Solar Panels in Columbus, OH: 2026 Cost, AEP Ohio Net Metering & Savings

Columbus and the bill

AEP Ohio serves Columbus. It is not FirstEnergy and not AES Ohio. Some suburbs can sit on a different municipal utility. Read the bill. Columbus is an AEP Ohio city with a mid-Ohio resource and a lot of newer roofs. Winter clouds matter more than blizzards. The net-metering credit should be taken from AEP's current rider, which may not include delivery charges. Credits in the Maryland sense are the wrong spreadsheet. The 2025 EIA residential average for Ohio was 16.90 cents per kWh. That statewide figure is what our calculator uses. It is not the AEP Ohio tariff. A rounded solar resource for this metro is about 4.2 peak sun hours a day.

Export credits and any SREC or REC

AEP Ohio sets the export credit for Columbus. AEP Ohio, the FirstEnergy companies (Toledo Edison, Ohio Edison, and The Illuminating Company), Duke Energy Ohio, and AES Ohio do not share a rider. Ohio-sited SRECs can be registered. Prices there have often been lower than in Maryland or Pennsylvania, and they still move, so no dollar figure is printed here. Ask for the current rider name and, if the bid counts credits, the contract that actually pays them.

Roofs, climate, permits, and HOAs

Ranch houses, two-story production homes, and older German Village roofs that are often too small or regulated. Suburban Delaware and Franklin County roofs are the volume candidate. A Columbus permit comes from the local building department, not from AEP Ohio. An HOA can add its own review. This page does not quote a OH permit fee or an approval, because both depend on the address. Name AEP Ohio. Ask which parts of the rate are credited. Price a panel upgrade on older services.

Estimated cost range

Estimated cost range for Columbus, 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. Columbus is about 4.2 peak sun hours a day, against about 4.0 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.