Onondaga County · Central New York
Syracuse, New York home energy guide
Everything we know about how home energy decisions actually play out in Syracuse: National Grid territory, the Finger Lakes climate, a active installer market, and ZIPs 13202, 13203, 13204 and others.
Start here
The three questions people actually arrive with
- Syracuse solar costs and production$2.8–$3.7/W cash here. What a 8 kW system costs, makes, and cannot remove from your bill.
- Syracuse backup power guideGenerator vs battery vs solar-plus-storage, decided against how the power actually fails here.
- Getting quotes in SyracuseA active market. Who quotes here and what to expect from them.
- National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) rates and rulesFixed charge, all-in rate, Customer Benefit Contribution, and interconnection quirks.
- Onondaga County weather and solarFinger Lakes seasonal production curves, snow load, and what the climate actually costs you.
- Onondaga County overviewSyracuse is the county seat. Utilities, permitting, and the property-tax exemption picture.
At a glance
Syracuse in six numbers
A representative system
8 kW-DC
$22,400–$29,600 cash, producing 8,640–9,760 kWh a year.
All-in power cost
$0.19–$0.26/kWh
Plus a $21 monthly basic service charge.
Filed National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) residential rates · verified Apr 2026Range spans the seasonal swing in default supply, which National Grid resets every month.
Winter production share
10%
December through February, as a share of the annual total.
Derived NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026
Design snow load
50–70 psf
What the racking has to be engineered and stamped for.
Filed ASCE 7 ground snow load data · verified Jan 2026
Population
148,620
City in Onondaga County.
Filed U.S. Census 2020 Decennial Census · verified Jan 2026
Permit authority
City of Syracuse Division of Code Enforcement
Permits are issued by your town, city, or village — not the county. Timelines and fees vary block to block across a single county.
Local reality
What actually matters in Syracuse
- Syracuse is the snowiest large city in the United States, averaging around 125 inches a year — roughly 30% more than Buffalo. Any production model that treats upstate New York as one climate is wrong here by a meaningful margin in December and January.
- Older urban housing stock with small original services. Panel work is often the gating item.
- Solvay and Skaneateles run municipal electric systems in the same county, with completely different rules from National Grid's.
The 30% federal solar tax credit is gone for direct purchases.
Section 25D — the Residential Clean Energy Credit — terminated for expenditures after December 31, 2025 under Public Law 119-21. If you did not have a system installed and operational by the end of 2025, it is not available to you. Signing a contract or paying a deposit in 2025 was not enough.
Third-party ownership (a lease or a PPA) can still access the 48E business credit through the statutory window, but that credit is claimed by the system owner, not by you. Whether any of it reaches your monthly payment is a question for the contract, not the brochure.
New York's own credit is unaffected: Form IT-255 still gives 25% of qualified solar equipment cost, capped at $5,000 lifetime, with a five-year carryforward.
If a proposal for a Syracuse address still shows a 30% federal credit, ask the salesperson to point you to the IRS guidance that allows it. There is not any. Current program status →
Syracuse by the numbers
The inputs this page is built on
Delivery utility
National Grid
The largest upstate footprint: Buffalo and most of Erie County, Niagara County outside the municipals, Syracuse and Central New York, the Mohawk Valley, the Capital Region, and the North Country.
All-in cost of power
$0.19–$0.26/kWh
Plus a $21 monthly basic service charge that solar cannot remove.
Filed National Grid (Niagara Mohawk) residential rates · verified Apr 2026Range spans the seasonal swing in default supply, which National Grid resets every month.
Specific yield
1,080–1,220 kWh / kW-DC / yr
Finger Lakes climate zone. Dec–Feb is about 10% of the annual total.
Modeled NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026
Snow and design load
70–130" / yr · 50–70 psf
Moderate lake-effect exposure (Lake Ontario, with local enhancement off the Finger Lakes themselves).
Filed ASCE 7 ground snow load data · verified Jan 2026
Elevation
400 ft
Elevation drives snowfall totals and design load more than latitude does in this part of the state.
Installer market
Active
Enough competition that quotes are genuinely comparable and price spread is meaningful information.
Permitting authority
City of Syracuse Division of Code Enforcement
Permits are issued by your town, city, or village — not the county. Timelines and fees vary block to block across a single county. The NYS Unified Solar Permit is broadly used in this area.
Housing stock
60-100A typical
Heavy pre-1940 stock: doubles, bungalows, and four-squares with knob-and-tube legacies and services that were never sized for modern load.
Reported monthly bills
$110–$200
Range that readers on this route have shared with us. Yours depends on usage, rate, and whether an alternative supplier is on your bill.
ZIP codes covered
13202, 13203, 13204, 13205, 13206, 13207, 13208, 13210, 13224
Coordinates 43.05, -76.15. Landmarks: Onondaga Lake; Syracuse University's hill; the Erie Canal Museum.
Nearby
Places close enough to compare, and why they differ
- Cicero · 9 mi
- Skaneateles · 16 miVillage of Skaneateles Electric Department instead of National Grid — different rate, different program eligibility.
- Auburn · 23 miNYSEG instead of National Grid — different fixed charge and a different Customer Benefit Contribution.
- Fulton · 23 miA different climate zone, so different snow load and a different winter production picture.
- Oneida · 25 miA different climate zone, so different snow load and a different winter production picture.
- Cortland · 31 miNYSEG instead of National Grid — different fixed charge and a different Customer Benefit Contribution.
How this page is built
This is a generated page: the structure is shared across locations, the numbers are not. Every figure comes from the source cited beside it, with the date we last checked it. Nothing here is a quote, an appraisal, or tax advice, and none of it is specific to your roof.
Rates and incentive programs change. We re-verify utility tariffs and NYSERDA program status on a rolling schedule and stamp the date on each number rather than on the page, so you can see which specific figures are fresh. Full methodology · Program status tracker · About the Local Energy Playbook
Page content last reviewed April 2026.