | 4,549,601 | 761,174 | 30,571 | 6.72 kW | 3.22% | 16.00¢ |
| 2024 | 5,077,543 | 527,942 | 34,226 | 6.74 kW | 3.55% | 16.48¢ |
HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861. "Added that year" is the change in the cumulative count.
Figures labelled HyreSolar analysis are computed by us from the EIA source files named below. EIA publishes the inputs; it does not publish these ratios or rankings.
The ten highest-adoption jurisdictions, 2024
| # | State | Systems | Households | Share | Avg. size | Battery rate | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | 98,418 | 446,512 | 22.04% | 5.40 kW | 18.2% | 42.86¢ |
| 2 | California | 2,090,983 | 14,217,180 | 14.71% | 6.07 kW | 10.6% | 31.97¢ |
| 3 | Nevada | 134,257 | 1,311,755 | 10.23% | 7.60 kW | 2.3% | 15.00¢ |
| 4 | Arizona | 317,033 | 3,134,733 | 10.11% | 7.18 kW | 3.3% | 14.91¢ |
| 5 | Colorado | 179,751 | 2,557,732 | 7.03% | 5.16 kW | 0.7% | 14.92¢ |
| 6 | Connecticut | 103,824 | 1,552,746 | 6.69% | 7.71 kW | 0.7% | 28.75¢ |
| 7 | New Mexico | 61,209 | 936,098 | 6.54% | 5.35 kW | 0.2% | 14.20¢ |
| 8 | Massachusetts | 189,611 | 2,924,535 | 6.48% | 6.88 kW | 1.3% | 29.35¢ |
| 9 | Utah | 81,115 | 1,272,861 | 6.37% | 5.93 kW | 10.7% | 12.22¢ |
| 10 | District of Columbia | 17,780 | 318,780 | 5.58% | 6.35 kW | — | 17.71¢ |
HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 2024. The full 51-jurisdiction ranking is on solar statistics by state.
Regional summary
| Region | States | Systems | Share of US systems | Household share | Avg. size | Residential price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | 9 | 865,495 | 17.0% | 3.71% | 7.18 kW | 22.48¢ |
| Midwest | 12 | 264,722 | 5.2% | 0.85% | 7.87 kW | 15.38¢ |
| South | 17 | 835,056 | 16.4% | 1.45% | 7.96 kW | 14.18¢ |
| West | 13 | 3,112,270 | 61.3% | 10.00% | 6.19 kW | 20.05¢ |
HyreSolar analysis of EIA-861 2024. US Census Bureau regional definitions; the District of Columbia is counted in the South.
The regional gap is wider than the gap between many countries, and it is not explained by sunshine: the Northeast has the worst solar resource in the country and the second-highest adoption.
What these numbers do not tell you
Three things are worth stating plainly, because a page of fifty statistics invites the reader to believe the subject is fully measured. It is not.
Nobody counts panels. EIA counts systems and megawatts. Any figure you see for "number of solar panels in America" is an estimate built on an assumed panel wattage, and the assumption usually goes unstated. We have not made one.
Nobody counts solar outside net metering by household. The 2,031 MW on the other schedule has no installation count attached, so there is no honest way to produce a corrected national household figure. That is why every penetration number here is explicitly net-metered.
Production is not in this dataset at all. EIA-861 records capacity, not generation. A kilowatt in Arizona and a kilowatt in Maine do not produce the same electricity, and nothing on this page should be converted into output, savings or bill offset.
Methodology
Source
US Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, annual files for 2014 through 2024, downloaded as the published ZIP archives on 2 September 2026. EIA-861 is a mandatory census of US electric utilities, utilities are legally required to file, so this is not a sample and there is no sampling error.
The 2024 file is the final release. A 2025 early release exists and is excluded from every figure here: it covers a partial set of filers and using it would show a spurious collapse.
Definitions used throughout
Solar system: one residential net-metered photovoltaic installation as reported by the utility whose meter it sits behind. A leased system and an owned system each count once.
