First Opportunity for Solar in Residential Homes
Funded through Round 1: Open Call in 2010, ENMAX installed solar panels on over 400 homes and facilities across Alberta, becoming the first vertically integrated electrical utility and retail organization in Canada to offer solar photo-voltaic (PV) for customers’ self-generation. Initial public uptake of solar PV in Alberta was slow; however, the project maintained a strong presence in the residential space and served over 500 customers, resulting in a capacity of over 1,948 kilowatts from residential rooftop solar.
Solar PV cells convert radiant light from the sun into electricity and, unlike grid electricity produced from fossil fuels, solar PV technologies do not produce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during operation. This project will be responsible for approximately a quarter of a billion kilowatt-hours of solar energy generation over the lifetime of the installed equipment, reducing GHG emissions by approximately 158,000 tonnes over 25 years. However, when this project was funded in 2010, solar PV costs were still relatively high, and Alberta had a slow-moving solar industry. Through this project and beyond its completion in 2016, ENMAX helped to catalyze Alberta’s solar industry and improve public interest in renewable energy through aggressive pricing. ENMAX also established themselves as a long-term, reliable provider of solar PV by providing attractive warranty and financing options.
Understanding the Emerging Solar Market in Alberta
The locations of installed micro-generation solar PV were relatively even across communities in Alberta, and reflected a mix of residential, small business, farm/agricultural, municipal and non-profit customers. Initial public uptake of residential solar PV was slow, and ENMAX continually heard from customers that incentives were insufficient to drive adoption, as without financing, solar PV represented too large of an up-front investment. Additionally, ENMAX found that individual customer needs and availability of roof space were more important than consistent ‘unit’ pricing. Despite these challenges, 85 per cent of ENMAX’s solar customers for this project ended up being residential homeowners. ENMAX implemented a novel business model, amortizing the cost of the solar through regular retail billing which helped increase commercial adoption of solar in the province. Between the start of the project and 2016, solar PV technology evolved considerably; the output of solar PV modules has increased over time, resulting in more watts of generating capacity within the same physical footprint, thus lowering costs and increasing efficiency.
What’s next?
Between 2011 and 2016, Alberta’s solar market increased sixteen-fold. Solar energy is now de-risked in Alberta from a technology standpoint and is now in the process of undergoing full market adoption. As the first vertically integrated electrical utility and retail organization in Canada to offer solar PV for customers, ENMAX achieved their goal and established themselves as the longest reliable solar PV provider in Alberta. ENMAX continues to offer solar PV systems with financing, and customization depending on the annual energy consumption, space available, amount of sunlight a building receives and the desired offset of grid use.