Early in 2023, I received a reminder than our long-term, fixed-price electricity contract term ended in the spring. I started looking at replacement contract options, and soon learned that we’d be paying double our old rate under any new 3 or 5 year contract. Yikes!

We’d considered photovoltaics (i.e. solar at home) more than a decade earlier. At the time, the economics didn’t work for us. Faced with much higher electricity prices, we decided to take another look. Almost exactly 6 months later, our 14.58 kW DC / 11.4 kW AC residential solar array started exporting to the grid!

Key Facts

With an average of 2,396 hours of sunlight each year, Calgary is an ideal city for the use of solar at home. Our home is in west Calgary, with a larger-than-average roof area facing almost directly south. With the jump in electricity prices to about $0.13/kWh (plus transmission, distribution and admin fees), various online estimators predicted a 12-15 year simple payout for our location. The Canada Greener Homes Grant (no longer available) and Canada Greener Homes Loan (0% interest for 10 years for up to $40,000 of qualifying “green” expenditures, still available) also factored into our decision to solicit proposals.

Timeline

In early 2023, everything we read online warned that the pre-audit required to qualify for the Greener Homes financial supports was likely to slow the process. So even before we finished researching which installers we wanted to bid on installation, we scheduled our pre-project EnerGuide energy efficiency home evaluation. Inspection date: Feb 13, 2023.

By mid-February, we’d contacted three local installers that we selected based on personal recommendations and on-line reviews.

By the end of February, we had three quotes. Two were conditional. One was firm, although we had to pay a $200 site visit fee for the drone flyover and electrical panel assessment, creditable against the contract price if we opted for that firm.

Short Pause

Right around that time, we got a call from a Calgary Hyundai dealership. We’d joined the wait list for a certain spec Ioniq 5 EV, expecting to hear back in about 2 years. They phoned because they unexpectedly had a lower spec Ioniq 5 available – did we want it? In the end, the chance to upsize our solar array to accommodate charging an Ioniq 5 to run 15,000 km/yr was a major factor in our decision to settle for what was available.

Updated Quote

By then, we’d pretty much decided to go with SkyFire Energy. So we asked them to re-quote for a larger system PLUS an at-home EV charging station (wallbox). We had the revised quote March 1 and signed the contract March 4.

Behind the Scenes

Lots of stuff happened behind the scenes at Skyfire’s Calgary office over the next 4 months:

• ordering/allocating the various components of our system;
• structural engineering;
• getting the proposed system through the Enmax approval process;
• slotting us into the installation schedule.

The major work on our part? Providing copies of the pink slip and insurance, to prove that we had the EV in hand. Enmax (and other distributors) basically limit the size of sdolar at home systems to not more than 100% of your previous year’s electricity consumption plus any discrete / provable changes (such as the EV). There’s a bit of wiggle room to accommodate panel and inverter specifications. But at the time of our install, Enmax had a 105% hard cap.

Installation

Installation of the solar array and inverter started June 26. The installation crew finished June 29.It was REALLY hot and we have a black rubber roof. So the crew appreciated all our offers of water bottle refills and fruit juice freezies!

Installation of the wallbox EV charger took a little longer, as it was the first EV charger they’d installed. They were keen to do it, though, because they were in the early stages of establishing a business relationship with Wallbox. We also had them back a few times in August and September, to tweak the breaker box clamps that feed information to the SolarEdge monitoring software until it finally lined up with what our bidirectional meter.

Dotting the Is, Crossing the Ts

Once the installation was complete, a few more essential steps were required:

• Post-installation energy audit (July 11)
• City electrical inspection (July 13)
• Canada Greener Homes loan final approval (July 27)
• Enmax setting us up with microgenerator status (July 27)

Only then did our system start exporting electricity into the grid for credits towards our utility bill.

Solar Club

Unique to Alberta (as far as I know), Solar Club is is offered by electricity and natural gas providers that are members of UTILITYnet. The best way I’ve figured out how to describe Solar Club is that it offers microgenerators “buy low, sell high” electricity prices. In the summer months, when your home solar array generally produces more electricity than you consume, Solar Club credits your account with the high price for electricity (currently $0.30/kWh). In the winter months, when you’re importing more electricity than you produce, you drawdown your credit balance/pay the Solar Club the low price (currently $0.125/kWh).

