Solar Panels in St. Petersburg, FL: 2026 Cost, Duke Energy Florida Net Metering & Savings

St. Petersburg and the bill

Duke Energy Florida serves St. Petersburg. Duke's riders are not TECO's riders, even though the two cities share a bay. Pinellas beaches and the mainland can still differ in wind design even when the utility is the same. St. Petersburg is a long peninsula. Storm surge and wind are not theoretical, and a solar array does not change the flood map. What solar can change is a high cooling bill on a house that already has a sound roof. Older blocks have tree cover that a satellite photo from noon in January will flatter. Walk the yard at 9 a.m. and at 4 p.m. in summer before you believe a shade loss of zero. The 2025 EIA residential average for Florida was 15.21 cents per kWh. That statewide figure is what our calculator uses. It is not the Duke Energy Florida tariff. A rounded solar resource for this metro is about 5.2 peak sun hours a day.

Export credits and any SREC or REC

Duke Energy Florida serves St. Petersburg, and Florida does not have one export credit for the state. Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy Florida, Tampa Electric, and municipal utilities such as OUC, JEA, Lakeland Electric, and the City of Tallahassee each publish their own rider. A neighboring city can be a different company. There is no Florida SREC price to put next to the bill. The proposal has to name the rider. Wind design follows the Florida Building Code and is stricter on exposed coasts than inland. An array is not a storm shelter and it is not an insurance promise.

Roofs, climate, permits, and HOAs

Expect a mix of mid-century houses, newer infill, and townhouses. Some roofs are low-slope. Low-slope needs a layout that still drains and that the fire department can work around. Historic districts, where they apply, can slow a visible street-facing array. That is a design conversation, not an automatic no. A St. Petersburg permit comes from the local building department, not from Duke Energy Florida. An HOA can add its own review. This page does not quote a FL permit fee or an approval, because both depend on the address. Get Duke's current export rider in the proposal by name. Ask about insurance documentation your carrier wants before modules go down. Two bids should use the same wind-design assumption so you are not comparing a coastal attachment to an inland one.

Estimated cost range

Estimated cost range for St. Petersburg, labeled as an estimate and not a local quote: Berkeley Lab's August 2026 update put 2025 host-owned residential systems at about $3.60 per watt before incentives, about $3.00 per watt in the cash subset, and about $4.50 per watt in the loan subset. The median size in that set was 7.7 kW. St. Petersburg is about 5.2 peak sun hours a day, against about 5.2 statewide. The federal residential credit under 26 U.S.C. § 25D ended for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. The IRS treats that expenditure as made when the original installation is completed.

• Cash

  $3.00/W

  $23,100

  Subset classified as cash

• Middle published case

  $3.60/W

  $27,720

  All host-owned systems

• Loan

  $4.50/W

  $34,650

  Financed subset, before interest

Before incentives. A loan price here excludes interest. The federal residential credit under section 25D ended for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. Berkeley Lab, U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage, August 2026 data update.