This Green House
The Gazette is taking a close look at green retrofits you can fund with St. Albert’s Clean Energy Improvement Program (CEIP). Got a question about retrofits? Email them to [email protected]
I have to admit, I’m a little jealous of Robert Prybysh’s roof.
He showed it to me earlier this month. Unlike most roofs in St. Albert, the one atop his North Ridge home is covered with shiny solar panels which generate 5.7 kilowatt-hours of power for his family each year.
“Our last power bill was about 20 to 25 per cent of what we normally see,” Prybysh said, and that’s without any special effort to conserve energy. Other solar owners he knows have seen their power bills dip into the negatives.
“In approximately 18 months, we’ve offset six tonnes of CO2,” he said.
“It’s nice to see we’re getting those benefits.”
So far in This Green House we’ve looked at how air-sealing, insulation, windows and doors, heat pumps, and drain water heat recovery units can shrink your utility bills and the carbon emissions associated with them, but we’re still not at net-zero emissions. To get there, we need to get our homes off fossil fuels completely.
Why green power
Statistics Canada reports that about 44 per cent of household energy consumption is electricity, while the rest is oil and natural gas. To get our homes to net-zero, we switch to heat pumps and non-gas appliances to get all our energy from electricity and then source that power from green, renewable sources such as wind, water, and solar.
Getting green power is easy. The Utilities Consumer Advocate website lists many companies that St. Albert residents can sign up with to get carbon-free electricity for prices close to that of conventional power. You can also get it from Bullfrog Power — I use them to power my electric car for $4.62 a month.
Buying green power is a net cost. If you want to make money off green power, you have to invest in power production.
Method one is to join a co-op such as the Bow Valley Green Energy Cooperative. These are investment groups which pool money to build large renewable energy farms and earn their shareholders returns.
Since this is This Green House and not This Green Investor, I’ll focus on method two: rooftop solar.
How green power
Anyone looking to put up rooftop solar should first cut their consumption, said St. Albert resident Thomas Barr of Dandelion Renewables (the company behind Bon Accord’s solar farm).
“Electricity is expensive,” he said, and the less you use, the less you have to build.
Natural Resources Canada has a long list of ways to reduce your electricity use, such as using power bars to eliminate standby power from your appliances (which can account for 10 per cent of your energy bill) and getting efficient Energy Star appliances.
Next, you should find a qualified contractor to design and install your system. Solar Alberta has an extensive guide on its website on how to find contractors and what to ask them.
Your contractor should look at your roof to determine the design of your system, said Heather MacKenzie, executive director for Solar Alberta. Roofs are the preferred spot for domestic solar in Alberta, as ground mounts are expensive and wall mounts less efficient. Your roof needs to be able to support the weight of the panels and should be reasonably new, as you don’t want to have to take the panels down to replace your shingles.
Barr said a south-facing roof is best for power production, but you will only lose 10 to 20 per cent of your production with an east-west one. Research by the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology shows that Edmonton-area homeowners should mount their solar panels at 53 degrees for optimum production. If you have many trees shading your roof, you might consider microinverters or DC optimizers, which will route around shaded panels to prevent power loss.
Don’t worry about hail or snow, Solar Alberta reports — snow cuts a panel’s production by just three per cent, and anything big enough to smash your panels would trash your roof and windows anyway.
Most Alberta homeowners can get a rooftop array to meet their electricity (but not necessarily heating) needs for $15,000 to $25,000, MacKenzie said. You can finance the panels through CEIP in St. Albert and get $1,000 per kWh installed (up to $5,000) from the Canada Greener Homes program.
Solar Alberta reports that most Alberta households consume about 7,200 kWh of electricity a year, which they can get from a solar array of about 6,000 installed watts costing $15,000 at $2.50/W. (If you’ve also switched to heat pumps, you will need more than 7,200 kWh.) At 15.564 cents/kWh (the average regulated rate for electricity from Epcor in 2022), this system would save the average family about $1121 a year and pay for itself in around 13.4 years, or nine years with the full $5,000 Greener Homes grant. It would also prevent about 4.2 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
MacKenzie said your rooftop array should shrink your utility bills and extend the life of the shingles beneath it.
“Research has shown that the most important factor contributing to whether somebody gets solar or not is whether your neighbour has solar,” she noted, so getting solar could encourage your neighbours to follow your lead.
Prybysh said his solar array should add to his home’s resale value, which research supports — one 2019 study of American homes found homes with solar sold for 4.1 per cent more than those without.
I don’t have Prybysh’s roof, but I do buy 100 per cent green electricity. A few investments here and there, and I’ll be able to live in a green house.
Green Actions
Action: install a 6,000 W solar array
Cost: about $15,000 at $2.50/W
Payback: 13.4 years without rebate, nine with
Savings: $1121 a year and 4.2 tonnes CO2/year
Greener Homes grant: up to $5,000
CEIP eligible: yes