The big rate differential requires paying some attention. As the microgenerator, you have the right to change between HI and LO rates once per billing cycle. For us, that basically means switching to the LO rate on or about our October billing date. And then switching back to the HI rate on or about our March billing date. In our first full year of operation, Solar Club generated an extra $1,500 in credits against our utility bills (including natural gas) vs staying with ATCO (or pre-solar installation utility provider).

We opted to contract with Spot Power, one of many members of UTILITYnet. There are minor differences between them, but pretty much all of them “green” half your imported electricity, give you a 2% cash back on total imported electricity once/year and support local charities. We pay a bit more for natural gas with Spot Power than we would have with ATCO. But it’s administratively simpler and our microgeneration credits offset our natural gas bill several months of the year. As a result, we pay out of pocket for electricity and natural gas only from mid-fall through early spring.

Carbon Offsets

Selling your carbon offsets is another option for accelerating the payback for a home solar array in Alberta. But only if you don’t (accidentally?) sign away your carbon offsets by taking a municipal grant that gives the municipality your carbon credits (e.g. Edmonton) or sign your carbon credits over to your installer (apparently in the fine print of some contracts).

Background

As of the date of writing, Alberta’s provincial government legally requires large industrial polluters to reduce their emissions; however, for some industries, achieving this target is challenging due to the nature of their operations. This is where carbon offset credits come in.​

Companies that cannot reduce their own emissions can purchase carbon offset credits to meet their obligations.  As such, a carbon market has developed in Alberta, with tens of millions of carbon offset credits created and sold since the market was established.

Carbon offset aggregators aggregate carbon offset credits from microgenerators, sell them into Alberta’s carbon market, take a cut and return the rest of the income to the system owners, once per year. There’s a ten year limit on doing this, maybe because of the production decline curve inherent in solar production due to solar panel degradation?

Options

When we were granted microgenerator status in August 2023, there were two carbon offset aggregators we could choose from. As of the date of writing, there are at least four. The major differences between them seem to be how much of a commission they take and whether the data collection is automated or manual (ie you have to gather the information). Other differences in terms and conditions include notice requirements if you list your home for sale, etc.

Dissonance?

Of course, selling your carbon offsets means you can’t really say you’re using “green” electricity in your home. You’ve sold your “greenness” and are effectively using the same mix of electricity generation that everyone else is using (in Alberta this is a mix of natural gas, hydro, solar and wind). Installing solar is then entirely a matter of economics.

I pondered this for a while. Eventually, we came around to signing with a carbon offset aggregator for two reasons: 1) you can only sell your carbon offsets for the first 10 years, so that gives us an expected additional 15 years of “green” electricity; and 2) our installer purchases carbon credits to offset the CO2 footprint of manufacturing all solar panels they install, so our system was more carbon-neutral than many others, to begin with.

Economic Impact

The carbon offset aggregator we signed with estimates we’ll net $6,000 – $8,000 over our 10 year contract. So we expect carbon offsets to payback 15-20% of our total system cost over the first 10 years of installation. This is backend loaded, due to the forward price curve for carbon credits in Alberta ($65/tonne in 2023, increasing by $15/tonne per year until capping out at $170/tonne in 2030 and future years).

Adding this to the 12-15 year simple payout estimated by several online tools, we hope to achieve full payout well before 10 years – the term of our 0% interest, Canada Greener Homes Loan.

Year 1 Payback

Our installer estimated our Year 1 savings, with Solar Club (i.e. HI / LO electricity pricing), of $2,670. Our actual savings Year 1 savings = $4,177. So after one year, we’ve achieved 11.6% payback on our total system cost (net of the Canada Greener Homes Grant).

Why so much higher than estimated? I don’t have access to the installer’s model, so can’t say with 100% certainty, but maybe they are a bit conservative in their estimates, so as to minimize customer complaints down the road.

More significantly, it looks like our microgen exports were higher than expected. We’ve become more mindful of how much electricity we’re using and when we’re using it. It also helps that one of our young adults moved out and we turned off the mini-fridge in the basement! Finally, while our total EV mileage is around 15,000 km / year, we have access to another low-cost charger, so we don’t do all of our charging at this location.

FYI, I calculate actual savings each month as follows: microgen credits + avoided variable transmission costs (for self-consumed electricity generation). In the HI price months, I deduct from this the higher price we pay on any electricity imported from the grid vs the 5-year price we would have re-contracted with our old utility provider. So far, we haven’t received any Carbon Offset payments (first payment expected mid-2025). I’ll add those payments to the payback calculation next year.

