The Internet offers many solar energy calculators which measure the projected payback from a solar panel (photovoltaic) installation. However, regardless of how simple or complex the calculators are, all solar calculators should provide at least a dollar value of savings for your area in terms of kilowatts (KW) produced by your solar installation as well as a rough estimate of how fast you will recoup your investment over time by getting electricity for free from the sun instead of paying your utility.

SolarTradingPost.com offers a straightforward calculator wizard for residential homes (or buildings with minor energy consumption). Findsolar.com's solar calculator asks for more detail and has a cool "your solar rating" graphic which gauges how much sun you're getting for the county and state that you live in. Findsolar.com asks whether they are calculating for residential or commercial usage. HomeEnergySaver is sponsored by the Department of Energy and has an excellent site with detailed information on calculating energy usage for buildings. Although it is geared towards residential homes, the calculator should work for commercial properties as well.

Kyocera offers an excellent solar installation payback calculator which not only is extremely detailed, but also takes into consideration state by state cash and tax incentives offered by organizations and governmental agencies.

In all cases, it's extremely important to make sure you've done your homework understanding your building(s) baseline energy efficiency. Installing a PV system on a building with poor insulation, inefficient physical plant, leaky building envelope (old windows, etc.).. is throwing good money away. Make sure your building is as efficient as possible before investing in solar.

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