The Real Cost of Doing Nothing: 10 More Years on the Grid

There's a quiet assumption baked into most household budgets: the electric bill is fixed overhead. You pay it, you forget it, you move on. But staying on the grid for another decade isn't a neutral choice — it's a financial commitment with a number on it. Let's pull that number out and look at it.

The baseline: what the average home actually pays

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average residential customer used about 10,500 kWh in 2023 and paid an average retail rate of 16.26 cents per kWh (EIA, 2024). That works out to roughly $1,707 per year, or about $142 per month — and that's the national average. In California, Hawaii, and much of New England, residential rates are well above 30 cents per kWh.

If rates held flat for 10 years, the average household would spend $17,070 on electricity. They won't hold flat. EIA's annual data shows residential electricity prices rose roughly 28% from 2014 to 2024, an average of about 2.5% per year. Apply that to the next decade and the same household pays closer to $19,400. In high-rate states, the 10-year total often clears $40,000.

Why rates keep climbing (and why that's unlikely to stop)

Utility bills aren't just generation costs. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tracks the breakdown, and in most service territories the delivery portion — poles, wires, substations, grid hardening — now accounts for more of the bill than the actual electrons (Berkeley Lab, 2024). Three forces keep pushing those delivery charges up:

• Aging infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S. grid a C- and estimates a $200B+ investment gap through 2030.
• Wildfire and storm hardening. California's investor-owned utilities have filed multi-billion-dollar undergrounding plans, recovered through rate cases.
• Load growth from EVs and data centers. EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2024 projects U.S. electricity demand growth accelerating after a flat decade.

None of those drivers are temporary. When utilities spend capital, they recover it from ratepayers over 20–40 year horizons. The bill that lands in your mailbox next month already has the next decade's investments priced in.

What 10 years of solar production looks like instead

NREL's PVWatts model is the industry standard for estimating rooftop solar output. A 7 kW system in a moderate climate (think Atlanta or Denver) produces roughly 10,000–11,000 kWh per year — enough to offset most of the average home's usage (NREL PVWatts). In sunnier markets like Phoenix or Los Angeles, the same array can clear 12,000 kWh annually.

Here's the comparison most homeowners never run side by side:

• Grid-only, 10 years: ~$19,400 paid to the utility (national average, modest 2.5% inflation).
• Solar-owned, 10 years: ~$3,000–5,000 in residual utility charges (connection fees, partial offset months) plus a one-time system cost.

EnergySage's 2024 marketplace data puts the average installed cost of a 7 kW system at about $20,000 before incentives, or roughly $2.86/W (EnergySage Solar Marketplace Report). That's a number you should treat as a starting point, not gospel — costs vary widely by state, roof complexity, and installer.

The 2026 incentive reset: what actually changed

This is the part of the conversation where a lot of bad information circulates, so let's be precise. The federal Residential Clean Energy Credit — the 30% Investment Tax Credit for purchased residential solar systems — expired at the end of 2025. As of 2026, homeowners who buy a system outright no longer claim the 30% federal credit on their tax return.

What still qualifies federally:

• Third-party owned systems — solar leases and Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), where a financing company owns the panels and claims the commercial ITC under Section 48. Those savings are typically passed through to the homeowner as a lower monthly rate.
• State and utility incentives — these vary widely. SEIA's state tracker and DSIRE remain the most reliable sources (SEIA, DSIRE).
• Net metering and battery rebates — California's SGIP, New York's NY-Sun, Massachusetts SMART, and dozens of utility programs continue to offer per-kWh or per-kWh-stored credits.

The honest takeaway: the math for a cash-purchased system in 2026 is harder than it was in 2024, but the math for a well-priced lease or PPA can still pencil out — particularly in high-rate states where the utility's own price is the moving target.

The hidden 10-year cost: rate volatility

Flat-rate national averages hide a lot. Consider three real examples from utility rate filings:

• PG&E (Northern California) raised residential rates approximately 13% in January 2024 alone, on top of multiple 2023 increases (CPUC rate case filings).
• Hawaiian Electric residential customers regularly see rates above 40 cents per kWh — already 2.5x the national average.
• Eversource (Connecticut/Massachusetts) supply rates jumped roughly 50% in winter 2023 before settling.

A grid-only homeowner has no hedge against any of that. A solar-owned homeowner has locked in roughly 80% of their consumption at a cost-per-kWh that's already paid. That's not a marketing claim — it's just how a sunk capital cost amortizes against a variable operating cost.

How to actually run the math for your house

The national averages above are useful as a starting frame, but they aren't a quote. Three numbers determine whether solar pencils out for your roof:

1. Your current rate ($/kWh) — pull this from your last bill. Look for the all-in cost per kWh, including delivery, generation, and surcharges.
2. Your roof's production potential — NREL PVWatts gives a free estimate based on your address, roof tilt, and azimuth.
3. The installed cost in your market — this varies more than people expect. EnergySage and the DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Office both publish state-level benchmarks.

EnergyScout's free assessment tool bundles all three into one estimate: it pulls NREL production data for your address, applies your local rate, and shows the 10-, 15-, and 25-year cost comparison. No phone number, no high-pressure email sequence — just the numbers.

The opportunity cost nobody talks about

Most articles frame solar as "savings vs. spending." That's incomplete. The dollars you send to the utility every month aren't building any equity — they're rent on the grid. A purchased solar system, by contrast, is a depreciating capital asset that produces a measurable return (the avoided utility bill). A leased system is a lower monthly bill with no equity but no upfront cost either.

Neither option is automatically right. A homeowner with a 30-cent kWh rate, a south-facing roof, and a 10-year horizon is in a very different position than one with a 9-cent rate in a heavily shaded yard. The point isn't that solar is universally the answer — it's that "do nothing" has a price tag, and most people never write it down.

If you want to run your own numbers

The most useful thing you can do this week takes about 15 minutes:

1. Pull your last 12 electric bills and add up total kWh and total dollars. Divide to get your real $/kWh.
2. Multiply your annual cost by 10. Then multiply by 1.28 to model a conservative 2.5% annual rate increase. That's your baseline cost of doing nothing.
3. Run the same address through EnergyScout's assessment and check the incentive search for your ZIP code.
4. If the comparison looks promising, browse vetted local installers and request 2–3 quotes. Quote-shopping in solar saves people 15–25% on average.

You may decide solar isn't right for your home, your roof, or your timeline. That's a perfectly defensible choice — when it's based on real numbers instead of vague defaults. The goal here isn't to sell you a system. It's to make sure that when you make a decision, you actually made one.

Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Electric Power Monthly, Annual Energy Outlook 2024); NREL PVWatts; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Electricity Markets & Policy; SEIA State Solar Policy; DSIRE; EnergySage Solar Marketplace Report 2024; CPUC and state utility rate filings.