What off-grid costs this week
Propane, heating oil, gasoline, and diesel from the government's weekly survey, picked for your state, with where they were a year ago. Below that, what batteries, panels, inverters, generators, stoves, tanks, and wells are actually going for this month, with the listings they came from. Refreshed weekly and monthly.
Fuel prices for Vermont
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly retail price surveys (residential propane and heating oil from the State Heating Oil and Propane Program, October to March; gasoline and diesel weekly, all year). Where EIA does not survey a state, the nearest region is shown. Plug the propane number into the propane calculator or the planner to see what your winter costs.
What the gear costs this month
Ranges compiled monthly from manufacturer, retailer, and government sources (low, typical, high), with the source behind each number; anything that is not a direct listing is labeled reference. Hardware only unless the row says installed. Use the typical column to sanity-check a quote; the quote review does that math for you.
| Item | Low | Typical | High | Unit | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Server-rack LiFePO4 battery, hardware only -1% since 2026-08 | $234 | $285 | $397 | $/kWh | Mainstream 48 V 5.12 kWh rack units cluster near 280 to 290 dollars per kWh (EG4 LifePower4 V2 at 1470.99 and Pytes V5 at 1450 both work out to roughly 283 to 287). SOK pulls the low down near 234 per kWh and the UL-listed EG4 LL-S at 2032.77 sets the high near 397, so certification level and brand tier are what move the number. 5 sources, 2026-10
|
| 12 V LiFePO4 drop-in battery (100 Ah class), hardware only 0% since 2026-08 | $236 | $490 | $741 | $/kWh | Direct import brands are far cheaper per kWh than US-assembled ones: LiTime 12V 100Ah at 302.39 is about 236 per kWh while Battle Born runs 624 to 741 per kWh. Heating, Bluetooth and brand warranty are what move the price, not capacity. 5 sources, 2026-10
|
| Solar panels, hardware only (pallet and single-panel retail) -16% since 2026-08 | $0.33 | $0.38 | $0.44 | $/W | Pallet buying and single-panel retail are much closer together than they used to be: Signature Solar sells a single Seraphim 450W at 162 dollars (0.36 per watt) while its 36 panel pallet works out to 0.35. The spread is driven mostly by brand and bifacial N-type versus plain mono PERC, not by order size. 5 sources, 2026-10
|
| Hybrid / off-grid inverter-charger, hardware only +18% since 2026-08 | $0.24 | $0.33 | $0.42 | $/W | The EG4 6000XP is the cheapest watt on the market at about 0.24 to 0.25 per watt, while Sol-Ark 15K dealer pricing ranges from 0.33 to 0.42 per watt depending on discount. Victron MultiPlus-II 48/5000 lands in the middle near 0.36 per continuous watt using 4000 W continuous output. 5 sources, 2026-10
|
| Portable dual-fuel generator | - | - | - | $/W | Set to null because the search budget for this run was exhausted before I could confirm two live retailer prices with visible dollar amounts. The Home Depot listings I reached showed model numbers but no readable current price, so I have no verified data points. |
| EPA-certified wood stove, 40,000 to 80,000 BTU -100% since 2026-08 | - | - | - | $ each | Set to null because no searches were completed for this benchmark before the search budget ran out. No verified retailer prices were seen. |
| 500-gallon propane tank, installed (owned) | - | - | - | $ each | Set to null because no searches were completed for this benchmark before the search budget ran out. Installed tank pricing also usually requires a dealer quote rather than a public listing. |
| Drilled well, per foot, US average | - | - | - | $/ft | Set to null because no searches were completed for this benchmark before the search budget ran out. Per foot drilling costs would need state agency or driller sources, which I did not reach. |
How to read it: the typical column is where most listings cluster; low is usually a sale, a house brand, or pallet pricing; high is a premium brand or small quantity. A quote far outside the range deserves a reason. This is a price reference, not a recommendation; the gear page has the products this site actually vouches for.
How this index is built
Every range on this page is derived from dated observations rather than asserted. A price observation records an amount, a seller, whether it was a listing price or a published reference price, the date it was seen, and the source. The monthly low, typical, and high figures come out of those observations, which means the evidence behind any range can be retrieved rather than taken on trust.
Nothing is overwritten. The observation file grows, so the index is a history as well as a snapshot, and it is published in full on the open data page for anybody who wants to analyze it themselves.
Reading a range properly
The typical column is where most listings cluster and is the number to plan against. The low column is usually a sale, a house brand, a pallet quantity, or a clearance, and it is real but not reliably repeatable. The high column is a premium brand, a small quantity, or a specialist retailer, and it is also real.
A quote sitting outside the range is not automatically wrong. It deserves a reason, and asking for one is a reasonable thing to do. Frequently the reason is legitimate: a different specification, a longer warranty, delivery to a difficult address, or an installer who will still be answering the phone in five years.
Where a price is quoted per unit, the ratio matters more than the total. Dollars per kilowatt-hour of usable storage, per watt of array, and per continuous watt of inverter are the figures that survive differences in size, and the spec tables carry them alongside the published specifications.
What actually moves these numbers
Fuel prices move seasonally and regionally, and the regional spread is frequently larger than the seasonal one. Propane and heating oil in particular vary by delivery distance and by how competitive the local market is, which is why a state-level figure is a starting point rather than an answer for a remote address.
Equipment prices move with supply chains, tariffs, and the technology cycle. Lithium storage has fallen substantially over recent years while conventional components have not, which is why the arithmetic that made lead acid the default for decades no longer holds in most new builds.
Installed prices move with labor availability more than with equipment cost. In rural markets a shortage of trades can matter more than any component price, and travel time is a real cost that appears in every rural quote whether or not it is itemised.
Using it before you buy
Work out what you actually need first, because a good price on the wrong component is not a saving. The system planner sizes array, controller, battery, and inverter against each other from your own load list and location, and the individual calculators show their working.
Then use this page to sanity-check a quote rather than to shop by price alone. The quote review tool reads an installation quote and tells you what is in it, what is missing, and what to ask before signing, which is usually where the money is rather than in the headline figure.
And remember what a price index cannot tell you: whether an installer will service what they sell, whether a manufacturer honors a warranty without argument, and whether a component will still have parts available in ten years. Those decide as much of the real cost as the purchase price does.
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