Richmond (Staten Island) County · New York City
Staten Island, New York home energy guide
Everything we know about how home energy decisions actually play out in Staten Island: Con Edison territory, the New York City climate, a saturated installer market, and ZIPs 10301, 10304, 10306 and others.
Start here
The three questions people actually arrive with
- Staten Island solar costs and production$2.7–$3.6/W cash here. What a 10 kW system costs, makes, and cannot remove from your bill.
- Staten Island backup power guideGenerator vs battery vs solar-plus-storage, decided against how the power actually fails here.
- Getting quotes in Staten IslandA saturated market. Who quotes here and what to expect from them.
- Consolidated Edison rates and rulesFixed charge, all-in rate, Customer Benefit Contribution, and interconnection quirks.
- Richmond (Staten Island) County weather and solarNew York City seasonal production curves, snow load, and what the climate actually costs you.
- Richmond (Staten Island) County overviewStaten Island is the county seat. Utilities, permitting, and the property-tax exemption picture.
At a glance
Staten Island in six numbers
A representative system
10 kW-DC
$27,000–$36,000 cash, producing 12,000–13,400 kWh a year.
All-in power cost
$0.31–$0.40/kWh
Plus a $22 monthly basic service charge.
Filed Con Edison residential electric rates · verified Apr 2026The highest residential all-in cost in the state by a wide margin, and the reason downstate solar pencils on a much shorter horizon than upstate.
Winter production share
14%
December through February, as a share of the annual total.
Derived NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026
Design snow load
20–30 psf
What the racking has to be engineered and stamped for.
Filed ASCE 7 ground snow load data · verified Jan 2026
Population
495,747
Census-designated place in Richmond (Staten Island) County.
Filed U.S. Census 2020 Decennial Census · verified Jan 2026
Permit authority
NYC Department of Buildings (Staten Island borough office)
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 Staten Island
- Staten Island is the most solar-friendly part of New York City: detached single-family homes, radial distribution rather than secondary network, real roof area, and Con Edison's rates. It is the borough where residential rooftop actually pencils most easily.
- South Shore flood zones affect where inverters and batteries can be mounted. Post-Sandy elevation requirements are a genuine design input, not paperwork.
- NYC's own solar property-tax abatement is a separate, city-only incentive with its own application. It is not the state credit and it is not the expired federal one.
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 Staten Island 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 →
Staten Island by the numbers
The inputs this page is built on
Delivery utility
Con Edison
New York City (all five boroughs) and Westchester County.
All-in cost of power
$0.31–$0.40/kWh
Plus a $22 monthly basic service charge that solar cannot remove.
Filed Con Edison residential electric rates · verified Apr 2026The highest residential all-in cost in the state by a wide margin, and the reason downstate solar pencils on a much shorter horizon than upstate.
Specific yield
1,200–1,340 kWh / kW-DC / yr
New York City climate zone. Dec–Feb is about 14% of the annual total.
Modeled NREL PVWatts v8 · verified Jan 2026
Snow and design load
20–40" / yr · 20–30 psf
No lake-effect exposure.
Filed ASCE 7 ground snow load data · verified Jan 2026
Elevation
60 ft
Elevation drives snowfall totals and design load more than latitude does in this part of the state.
Installer market
Saturated
Heavily worked market. The lowest cash prices and the highest financed prices in the state coexist here.
Permitting authority
NYC Department of Buildings (Staten Island borough office)
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
100-200A typical
Mostly 1965-1990 subdivisions. 100A to 150A originals with a fair number of 200A upgrades already done.
Reported monthly bills
$175–$310
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
10301, 10304, 10306, 10308, 10312, 10314
Coordinates 40.58, -74.15. Landmarks: the Verrazzano Bridge; the Staten Island Greenbelt; Great Kills Harbor.
Nearby
Places close enough to compare, and why they differ
- Bayside · 23 miQueens County — different assessor, different permitting.
- Yonkers · 29 miA different climate zone, so different snow load and a different winter production picture.
- Freeport · 30 miFreeport Electric instead of Con Edison — different rate, different program eligibility.
- Levittown · 35 miPSEG-LI instead of Con Edison — different fixed charge and a different Customer Benefit Contribution.
- White Plains · 37 miA different climate zone, so different snow load and a different winter production picture.
- New City · 40 miO&R instead of Con Edison — 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.