Start here: where the money actually goes
Rather read it? What the video says, in words
The same system priced two ways — paid for outright and paid for over time — with the dealer fee that usually sits inside the financed price shown rather than described. Then who receives the export credits, the certificates and the tax credit under each arrangement, since all of that follows from who owns the equipment. The federal homeowner credit ended for expenditures made after 31 December 2025; the commercial credit is what still makes a no-money-down agreement possible, and under one of those you claim nothing yourself.
The same system, two prices
Where the value goes
You own it
Cash, or a solar loan
- The export credits and certificates are yours.
- You carry maintenance, insurance and the inverter after its warranty runs.
- Lowest lifetime cost if you have the capital and the patience.
- The federal homeowner credit is gone — it ended for expenditures made after 31 December 2025.
Someone else owns it
A lease or a PPA
- No capital outlay, and maintenance is theirs.
- The credits, certificates and export value are theirs too.
- You are buying a price for power, not an asset.
- The commercial credit is what makes no-money-down possible — but you claim nothing.
The number that decides it
The escalator is what turns a comfortable year-one payment into an uncomfortable year-25 one — but only the gap against the bill it replaces tells you whether you are ahead. Put both sides in, then switch the utility to no increase at all and see what is left.
Works on anyone’s quote
Two paths. Twenty-five years.
Four numbers off the proposal in front of you, plus the rate you pay now. Nothing here is sent anywhere or stored. The utility side compounds at Helio’s own modelling assumption, stated below and switchable to nothing at all.
Starts on a 11 kW worked example · 12,500 kWh/year
Year one · solar is 28% less per month
$188 solar vs $260 utility — saved $73 a month in the first year on these figures.
Utility 4%
$668 / mo
Solar 1.99%
$301 / mo
Utility year 25
$668
Solar year 25
$301
Kept on your side
$58,167
Twenty-five year totals: $130,143 staying with the utility vs $71,976 on solar. Both are the same 12,500 kWh a year, so this compares the rates and nothing else — fixed charges stay on the bill either way, and a real array degrades slightly as it ages.
11 kW
On the cover of the quote
12,500 kWh
kWh a year, on the production page
25¢ / kWh
What you pay today, before solar
18¢ / kWh
The rate per kWh printed on the quote
That is 1,136 kWh a year per kW of array. Two proposals for the same roof should land close to each other there — if one is well above the other, its production estimate is doing the work its savings figure gets credit for.
Solar payment escalator
What the utility does
4% is what Helio assumes, disclosed rather than buried, and it is roughly what the last twenty years of published prices did in three of our four states. No increase at all is the control — the one this page tells you to ask any installer for, us included. Press it.
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere or recorded. Use it on someone else’s proposal.
Every savings figure on this site assumes your utility keeps raising its rate. So does every other company's. The difference is that you can check ours: we model 4.0% a year for homes, and here is what the four states we work in have actually done, from the federal government's own published prices.
| Residential price growth, per year | CT | MA | NJ | MD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last 5 years (2019–2024) | 5.6% | 6.0% | 4.1% | 6.4% |
| Last 10 years (2014–2024) | 3.8% | 5.4% | 2.1% | 2.7% |
| Since 2005 (2005–2024) | 4.0% | 4.2% | 2.7% | 4.0% |
| What Helio assumes | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.0% |