​Why SkyFire Energy?

Sales Phase

For those thinking about installing solar in Alberta, here are they main reasons we chose SkyFire Energy as our installer:

• SkyFire came in with the highest quote BUT they were the only company to do a site visit and provide a FIRM quote. We had to pay a $200 fee for the site visit, which was credited against the contract price. The site visit included a drone assessment of the roof (including sun/shade information) and an assessment of our electrical panel.
• SkyFire buys carbon offsets so as to provide “carbon neutral” solar panels.
• They were the only installer to recommend a string inverter, based on their extensive experience installing / servicing micro-inverter arrays for one of Calgary’s largest home builders.
• They had the longest track record of the three AND they are a B Corp (i.e. a Beneficial Corporation, a business that acts in ways that benefit society as a whole – that the purpose of a company is not just profits, but also social and environmental good.
• Colin, our sales rep, was super patient and very knowledgeable. He also facilitated access to other experts within SkyFire (for example, we had questions about wind lift by placing solar panels on the roof covering our back deck).
• They were the most transparent about the limitations of our existing electrical panel, and priced a subpanel into the firm quote.

Post-Installation Service

Everything they told us during the sales process about post-installation service was legit. They came back more than once to adjust the clamps on our electrical panel until the numbers coming out of the SolarEdge monitoring software lined up with the import / export numbers on our bidirectional power meter.

And when our string inverter failed just before Christmas 2023, they were on site on January 2 with a new inverter, no questions asked, no warranty hassles – they took care of everything.

Interestingly, during the sales process, the other two installers only quoted micro-inverters, on the basis that if one fails, the rest of your array will still produce electricity. If we were going “off grid,” this would have been important. But since we’re still connected to the grid, the bigger consideration for us was the labour cost we’d incur for replacing a micro-inverter, should one fail. NB – only the actual micro-inverter is covered by warranty, not the cost to remove the associated solar panel(s) to gain access and to actually replace the microinverter.

As it was, the timing of the string inverter failure didn’t have much impact on our production, thanks to snow cover and it being the middle of winter. If we’d noticed the failure Friday morning, rather than Friday afternoon, SkyFire would have been there same day to replace the inverter.

Other Considerations

Other key decisions during the quote phase included installing critter guard to start (we’ve read a lot of horror stories of homeowners not installing critter guard and then ending up with pigeons or squirrels under their array, causing havoc, needing to be removed and then installing critter guard down the road).

We also selectively installed snow guards, over the side door from our garage and along the stretch where our neighbour’s A/C unit could be taken out by an avalanche off our solar panels.

We opted to pay $700 for the SolarEdge monitoring software, which provides through the cloud access to key information about our system. This is how we identified that our string inverter failed on December 23, 2023. It also lets us monitor the production from each solar panel, so we’d be able to see if one was failing for some reason.

More importantly, every fifteen minutes, it shows our total electricity usage, export volume or import volume, so we can plan how best to use our own power to charge the EV, run the diswasher, do laundry, bake, etc. Here are some screen grabs from the software:

There are definitely monitoring systems out there that provide way more granularity of information to help you best manage your electricity usage. I’ve read lots of good things about Emporia, for example. This didn’t come up on our radar when we were making our contract decisions back in February/March 2023.

Final Thoughts

One year in, we’re happy with our decision to install solar on our SW Calgary home. The Canada Greener Homes program certainly helped with the upfront investment (although we had to bridge the cost of the system until the loan came through). Overall, we’re more mindful of our electricity use. We’ve learned that wildfire smoke, cloud cover and snow all affect electricity generation from solar panels.

And we’re still learning. For example, after switching from HI to LO Solar Club pricing midway through a billing cycle last fall, we learned they just do simple math to allocate between the two rates, so it’s better to make any rate switches on meter reading dates.

We look forward to working through the first Carbon Offset information cycle to see how that all works.

And we’re still waiting for bi-drectional standards to come in, to see whether it makes sense to make whatever wiring changes are needed to allow our Ioniq 5 to serve as a battery back-up for the circuits on our new sub-panel and/or export to the grid during times of extreme strain on the Alberta grid.

Questions? Drop a comment and we’ll do our best to answer. Something I’ve missed? Let me know with a comment and I’ll update this post as needed. And stay tuned for the Year Two report next August!