Household: one residential electricity account. Not a Census household: a master-metered apartment building is one account for many homes, so penetration is somewhat overstated where that stock is large.
Penetration, residential net-metered PV installations ÷ residential electricity customers, both from EIA-861, same year, same filers.
Battery attachment, PV-paired residential battery installations ÷ residential PV installations. Standalone home batteries are reported separately and excluded.
The one trap in this dataset
EIA files restructured-market service in two halves: Part B is a competitive supplier's energy sale, Part C is the incumbent utility's delivery of that same electricity to the same household. They carry identical megawatthours. Summing sales across every Part double-counts, and understates the 2024 national price by 1.12¢/kWh.
We sum revenue across all Parts and sales and customers across Parts A, B and D only. That handling reproduces EIA's published price series across all 357 overlapping state-years to within 0.005¢/kWh, which is the evidence it is right.
What we deliberately do not publish
Two columns in this dataset fail a plausibility check and are excluded from all 50 statistics above. EIA's PV-paired battery energy capacity implies a California battery duration of 0.83 hours and Texas 0.38, below any residential product sold. Its energy sold back column covers only 39.6% of installations and reports near-zero kWh per system for New Jersey and New York.
Both are in active use by people building solar statistics. We report the diagnostic and withhold the metric.
Limitations
Net metering only. 2,031 MW of residential PV is reported on a separate schedule and excluded from the system counts. In Texas that is most of the fleet.
Stock, not flow. Annual additions are derived by differencing a stock survey, so reclassification or non-response by a utility appears as an addition or a loss.
The peak demand column is incomplete. At least one state, West Virginia, reports a summer peak of 10 MW across 866,456 residential accounts (12 watts per account against a median of 7,533) which is not a plausible value. The national peak figures above are therefore floors. We report the anomaly rather than dropping the state or silently imputing a replacement.
AC and DC capacity are mixed. Utilities report on different bases and EIA does not normalise, which affects average-size comparisons between states more than the national trend.
Reproducing this
Every figure on this page is generated from the source workbooks by script, not typed. The input is a public EIA download and the arithmetic is stated above. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it on the page with a dated note.
Questions
What percentage of US homes have solar panels?
How many solar panels are installed in the US?
Which state has the most solar?
Is US residential solar still growing?
How current is this data?
Can I cite or reuse these statistics?
Written and audited by
HyreSolar Research
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is the reason the rest can be trusted.
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- figures with a retrieval date
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- federal and state government sources
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- researched pages published
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Statutes from the legislature’s own publishing system, federal data from the agency that collects it, code text from the adopted edition, manufacturer claims from the data sheet. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we go and read the source.
- Every figure carries its provenance. A named document and the date we retrieved it, so you can check it and so you know how old it is. Retrieval dates are not decoration: an EIA rate from May is a different fact from an EIA rate from August.
- We publish what we could not verify. Every research page carries a section naming the things we tried to establish and could not, and why. A paywalled standard, a state website that refused the request, a manufacturer that publishes no figure at all.
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Data as of EIA-861 2024 final release. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
- US EIA, Form EIA-861 — Net Metering (annual files, 2014–2024) — Utility-level net-metered installations, capacity and PV-paired batteries by state and customer sector. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
- US EIA, Form EIA-861 — Sales to Ultimate Customers (annual files, 2014–2024) — Residential revenue, sales and customer counts by utility and state. The basis for price, bill and consumption figures. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
- US EIA, Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector — EIA’s published price series, used to validate our derivation. Agreement across all 357 overlapping state-years is within 0.005¢/kWh. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
Where does your own roof land in these numbers?
National statistics describe a market. The calculator prices a specific house on a specific tariff.
HyreSolar is an independent analysis and matching service. We are not an installer, lender or utility. When a reader asks to be introduced, installers may pay us a referral fee. That fee never buys ranking, scores or placement in research. Our editorial policy sets out the rules.