Residential solar

Home solar for Edmonton and area: site assessment, sizing to your annual use, installation, permits, micro-generation approval and panel upgrades if needed.

Is your home a good fit?

The best roofs for solar face south, southwest or west, have little shade from trees or neighbouring houses, and have years of life left in the shingles. East-facing roofs and flat garage roofs can work too, with some loss. If your roof is not ideal, a ground mount on an acreage or a detached garage roof may be a better choice.

We start with your past twelve months of electricity bills. Alberta's micro-generation rules size a system to your annual use, and your bills tell us what that is. Planning an electric vehicle or a heat pump? Tell us, because those change the numbers.

• Roof direction, pitch, age and material
• Shading through the seasons
• Annual electricity use and future plans
• Existing panel size and space
• Where the inverter and disconnects will go

What gets installed

A home system has racking anchored to the roof structure, the solar modules, and either a central string inverter or microinverters behind each panel. Rooftop systems need rapid shutdown, so first responders can de-energize the conductors on the roof. Wiring runs to labelled disconnects and into your main panel or a supply-side connection.

Microinverters and optimizers handle partial shade better and give panel-by-panel monitoring. A string inverter has fewer components on the roof. We explain the trade-offs for your roof rather than pushing one answer.

Monitoring is part of every install. You will be able to see daily and monthly production on your phone, and we set it up so you know what normal looks like. A sudden drop on a sunny day is the first sign that something needs a look, such as a tripped breaker or an inverter fault.

Your electrical panel

Older Edmonton homes often have 100 A panels that are already busy. Code limits how much a solar breaker can back-feed a panel, based on the busbar and main breaker ratings. If your panel cannot take it, we can make a supply-side connection where permitted, or replace the panel and upgrade the service at the same time.

If you are planning a panel replacement or service upgrade anyway, doing it together with solar saves a second disruption and a second permit.

Winter, snow and roofs

Snow on panels stops production for a few days, but it usually slides off tilted panels on the next sunny afternoon. Please do not climb on a snowy roof to clear them. We design racking and roof attachments for Alberta snow and wind loads, and flash every penetration so it stays watertight through freeze-thaw cycles.

Cost and timing

We do not post prices. Cost depends on system size, roof complexity, inverter choice, the distance to your panel, any panel or service upgrade, and whether you add batteries. Timelines depend mostly on permits and utility approval, which can take several weeks. Installation itself is usually quick once approvals are in place.

Before you sign anything with any contractor, ask for an estimate of annual production for your roof, the exact equipment models, what roof warranty considerations apply to the attachments, and who is responsible for permits, inspection and the utility application. A clear, written scope protects you.

• Annual production estimate for your roof
• Module, inverter and racking models
• Panel or service work included or excluded
• Who handles permits and micro-generation
• Monitoring and how you will see production

Questions we hear