Frequently asked questions

The best roofs face south, south-east or south-west with a pitch of 25–35°. East and west give about 13% less but still pay off. North-facing slopes aren't recommended. Flat roofs are fine — panels sit on tilted frames — but need more area because of the gaps between rows.

Winter output drops to roughly 30–40% of summer levels, because days are shorter and the sun sits lower. Snow on the panels stops production, but on tilted panels it usually melts and slides off within a day or two. What matters is the annual balance: the summer surplus covers the winter shortfall.

For most households here a battery doesn't shorten the payback period yet — it adds a lot to the investment, while the grid already acts as “storage” through surplus crediting. A battery makes sense if you have frequent outages or use a lot of electricity in the evening. The usual advice is to install panels first and add a battery later.

Panels carry a 10–15 year product warranty and a 25–30 year power warranty (typically at least 85% of rated output after 25 years). An inverter lasts 10–15 years, so plan for one replacement over the system's life. Installers usually warrant their workmanship for 2 to 5 years.

For households the price runs roughly 2,050–2,600 KM per kW of installed capacity, covering panels, inverter, mounting, labour and paperwork. A typical 5 kW system therefore lands at 11,000–14,500 KM. Smaller systems cost more per kW because fixed costs are spread over less capacity.

At today's electricity price and full equipment cost, household payback usually runs 12 to 16 years — shorter in Herzegovina and on larger systems, longer in the north and on small ones. Three things shorten it: using more electricity during the day (that output is worth the full retail price), rising electricity prices, and any subsidy you land. Our calculator is deliberately conservative and assumes no subsidy, so real results tend to come out better than shown.

In BiH one kW of installed capacity yields about 1,150 kWh per year in the north and up to 1,400 kWh in Herzegovina, and needs roughly 5 m² of roof. A 5 kW system on a south-facing pitched roof in Mostar produces about 6,900 kWh a year.

Both entities have a customer-producer (prosumer) category that may feed surplus into the grid, but the accounting details, the capacity ceiling and the procedure differ between them and have changed in recent years. The practical rule: system capacity is tied to your connection capacity, and surplus is not credited at the full retail price. Your installer confirms the specific terms for your meter with your distribution utility before installation.

A typical rooftop system for self-consumption needs a notification to the distribution utility, an energy permit or connection approval, a net-metering contract and a bidirectional meter. Serious installers run the whole procedure for you as part of the quote — check that the paperwork is a line item in the quote and not an extra cost later.

Environmental funds and individual cantons, cities and municipalities publish co-financing calls from time to time, usually with a limited budget and a deadline. There is no permanent state subsidy you can count on in advance. That's why the calculator uses the full price with no subsidy — if you land one, your payback gets shorter.

For property owners it's free — both the calculator and the quote request. We take no brokerage fee from you and we don't sell your data. The platform is funded by installers through a monthly subscription and a commission on contracts closed through it.

We pass your quote request only to installers covering your municipality, and only as far as they need it to prepare a quote. Your phone number becomes visible to an installer when you approve it. You can request or delete your data at any time by emailing us.

We verify business registration, ask for references and photos of previous projects, and require a contact person who answers enquiries. Installers who don't respond to requests, or who attract justified complaints, lose access to leads. We don't guarantee the quality of the work — you sign directly with the installer.

No. It's an indicative estimate based on measured irradiation data (PVGIS) and conservative assumptions, without a site visit. A binding price and output figure come from an installer after checking your roof, your grid connection and your wiring.