There are many reasons to learn about solar power options for your home. Perhaps you want to live off the grid, you want to reduce your carbon footprint or maybe you just want to save money on your electrical bills. Whatever the reason, solar power is an excellent technology for many homes – but it’s not great for everyone.
The questions most people have straight off the bat are:
- how much does it cost?
- does my home get enough sunlight?
- will I be able to generate enough energy to make it worth installation?
The factors that determine whether solar power is the right choice for your home include whether you have the space for it, your location/climate, current available service and the cost. You must also consider if you have a means to maintain the equipment to keep it functioning optimally.
The technology of solar power and the battery bank sometimes used has improved by leaps and bounds in the recent past. Panel technology is changing rapidly so it is worth learning the basics before you start calling around and getting quotes. Hopefully I can save you a bit of time getting to know the ins and outs of residential solar power before you start sourcing the installation.
I have broken it down into sections you can skip to but if you are very new to solar energy learning, you might want to read through the article in order.
- Where To Start
- How Much Energy Do You Need
- How Many Peak Sunlight Hours Are In Your Area
- Do You Have Enough Space For Solar Power In Your Home?
- How Do You Prepare Your House For Solar Electricity?
- Location
- Solar Technology Is Advancing Rapidly
- Rain Or Shine
- Maintenance
- What About The Grid
- Average Costs
- Installation Cost
- Maintenance Cost
- Rebates
- Disadvantages Of Solar Power In A Home
- Quick Summary
Where To Start
1. How Much Energy Do You Need
The first thing you need to determine is how much solar power you will need. Many people install solar panels to be used off the grid but most people in urban areas simply want to reduce their reliance on the power coming from their grid. So you can still be connected to the grid and just use the solar energy when it is available. More on this later.
You can calculate your total electricity used in a year and then decide if you have the means to install a system that would produce all of your electrical requirements or just a portion of it. Either way it is a good idea to learn about your total consumption as a base line.
To find out your total electricity consumption over the past year, you can simply look at your utility company’s web portal.
For example, if you are in BC, you can login to the BC Hydro website. In the middle of the screen you will see a “View detailed consumption” button. (by the way, I love BC Hydro’s website, it is worth exploring if you haven’t already, there are numerous challenges and ways to understand your energy usage patterns – very interesting stuff!)
You can then click to view a custom billing period and select a year’s worth of dates (eg. May 1, 2019 – May 1, 2020). Make sure you get a whole year rather than one month and multiplying by 12 because each month might be very different especially if heat is involved). You might need to add the results from 2 different years (part of 2019 plus part of 2020) to get your total. The total will be in kilowatt hours (kWh) and it will vary depending on how you heat your house (electric or gas) and how many electrical appliances you have (fridges, freezers, hot tub, swimming pool etc).
Let’s assume your total was 10,000 kWh to make the calculations simple.
2. How Many Peak Sunlight Hours Are In Your Area?
Next you need to find out the peak sunlight hours for your area. A peak sun hour is not just the amount of day light hours but it is how many hours in which your solar panels produce at least 1,000 watts of energy per square meter. Depending on how close you are to the equator will determine the intensity of the sunlight (solar irradiance). So even in the sunniest northern location, the sun is not as intense and the number of hours that can achieve 1,000 watts of energy will be less.
The following is a list of average peak sunlight hours for each province and territory in Canada.
| Province / Territory | Average Full Sunlight Hours |
| Alberta | 1,276 |
| British Columbia | 1,004 |
| Manitoba | 1,272 |
| New Brunswick | 1,142 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 949 |
| Northwest Territories | 1,064 |
| Nova Scotia | 1,090 |
| Nunavut | 1,092 |
| Ontario | 1,166 |
| Prince Edward Island | 1,104 |
| Quebec | 1,183 |
| Saskatchewan | 1,330 |
| Yukon | 965 |
The peak sun hours will also depend on the placement of the solar panels. In Canada, they work best if they are south facing. If that is not possible east and west will also work but not as well. And north facing is the last choice as it is not ideal.
The tilt of the solar panels also makes a difference for how much electricity they can produce. Depending on where you are located, a panel placed flat on the ground might produce half the electricity that a panel tilted at 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the ground. A common angle to use is the latitude of the location plus 15 degrees. So in Vancouver is about 49 degrees and the optimal angle to place a solar panel is 64 degrees.
And the other major factor determining your peak sunlight hours is the amount of shade that would occur due to trees or other obstructions that would shade the panels for part of the day.
