How to compare solar quotes in Las Vegas in 2026

Put both quotes on the same four numbers: the gross price, the size in kW, the first year production in kWh, and, if either is financed, the financed price next to the cash price. Then divide. Price per watt tells you what the hardware costs, kWh per kW tells you how hard each quote is leaning on its own production estimate, and the gap between the cash and financed prices tells you what the loan costs before interest.

None of that needs a spreadsheet. It needs both quotes to show the same lines, and in Nevada most of those lines are required by law in the contract anyway.

Gross price, net price, and what was subtracted

The gross price is the total. A net price is the total with something taken off, usually an incentive or a tax credit, and it is the number a quote most wants you to remember.

For a system you buy in 2026, the federal household credit is not there to subtract. The IRS page for the Residential Clean Energy Credit states that the credit is not available for any property placed in service after December 31 2025. A 2026 cash or loan purchase quote that shows 30 percent coming back to you on your own return is a question to ask in writing before anything else on the page. What the federal solar tax credit is worth in 2026 covers the rest, and your own return belongs with an independent tax professional.

Nevada already makes the subtraction visible. NRS 598.9813 requires a purchase cover page to show the total cost and the estimated value of any incentives included in calculating it. So compare the two quotes on gross, and treat anything subtracted as a separate claim you can check.

kW is the size, kWh is what you actually buy

These get blurred at kitchen tables, and the difference matters.

• kW (kilowatts) is the size of the system: how much power the panels can make at one moment in full sun. It is what price per watt is built on.
• kWh (kilowatt hours) is energy: what the system makes over time. Your NV Energy bill is in kWh, and a quote's first year production estimate is in kWh.

One more wrinkle on size. Panels are rated in DC watts and inverters in AC watts, and the two numbers differ on the same system. Ask each company which one its kW figure is, and compare DC to DC.

Price per watt, and what a published range looks like

Divide the gross price by the size in watts. A 7,000 watt system at $24,500 is $3.50 per watt. It is the only number that compares two systems of different sizes.

The most careful public data set on installed prices is Berkeley Lab's Tracking the Sun. Its 2024 edition, published in August 2024, found that the middle band of U.S. residential systems installed in 2023, the 20th to the 80th percentile, ran from $3.2 to $5.5 per watt, in 2023 dollars, before incentives. Three things about that figure matter when you hold a quote against it:

• It is national, not Las Vegas. Our cost page carries a Las Vegas marketplace figure, which measures quotes rather than installed systems, and comes out lower.
• It covers host owned systems only. Leases and power purchase agreements are excluded, because their prices are not comparable.
• It likely includes dealer fees on loan financed systems, which the lab says add 5 to 50 percent to the reported price of those systems.

Size moves the number too. The same edition found median prices roughly $1.0 per watt lower for the largest residential systems than for the smallest, because permits, sales and design cost about the same on a small job as a big one. Compare quotes of similar size, or the smaller one loses for a reason that has nothing to do with who is selling it.

kWh per kW: the check on the production estimate

The production estimate comes from the company that wants the job. Raise it and every savings figure on the page improves without a cent coming off the price.

So divide each quote's first year estimate by its size in kW. Two quotes for the same roof should land near each other. If one claims much more per kW than the other, ask in writing which orientation, tilt and shading it assumed, and hold the answer against the PVWatts calculator from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which you can run for your own address.

Then set the estimate against your own year of usage. How to pull your last 12 months of NV Energy usage shows where it lives, and how many solar panels a Las Vegas house needs works a system size back from it. A quote sized well past your use is selling you exports, and net metering in Nevada explains why an exported kilowatt hour is worth less to you than one you use.

In Nevada the estimate is also a contract term. NRS 598.9814 requires a purchase agreement to state the first year production and the annual degradation, and subsection 22 sets out what the company has to do if the system has not met that figure a year after permission to operate: take the actions needed to make it meet the number, including adding or repairing equipment, or give you written notice and then do so if it misses again. A number in the agreement carries that duty. A number on a slide carries nothing.

