A data site, run by people who install solar.

Most Virginia solar information online is either a national lead-generation site with a Virginia page, or a utility explaining why its own rate increase is reasonable. GoSolarVA is a third thing: the public numbers, assembled for one state, kept current by scripts rather than by someone remembering to update a blog post.

Who

GoSolarVA is built and operated by Virtue Solar, a residential solar installer based in Charlottesville, Virginia that has worked across the state since 2015. That is the conflict of interest, stated plainly. It is also why the site exists: the installer's team got tired of correcting stale incentive pages and rate tables in sales conversations and decided to build the reference they wished existed.

What's here

• A rate tracker for Virginia and the United States, monthly since 2010, annual since 1990, plus 19 utility pages with ten-year histories.
• Sun data for 9 Virginia places from NREL's PVWatts, paired with the local utility's price.
• A savings calculator whose every assumption is on the methodology page and adjustable on the page.
• Short guides that lean on the data rather than on adjectives.

How it stays current

A scheduled job checks the U.S. Energy Information Administration for new data every week and rebuilds the site when something changed. Sun data comes from a physics model on typical-year weather and does not go stale. The few facts that do go stale (tax credits, net-metering rules) are kept in one place, dated, and linked out to a page that is maintained by hand.

What we don't do

• Sell your information. A quote request goes to Virtue Solar and nowhere else.
• Publish numbers we cannot source. If it is on the site, it is on the methodology page.
• Hide the sales pitch. The quote buttons are obvious and the calculator works without touching them.

Reuse the data

The underlying data is U.S. government work and free to use. Our compilation and charts may be reused with a link to gosolarva.com. Journalists and researchers who want the JSON behind a page can ask for it here.

Corrections

Found something wrong? Use the contact form. Pointing to the source that contradicts us gets it fixed fastest.