When calculating the peak hours for your home, make sure you are not looking at the number of hours of sunshine in a day but find the daily global insolation. The government of Canada has a dataset that shows the mean daily global insolation for various tilts of a solar panel in over 3500 locations across the country.
Let’s look at the example of Vancouver. A panel with a tilt equal to latitude averages 3.42 kWh/m2 over the year with 1.59 kWh/m2 in December (lowest month) and 4.94kWh/m2 in July.
What does this mean for people living in Vancouver? Simply put, you might just need more panels to provide the energy required for your life style. If your daily requirements for December is 33 kWh (December is not the coldest month of the year) and the peak sunlight hours are 1.59 kWh/m2 you can calculate you would need 21 m2 of solar panels to be sustainable.
If a 50 cell solar panel is about 1.6 m2, that means you would need 13 panels.
If you look at the values for July, and assume your daily requirements in July are 16 kWh at peak sunlight hours of 4.94 kWh/m2 you would need approximately 3.3 m2 of solar panels to be fully sustainable. This is much more reasonable.
3. Do You Have Enough Space For Solar Power At Your Home
When you start to investigate the feasibility of solar power for your home, you will probably need to decide if you have the space for the panels on your roof. But there is more to it than just panels. Most installations also require an inverter and a performance monitoring system that tracks electricity production.
The inverter is responsible for converting the direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC) so that it can be added to the grid and used in your house. Inverters are usually measured in watts. Taking the above example of an array of panels in Vancouver that needs 3.3 kW of power, this would require a 3300 W inverter.
Typically, in an urban area, the panels are installed on the roof of a house. In a rural area where there is plenty of land, the panels might be on the ground in a solar garden (or perhaps they are still on the roof).
Some homes want to install solar power for a specific use in their home like a hot tub. Or they might want to have solar power so that when the city power goes out, they will still have power in their home. If you are connected to the grid with solar power, your solar panels will not provide you will electricity in the case of a power outage. For safety reasons, the system has to shut off in a power outage.
For these cases, you would need to switch your solar power system to a battery system (and temporarily remove it from the grid). This is easy to do but then you will need to purchase and have a place to store batteries in a battery bank.
There are different types of batteries that can be used with a solar power installation. The type that you get will depend on the installer that you choose to go with. Most installers only stock a specific type or brand of battery so you will be limited.
Three types of battery bank are:
- Flooded Flat Plate and Dry Cell AGM – these have the lowest up front costs but the shortest life span of 2-4 years
- Tubular Flooded and Gel Batteries – higher up front cost and they last about 18 years
- Litium-ion (has a built in inverter) – has a high up front cost but should last 15 years and take up less space
But the question you need to ask is where can they be stored. For some batteries, they need to be stored in a covered, insulated well ventilated area like a shed or garage. Others like the expensive Tesla Powerwall or the made to order BestSun Home and RV 5kW Power System can go in your house and their sleek design allows you to hang it on the wall.
4. How Do You Prepare Your House For Solar Electricity
To get the most out of your solar installation, it is important that you prepare your home first. Take a look at the following list to see if any improvements should be made before installing a system that will be with you for 25+ years.
- Make sure your roof is in good condition. Once the panels are installed, it would be very difficult to change your roof and reinstall everything.
- Take into account any trees that could grow taller and obstruct the sunlight.
- Make sure your home is already working as efficiently as possible. Improve the insulation, make sure there aren’t any air leaks. Swap out old appliances for energy efficient ones so that you will not waste any energy generated through solar panels.
- You might need to make some updates to your electrical system depending on your installation – this will be discovered in the quote phase of your research.
Location
If your main reason for wanting to get solar power on your home is for your carbon footprint, you might need to learn about how your province is already generating their power. In Quebec in 2016, 99.8% of the electricity already comes from renewable resources. In Ontario in 2016, only 33.4% of their electricity was made from renewable resources. In Nunavut, all electricity is produced through burning of fossil fuels.
So not only is your location important in terms of daily peak sunlight but also the available electricity that already exists. It might make more sense to make the investment in Ontario because of the low rate of renewable resources in the electricity already available to you.