Cash price, financed price, and the dealer fee in between

A solar loan often costs more than its interest rate suggests, because of a fee the lender charges the installer and builds into the amount you borrow.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported in August 2024 that these hidden fees typically range from 10 to 30 percent of the cash price but can exceed 50 percent. Its own example: a $30,000 project with a $9,000 fee becomes a $39,000 loan. The same report describes solar loans that re-amortize to a higher payment at the 19th month unless a large prepayment is made, frequently 30 percent of the principal, sized to a tax credit refund. With the household credit gone, ask whether any loan you are offered still assumes that prepayment.

Nevada gives you the two numbers you need. If you are financing, or have given the company financial information to get approved, NRS 598.9814 subsection 21 requires the agreement to state both the cash price and the financed price. Put them side by side:

That table is our illustration, not anybody's quote. Quote B looks cheaper per watt until you divide the amount you would actually borrow, and the difference is the fee, before a single month of interest.

The equipment lines, and why "tier one" is not one

A quote that says "premium panels" and "a top inverter" has told you nothing you can compare. NRS 598.9814 subsection 12 requires a purchase agreement to name:

• the make and model of every inverter;
• the make, model and power class of the solar modules;
• the manufacturer of the racking.

Ask for those lines at the quote stage, so you are comparing the same kinds of things. Then ask about warranties component by component, because Nevada's floors in NRS 598.9821 are specific: the installation and the roof penetrations not earlier than 10 years, and on a purchase, collectors and storage units not less than 10 years and inverters not less than 7. Ask whose paper each warranty is, the manufacturer's or the installer's, because the installer's is only as good as the installer.

What a written Nevada solar contract has to show

You do not have to invent a checklist. NRS 598.9813 and 598.9814 already wrote it, and anything a company will not put in writing at the quote stage is something it will have to put in the agreement later. For a purchase, the agreement has to carry:

1. The size, the first year production estimate and the annual degradation.
2. The total cost, and a payment schedule with the due dates.
3. A deposit of no more than $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract price, whichever is less, and nothing more until the utility gives permission to connect.
4. A copy of every warranty, each initialed by you, and whether it transfers to a later owner.
5. The equipment make and model lines above.
6. The cash price and the financed price, if financed.
7. Any performance guarantee, and the basis for any savings estimate you were shown.
8. On the cover page: what the company paid for the lead that brought it to you, whether it keeps a physical office in Nevada, and whether the person presenting the agreement is its employee.
9. The right to cancel until midnight of the third business day after signing, or the tenth if you are 60 or older, and the email address to cancel to.

And whenever an agreement mentions the utility's prices, NRS 598.9819 requires it to say that actual utility rates may go up or down and actual savings may vary. Your rights when you sign a solar contract in Nevada goes through all of it.

If one quote is a lease or a power purchase agreement

A monthly payment is not a price, so compare total cost over the term. A Nevada lease has to state the total payments due under it, and a power purchase agreement has to state the rate of any increase and the date of the first one. At a 2.9 percent yearly increase, the payment in year 25 is about double the payment in year one; how a solar escalator compounds does that arithmetic in full, and prepaid, lease, loan or cash explains who owns what under each.

Make both quotes answer the same questions

1. Give both companies the same 12 months of your own usage.
2. Ask both for a system in the same size band, with the size stated in DC watts.
3. Ask both for gross price, first year kWh, and the assumed orientation, tilt and shading, on one page.
4. Ask both for the equipment lines, the warranty years by component, the deposit and the payment schedule.
5. If either is financed, ask for the cash price and the financed price in writing.
6. Ask both whether anyone has physically surveyed the roof. Nevada requires an on site survey, and a quote drawn from an aerial image is the one most likely to move.

Then take your time. Nobody who deserves the job needs an answer tonight, and if a parent or a neighbour signed something in a hurry at the door, what to do when a parent signed a solar contract has the cancellation clock.

Simmons Solar Electric is Simmons Electric LLC, Nevada contractor licence 0032580A. Check that on the State Contractors Board's own licence search before you read our quote, and do the same for every other company on your table.

We recheck this page quarterly. Last checked 2026-09-28. If a number here has moved, tell us and we will fix it the same week.