Newfoundland and Labrador among worst spots to save big with solar, NEB says

Installing solar panels already makes sense for most homeowners in Saskatchewan and Ontario, but the National Energy Board (NEB) says the abundance of cheap hydroelectricity in Quebec and Manitoba means solar power may never make much economic sense in those provinces.

The B.C. coast and Newfoundland and Labrador tend to have the least potential to generate solar power in Canada because they don’t get a lot of sunshine, the board said in a new report.

In Canada, long, dark winters mean it’s unlikely solar will ever become the sole source of electricity anywhere, the board concluded.

“The country cannot run solely on solar panels in the future,” said NEB chief economist Jean-denis Charlebois.

The NEB Wednesday released a study of the costs of solar compared to current electricity prices. It has an online site where Canadians can plug in their city name and find out whether there is an economic case for solar for them now or in the future.

Canada’s west coast and Newfoundland and Labrador tend to have the highest breakeven prices to generate electricity, while the interior of the country tends to have the lowest break-even prices, according to the board.

The board also noted Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador have relatively low prices for electricity purchased from utilities, which means commercial solar would not be expected to save businesses money in those provinces, even in a low-cost future.

There were 20,000 communities across every province and territory included in the study, which looked at both capacity to produce solar based on hours of sunlight, as well as the cost.

The main finding of the study is that no matter the amount of sunlight, the only places where installing and running solar panels is already cheaper than paying for power from the electricity grids are the places where power rates are already really high. That is in Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island and most places in Ontario.

In provinces where power is still pretty cheap — mainly Manitoba and Quebec — the NEB says solar can sometimes cost more than twice as much as traditional power sources.

In Saskatchewan, for example, where electricity costs are among the highest in the country, the break-even price for solar is already 93 per cent of the current average cost of power for homeowners. But next door in Manitoba, where hydro costs are among the lowest in the country, the solar price for homeowners is 176 per cent of the current cost of electricity.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the solar price for homeowners is 149 per cent of the current cost of electricity. For commercial customers, the rate is 167 per cent of the current cost of electricity in this province.

In Quebec it’s 223 per cent for residential customers.

Ontario’s time-of-day electricity rates make the cost of solar about 95 per cent of the average cost to buy power from the grid.

Charlebois said the average cost for a five-kilowatt solar installation is about $16,000 and that price is predicted to go down as much as 30 per cent in the next five or 10 years.

The price to buy power from the grid is going up about two per cent a year.