Here is a list of the provinces and territories with their amount of electricity produced by renewable resources.
| Province / Territory | Electricity From Renewable Resources (2016) |
| Alberta | 47.4% |
| British Columbia | 95% |
| Manitoba | 99% |
| New Brunswick | 29.9% |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 94.3% |
| Northwest Territories | 38% |
| Nova Scotia | 10.6% |
| Nunavut | 0% |
| Ontario | 33.4% |
| Prince Edward Island | 99% |
| Quebec | 99.8% |
| Saskatchewan | 25% |
| Yukon | 99% |
Solar Technology Is Advancing Rapidly
Currently there are two main types of solar technologies to heat a home. Photovoltaic (PV) installations use an array of cells to turn sunlight into electricity. Thermal installations use sunlight to heat water or air in small tubes. This hot water or air is then transported inside your home. Solar thermal is less common and makes more sense for places where heating fuel is expensive compared to electricity.
Photovoltaic (PV) installations are the most common. There are so many different designs of PV installations and the efficiency has dramatically improved over time.
When you think about solar power, you probably picture the typical solar panels on a roof. Tesla has come up with solar panel shingles (see photo above) that look like a normal roof. This would increase house value and work well for neighbourhoods with sensitive rules about house conformity.
According to a survey by PV Magazine (Photovoltaic Magazine), the average solar module installed is about 380 watts. Back in 2010, the average module output was about 250 watts. Very recently, two new 500 watt, 50-cell PV modules have come to market.
The first solar cells invented were less than one percent efficient. Then silicon was used which increased the efficiency to 6 percent. Although researchers have achieved 46 percent efficiency, the best panels currently used are nearly thirty percent efficient.
It is important that solar panels are sturdy to hold up to the worst weather conditions. Panels are tested against water (submerged in a pool), hail and even baseballs to mimic real life possibilities. Some strength tests have a pickup truck drive onto a solar panel and it doesn’t break.
Rain Or Shine
Years ago, the solar panels only worked when in direct sunlight. As the efficiency of solar power has grown, so has it’s ability to produce electricity in cloudy conditions. Thus debunking the common myth that solar power will not work in less than sunny conditions. In fact, if it is too hot and sunny, the heat can actually reduce the efficiency of the panel. According to CleanTechnica solar power in San Francisco will work better than Las Vegas because the heat in Las Vegas degrades the system.
The cost of solar panels is decreasing every year because of the technology is maturing. The cost of solar equipment has dropped by 89% since 2010. This is making solar energy more cost effective in places like Vancouver where the number of panels needed is greater because of the smaller number of peak sunlight hours.
On top of that, there is much research going on in developing hybrid solar panels that create energy when they are in sunlight as well as create energy when rain drops hit it. This will be huge for places like Vancouver with large amounts of rain in the coldest time of the year. The technology is not quite efficient enough yet but it is actively being worked on.
Also in the works is the possibility of creating solar panels from a material different from silicon. Perovskite has the potential to have a greater efficiency than silicon and has taken the lead in PV technologies last year. It is an abundant mineral on Earth, can be cheaper and less energy intensive to produce.
Maintenance
The solar electricity system for a house is made up of several parts that will require some thought after the initial installation. The batteries and inverter will eventually need to be replaced. Note, not all installations have a battery bank (if they are on the grid they don’t need one) but all installations need an inverter. Most installations also have a meter to measure the amount of electricity produced which may also need to be maintained.
As far as the panels go, they perform at a better rate when they are also maintained. They should last 25 or more years with little work required. They need to be kept clean. It is recommended that they are hosed down two to four times a year. In the winter, they should have snow removed from them. And in the autumn, any fallen leaves should be cleared off.
What About The Grid?
Many solar power installations are used to get electricity to places that are not on the grid. In Canada these systems are usually supplemented with a backup generator. But as technology improves the generator may no longer be required.
The cost of a solar power installation can vary greatly. If you are off the grid, you probably don’t have such luxuries like a hot tub and a clothes dryer so the annual electrical consumption would be lower than people living in urban areas. The systems can range from $1,500 to $70,000 and more. But the up front cost is not all of the costs. The ongoing costs of an off grid solar system can also vary. The batteries from your solar power system will need to be replaced every five to ten years. And the inverters have a shorter lifespan than the panels.
Most provinces and territories like BC and the Yukon Territories have net metering. This means that you can still be part of the grid but if you have solar panels the meters will calculate how much energy you produced and subtract that from your bills. Most systems in Vancouver will pay off within 20 years. But they also increase the value of your home which might be an added benefit for many home owners.
In this situation, you do not need to have any of the headaches of a battery bank with the cost to maintain and replace. But if you do not have a battery bank, you do not have the option of using electricity when there is a power outage.
