Solar Battery Payback Calculator Saudi Arabia — Storage Under Net Billing
Saudi Arabia is the market where storage arbitrage genuinely exists: an exported unit earns a reported 7 halalas while the unit you buy back costs 18 halalas on the lower slab and 30 on the upper one. Every kWh you move from export to evening use is worth the difference.
What is missing is the other half of the sum — the price. Our Saudi index prices gel batteries by amp-hour and portable power stations by unit, not fixed home lithium by kWh, and deriving a SAR/kWh from those would be arithmetic on the wrong product. So the cost field is blank and the daily saving is calculated the moment you type the price you were quoted.
Every field below is editable, and every default carries its source and date on the field itself — the defaults are a starting point, not a claim about your bill. We sell no hardware and take no installer commission; see how we verify.
7 fields on this page ship blank, on purpose
No source we can cite publishes these figures for Saudi Arabia, so the fields start empty rather than pre-filled with something plausible. The calculator prints no result until you supply your own.
- Units per month per installed kW — No Saudi irradiance or yield source we could reach publishes a figure we are willing to print, so this ships empty rather than guessed — the same call the Saudi payback guide made when it published break-even in kilowatt-hours instead of years. Ask your installer for the annual production estimate and divide by 12 and by the system kW.
- Installed cost per kW — low (SAR) — Installed rooftop pricing in Saudi Arabia is quote-only: verified checks of the major suppliers found no published prices at all. Type the per-kW figure from your own written quote.
- Installed cost per kW — high (SAR) — Same reason as the low figure: no Saudi supplier we verified publishes an installed price.
- Battery cost (SAR per kWh) — Our Saudi index prices gel batteries by amp-hour and portable power stations by unit, not fixed home storage by kWh — see /sa/prices/batteries for the dated rows. Deriving a SAR/kWh for home lithium from those would be arithmetic on the wrong product, so this stays blank.
- Battery modules added to a new system (SAR per kWh) — Same reason as the battery cost above — no Saudi source we verified prices fixed home storage by kWh.
- Price of one panel (SAR) — Saudi panel listings quote a per-watt rate that is only comparable within a module class — our own index has a legacy 270W poly at SAR 0.93/W sitting UNDER current 630–660W modules at 1.19–1.44 SAR/W. A single default would flatten exactly the distinction that matters. See /sa/prices/solar-panels and type the price you were quoted.
- Usable kWh per panel per day — Follows from the yield figure above, which we could not source for Saudi Arabia. Use your installer’s estimate.
No result yet — the battery price, your tariff or the export credit has no published figure for this market, so there is nothing to calculate from until you type your own. That is deliberate: a number we invented would look exactly like a number we verified.
How this calculator works — the actual arithmetic
- Daily saving = battery kWh × 0.8 usable × (your import tariff − the export credit). At 18 halalas import and a reported 7 halalas export, that bracket is 11 halalas; on the upper slab it is 23.
- Payback = battery cost ÷ (daily saving × 365).
- The battery price has no Saudi default: our index prices gel batteries by amp-hour and power stations by unit, not fixed home lithium by kWh. See the Saudi battery guide for the per-usable-kWh arithmetic.
- The 0.8 depth-of-discharge assumption is fixed and gel chemistry will not deliver it.
Why there is no worked example on this page
The saving side works with no input from you: at the reported rates, each usable kWh you shift is worth 11 halalas on the lower slab and 23 on the upper one. A 10 kWh battery at 80% depth of discharge shifts 8 kWh a day, so roughly SAR 0.88 to SAR 1.84 a day depending on which slab you are displacing.
Divide your quoted battery price by that daily figure and you have the payback in days. Our Saudi battery price guide explains why the dearer lithium unit is often the cheaper energy once you convert to SAR per usable kWh.
Sources for this market’s defaults
- SERA (Saudi Electricity Regulatory Authority) — consumption tariff categories. The page exists; it was NOT reachable from our research session, which is why the Saudi tariff is labelled corroborated rather than primary. accessed 2026-08-05
- GlobalPetrolPrices — Saudi household electricity SAR 0.200/kWh all-in (December 2025), the cross-check that reconstructs from 18 halalas + meter fee + 15% VAT accessed 2026-08-05
- pv magazine — Saudi rooftop PV provisions: net billing, 7 halalas/kWh residential and 5 halalas/kWh non-residential export credit accessed 2026-08-05
- Aramco — retail fuels, Saudi Arabia pump prices (Gasoline 91 SAR 2.18/litre under the cap). Not reachable at time of writing; corroborated across independent trackers. accessed 2026-08-05
What this calculator does not know
- The export credit is reported, not primary-verified: 7 halalas residential, 5 non-residential, consistently reported and not confirmed against the regulator’s own framework text.
- Which slab you are displacing changes the answer by a factor of two. Above 6,000 kWh a month the case for storage is far stronger.
- 80% depth of discharge is baked in and not editable, and gel chemistry will not deliver it.
Frequently asked
Is a solar battery worth it in Saudi Arabia?
It is the Gulf market where the arithmetic can work, because exports earn a reported 7 halalas while imports cost 18 or 30. Every usable kWh you shift from export to evening use is worth 11 halalas on the lower slab and 23 on the upper one. Whether that beats the battery price depends on a quote we cannot see.
What is the export credit for solar in Saudi Arabia?
Multiple independent sources consistently report 7 halalas per kWh for residential customers and 5 halalas for non-residential under the small-scale solar framework. We were not able to confirm this against the regulator’s own framework text, so it is published as corroborated rather than primary.
How much does a solar battery cost in Saudi Arabia?
We do not publish a SAR-per-kWh default for fixed home storage, because our Saudi index carries gel batteries priced by amp-hour and portable power stations priced by unit. Deriving a home-lithium rate from those would be arithmetic on the wrong product.
Guides that explain the numbers
Products this applies to
Real SAR rows, with the module class attached — per-watt rates only compare within one.
Saudi battery prices (dated survey)Saudi inverter prices (dated survey)