Two credible national figures exist, and they disagree — reporting only one is the mistake. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's survey of what homeowners actually paid for 2024 installs found a median of $4.0/W, before any incentive. NREL's separate, modeled benchmark for a representative Q1 2024 system is $3.25/W. Both are real; they measure different things.
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Why do the two figures differ so much?
NREL explains it directly: reported market prices are "more likely to include cost categories not within the cost benchmarks' scope, such as financing costs, roof upgrades, or service contracts," and reflect national averages rather than one representative configuration. The benchmark models a specific system; the survey measures what a wide range of actual customers paid, including financing markups and add-ons the benchmark excludes.
What's inside the $3.25/W benchmark figure?
Soft costs — permitting, labor overhead, customer acquisition, margin — are the largest single share of the modeled Q1 2024 residential price, at just over half the total. That share has actually fallen from an all-time high of 68% in 2017. Hardware (module, inverter, balance of system) makes up the rest, at roughly $1.39 of the $3.25 total.
- $0.40Module — 12.3% of total
- $0.37Inverter — 11.4%
- $0.62Balance of system — 19.1%
- $1.64Soft costs — 50.5%
Does cash or a loan change the price?
Yes, measurably. LBNL's 2024 data shows a cash-purchase median of $3.5/W versus a loan-financed median of $4.7/W — a $1.2/W gap that's widened from $0.6/W in 2017. The mechanism is dealer fees rolled into the up-front price a financed customer sees. LBNL also notes the most common price point (the mode) for cash purchases actually sits below $3/W, under the median.
Have prices been falling?
Substantially, over the long run, but flat recently. NREL's benchmark shows a 65% decline for residential systems between 2010 and 2024. Since 2021, though, the trend has been flat, with NREL citing "market dynamics like policy changes, tariffs, and supply chain constraints" rather than a continued steady decline.
Sources
3 cited- Market prices paid, 2024 installs: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage — 2025 Data Update, October 2025 (checked 2026-08-18).
- Modeled cost benchmark and cost breakdown: NREL/TP-7A40-92536, Documenting 15 Years of Reductions in U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System Costs, January 2025 (checked 2026-08-18).
- Why the two figures diverge: NREL/TP-7A40-92536, January 2025 (checked 2026-08-18).