In most provinces and territories you can use Net Metering to send the excess electricity that you produce back to the electricity grid. This will earn you credits for the next month. The electricity that you add back to the grid can be used by others immediately.
Average Costs
Installation Cost
The average cost of solar power system installation cost can be determined by multiplying the size of the system you plan to install (calculated above) by the average installation cost for your province or territory in the table below. The following values are averages calculated by energyhub.org, one of Canada’s most popular websites for sustainable energy technologies.
| Province / Territory | Average Installation Cost (per Watt) |
| Alberta | $2.90 |
| British Columbia | $2.64 |
| Manitoba | $2.88 |
| New Brunswick | $3.27 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $4.00 |
| Northwest Territories | $3.00 |
| Nova Scotia | $2.84 |
| Nunavut | $4.00 |
| Ontario | $2.52 |
| Prince Edward Island | $2.94 |
| Quebec | $2.75 |
| Saskatchewan | $3.18 |
| Yukon | $3.00 |
The annual electricity usage for a typical Canadian gas-heated home ranges from 7,500 kWh to 15,000 kWh and in a house with electric heaters it can be upwards of 35,000 kWh.
So if you live in British Columbia in an gas heated house it would cost about 15,000 kWh / 1,004 h = 15 kW => 15,000 W * $2.64 = $39, 600. An installation would cost about $40,000 to get all the electricity from the solar panels.
As solar power technology matures, the price for the components and installation is decreasing. If you wait, the technology will get better and cheaper. But you could be saving electrical costs and possibly environmental emissions if you act sooner.
Maintenance Cost
Solar panels last for decades but inverters and other electronic equipment have shorter lifespans. When you learn the upfront cost of your system, you should take note of the cost of the inverter and other electronic equipment and add that in again every five to ten years down the road.
Rebates
Unfortunately Canada doesn’t have very many incentives to install solar power systems in their homes. There is no longer a federal tax credit for solar energy. If you are interested in getting information on some of the programs in each province or territory, you can find a link to each on the summertix.com site.
EnergyHub $150 cash incentive if you book an estimate with them and then proceed with the installation within a year.
Payment plans
Solar installations can often be financed or even rented in some areas.
Disadvantages Of Solar Power In A Home
The most obvious disadvantage of solar energy in a home is the initial cost of purchasing the solar system. The return on investment for a solar installation usually takes about 15 – 20 years. That refers to only the monetary return on investment of the initial installation. So after 15 – 20 years, the amount of electricity costs that you saved because you had solar electricity equals the cost that you paid for the solar panels. There are other costs that incur over the years with replacement of batteries and electrical components.
Solar power is SOMEWHAT weather dependent. The panels are less efficient when it is cloudy or rainy. And often it is the months that are cloudy and rainy that are the coldest and require more electricity to heat and perform the functions of people who spend more time indoors. But technology is being developed to improve this.
Battery storage that are used in off grid situations or on grid but during power outages can be expensive.
The physical space needed to host the solar panels and electronic devices can be fairly large and any batteries may need to be stored in a protected (from heat and cold) ventilated area. Often roofs are not big enough or have too many contours to easily hold solar panels.
The environmental cost of the materials that make up a solar panel and the associated battery is not insignificant. The silicon has to be mined and heated in a furnace, this process emits greenhouse gases. There are some other toxic chemicals that are produced and need to be disposed of correctly in the process of making solar panels. The process of making solar panels is improving and the emissions have decreased.
As panels become more efficient, people are replacing them before their natural life span. Thus creating waste of the old solar panels. There is not yet a good plan for solar panel recycling, currently they go with standart e-waste.
Solar panels are safe while they are on your roof but the toxicity occurs during the manufacturing of the panels. They require a significant amount of energy to produce.
In Summary
Adding a solar power system to your home is a great way to reduce your reliance on the grid, support a growing green economy and ensure that you are minimizing your reliance on fossil fuels. Once you know the basics about the components of a solar power system (panels, inverter, meter, battery bank) you will be able to make a better decision for your home.
Solar panels and their associated electronic equipment require maintenance and cost after the initial installation. But they can increase your property value.
Solar power is a huge growing industry and the technology is getting better all the time. It is not only for places with sunny dry climates, in fact places that have mild temperatures with rain and clouds may outperform those locations with above 25 degree sunny days.
We will be seeing more houses with solar installations as the prices drop and the technology gets better. We are on a path to zero carbon emissions!
Photo by Vivint Solar on Unsplash
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