What would a panel on your balcony actually save?
Seven questions, about a minute. At the end you get a dollar figure a year, the working behind it, and one specific kit — or, if your place isn't suited to this, a straight answer saying so.
We ask about your balcony rather than your roof, because if you had a roof you wouldn't be here.
Question 1 of 7
14%
Where would it go?
Why we ask: The surface it sits on decides how it can be angled, and angle is worth more than an extra panel.
What this model assumes
- Sunlight: NREL PVWatts figures for Orange County, roughly 1,586 kWh per kilowatt of panel per year at optimal tilt. Other California regions vary by about ±10 percent.
- Direction: south 1.00, west 0.83, east 0.80, north 0.35. These are annual production ratios at a fixed vertical or low tilt.
- Mounting: optimally tilted 1.00, flat 0.88, vertical on a railing 0.62.
- Shade: wide open 1.00, partly blocked 0.75, mostly blocked 0.45.
- Share used at home: someone home most days 0.75; sometimes 0.62; rarely 0.45; business 0.90. Adjusted slightly by bill size, capped at 0.92.
- Value of a kilowatt-hour: 33.2 cents, SCE's average residential rate including the California Climate Credit as of 1 June 2026. SDG&E and PG&E customers get their own figure on the utility pages.
- Value of exported power: zero. SB 868 does not provide export compensation.
- Degradation: we ignore it in year one; panels typically lose about 0.5 percent of output a year.
- What we don't model: weather in any particular year, dust on the panel, inverter clipping on the brightest days, or a rate change.