klepZ ArrayCare

Solar by state

How much sun,
state by state.

States51every one, ranked
Grid cells sampled387up to eight per state
SunniestArizona5.8 kWh/m² a day
Least sunnyAlaska2.5 kWh/m² a day

The array check estimates one system's output. These pages answer what sits underneath it: how much sunlight a place actually receives, and what that is worth per kW installed.

The national spread is narrower than most people expect. Arizona to Alaska is about 2.3×, not the order of magnitude the map in people's heads suggests. Solar works in far more of the country than the sunbelt.

These are state pages rather than city or ZIP pages for a reason that is worth stating plainly. NASA POWER's climatology is a grid of roughly 55 km cells, and two points 40 km apart return byte-identical numbers. A page per ZIP code would be the same page eighteen times over, so each state is sampled at up to eight distinct cells and the page reports the range.

Irradiance is not production. Every per-kW figure here applies the same south-facing orientation and 0.80 performance ratio the array check uses, and a real system's tilt, shading and losses will move it.

Ranked by sun

  1. 1 Arizona 5.8 kWh/m² 1,579 kWh/kW a year
  2. 2 Hawaii 5.6 kWh/m² 1,543 kWh/kW a year
  3. 3 New Mexico 5.6 kWh/m² 1,535 kWh/kW a year
  4. 4 California 5.3 kWh/m² 1,458 kWh/kW a year
  5. 5 Nevada 5.2 kWh/m² 1,437 kWh/kW a year
  6. 6 Utah 5.0 kWh/m² 1,372 kWh/kW a year
  7. 7 Texas 5.0 kWh/m² 1,366 kWh/kW a year
  8. 8 Florida 5.0 kWh/m² 1,359 kWh/kW a year
  9. 9 Colorado 4.9 kWh/m² 1,350 kWh/kW a year
  10. 10 Oklahoma 4.7 kWh/m² 1,279 kWh/kW a year
  11. 11 Louisiana 4.6 kWh/m² 1,274 kWh/kW a year
  12. 12 Georgia 4.6 kWh/m² 1,272 kWh/kW a year
  13. 13 Alabama 4.6 kWh/m² 1,269 kWh/kW a year
  14. 14 South Carolina 4.6 kWh/m² 1,263 kWh/kW a year
  15. 15 Mississippi 4.6 kWh/m² 1,256 kWh/kW a year
  16. 16 Wyoming 4.5 kWh/m² 1,231 kWh/kW a year
  17. 17 Kansas 4.5 kWh/m² 1,224 kWh/kW a year
  18. 18 Arkansas 4.4 kWh/m² 1,216 kWh/kW a year
  19. 19 North Carolina 4.4 kWh/m² 1,209 kWh/kW a year
  20. 20 Nebraska 4.4 kWh/m² 1,209 kWh/kW a year
  21. 21 Idaho 4.3 kWh/m² 1,188 kWh/kW a year
  22. 22 Tennessee 4.3 kWh/m² 1,178 kWh/kW a year
  23. 23 Missouri 4.3 kWh/m² 1,174 kWh/kW a year
  24. 24 Virginia 4.2 kWh/m² 1,159 kWh/kW a year
  25. 25 South Dakota 4.2 kWh/m² 1,147 kWh/kW a year
  26. 26 Kentucky 4.2 kWh/m² 1,140 kWh/kW a year
  27. 27 Oregon 4.1 kWh/m² 1,136 kWh/kW a year
  28. 28 District of Columbia 4.1 kWh/m² 1,131 kWh/kW a year
  29. 29 Delaware 4.1 kWh/m² 1,129 kWh/kW a year
  30. 30 Maryland 4.1 kWh/m² 1,124 kWh/kW a year
  31. 31 Illinois 4.1 kWh/m² 1,121 kWh/kW a year
  32. 32 Iowa 4.1 kWh/m² 1,115 kWh/kW a year
  33. 33 Montana 4.0 kWh/m² 1,095 kWh/kW a year
  34. 34 New Jersey 4.0 kWh/m² 1,096 kWh/kW a year
  35. 35 Rhode Island 4.0 kWh/m² 1,096 kWh/kW a year
  36. 36 Indiana 4.0 kWh/m² 1,093 kWh/kW a year
  37. 37 North Dakota 4.0 kWh/m² 1,090 kWh/kW a year
  38. 38 West Virginia 3.9 kWh/m² 1,074 kWh/kW a year
  39. 39 Connecticut 3.9 kWh/m² 1,071 kWh/kW a year
  40. 40 Ohio 3.8 kWh/m² 1,054 kWh/kW a year
  41. 41 Massachusetts 3.8 kWh/m² 1,053 kWh/kW a year
  42. 42 Minnesota 3.8 kWh/m² 1,048 kWh/kW a year
  43. 43 Pennsylvania 3.8 kWh/m² 1,038 kWh/kW a year
  44. 44 Wisconsin 3.8 kWh/m² 1,030 kWh/kW a year
  45. 45 New Hampshire 3.7 kWh/m² 1,021 kWh/kW a year
  46. 46 New York 3.7 kWh/m² 1,011 kWh/kW a year
  47. 47 Washington 3.7 kWh/m² 1,010 kWh/kW a year
  48. 48 Maine 3.6 kWh/m² 1,003 kWh/kW a year
  49. 49 Michigan 3.6 kWh/m² 998 kWh/kW a year
  50. 50 Vermont 3.6 kWh/m² 979 kWh/kW a year
  51. 51 Alaska 2.5 kWh/m² 680 kWh/kW a year

Ranked on sampled irradiance alone. It says nothing about whether solar pays in a state — electricity prices, net-metering rules and incentives routinely matter more.

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