Solar Exit Cost Calculator
Every exit from a solar contract is really a comparison against staying. Put your own payment and escalator in and the four routes line up next to each other over ten years. The escalator is the number people leave out, and it is usually the one that decides this.
Live · four routes compared Ten-Year Comparison
Your contract
$
For a PPA, your average monthly solar charge.
%
Zero if your payment is fixed. The CFPB documents PPA escalators of 1 to 5 percent.
$
In writing, from whoever bills you today.
$
Paying one does not by itself end a contract.
Keep paying, ten years
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Buy out now
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Transfer at sale
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The comparison
Enter your payment and escalator above.
Stop paying
Not priced here on purpose. The cost is not a dollar figure.
Assumptions
Every figure here is nominal, not discounted to present value, and none of it is tax or legal advice. The escalator compounds annually on the payment you entered. Your own contract governs, and a buyout quote is only real when it is in writing from the party that bills you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the real costs of default do not convert honestly into a number. Credit damage changes what every future loan costs you by an amount nobody can predict. An acceleration clause can make the whole remaining balance due at once. If your financing is PACE, the consequence runs through your property tax bill and can reach foreclosure. Putting a tidy figure next to that would be the most misleading thing on this page.
Because handing a lease or PPA to a qualified buyer normally costs you nothing directly. It is not free of friction: the buyer has to qualify with the lessor, a transfer fee may apply, and a UCC-1 filing against the panels may have to be released or subordinated first. But if you were selling the house anyway, this is the exit that ends the obligation without a payment, which is why paying a large buyout to clear a contract a buyer would have assumed is the expensive mistake in this category.
The one in your contract, and nothing else. It sits in the payment schedule. The default here is 3 percent, the middle of the 1 to 5 percent band the CFPB documents in PPA contracts, and it is a placeholder rather than a typical figure. If your payment is fixed for the term, enter zero and the comparison still works.
No. Cancelling inside the window, arguing non-performance, complaining to your state attorney general and transferring at sale all cost nothing, and they come first. This calculator is for the decision you face once those are exhausted. Our routes page runs them in order.