\u201cGetting solar is complex and confusing,\u201d said Chris Caners, TAF\u2019s director of education. \u201cSo we\u2019re offering a personalized concierge service that will help homeowners understand the type and size of the system, the different incentives that might be available, and we\u2019ll even go out and solicit quotes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make the system work more smoothly for all players \u2014 the homeowner, the utilities and the installers, so we can increase the amount of solar across the GTHA.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are currently fewer than 3,000 rooftop solar arrays in Toronto.<\/p>\n
Lance McMillan\/Toronto Star<\/p>\n
Toronto wants rooftop solar to make city more economically resilient<\/p>\n
Last month, the city laid out its vision for an electrified city<\/a>, where cars and heating are no longer powered by imported fossil fuels, but by locally-produced renewable power, saying it\u2019s \u201cnot just an environmental choice; it\u2019s an economic strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA city that powers itself,\u201d the report states, \u201cpositions itself to be a self-sustaining, resilient urban centre that relies less on external jurisdictions, cross-border gas supply chains, or out-of-country infrastructure. A modern, electrified grid helps Toronto decouple from the volatility of global energy markets, reduce exposure to international supply chain disruptions, and take control of its own future.\u201d<\/p>\n Often called \u201cnature\u2019s peaker plant,\u201d solar panels provide electricity when it\u2019s needed most: on hot, sunny days when electricity demand soars. Every kilowatt produced on a rooftop is one less that needs to be generated by burning natural gas, reducing carbon emissions and local air pollution<\/a>.<\/p>\n As a result, solar is a rare climate solution that both slows the warming of the planet while also helping cope with the extreme weather that\u2019s already baked in \u2014 fewer emissions and blackouts.<\/p>\n According to the city\u2019s SolarTO<\/a> department, there\u2019s potential for more than 10,000 megawatts of rooftop solar in Toronto \u2014 the approximate equivalent output of all the gas plants in the province.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Even in a northern climate, Toronto\u2019s rooftops are an incredible untapped resource \u2014 <\/p>\n An analysis published by Google<\/a> shows that there are 4,880 hectares (or 48.8 sq. km) of usable roof space in the city that could collectively provide more than 45 per cent of Toronto\u2019s total power consumption, and could hypothetically cover peak demand during the hottest days of summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rooftop solar is being adopted rapidly across the world, flooding markets with cheap, abundant energy \u2014 even in much more northern and not particularly sunny places like the U.K. and Denmark.<\/p>\n In Australia, one in three houses nationwide has solar panels on the roof and they produce so much electricity that power is being given away free<\/a> for three hours every day this summer.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not because the state overbuilt and paid a lot of money and now everybody is in debt,\u201d said Phil MacKay, Senior Director of Member Programs at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association. \u201cIt\u2019s because the customers said, \u2018This makes a whole lot of sense.\u2019 They invested in their own systems, and now everyone is benefiting.\u201d<\/p>\n In Ontario, where the provincial government is spending more than $100 billion on new nuclear plants<\/a> to meet rising demand for electricity, it begs the question: If everyone agrees that rooftop solar is good not only for the homeowner but also for the wider grid, why do we make it so hard to install?<\/p>\n \u2019Soft costs\u2019 make rooftop solar more expensive than it should be<\/p>\n Saul Griffith, the founder of US nonprofit Rewiring America, and a proponent of widespread rooftop solar as a climate solution, decries the \u201csoft costs\u201d that he calculates make solar panels six times more expensive to install in North America than Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralian installation labour is similarly priced to that in the U.S. The difference is soft costs \u2014 cost of sale, cost of inspections, cost of overhead, cost of permits, cost of liability and insurance,\u201d he wrote in a Substack post<\/a> last fall. \u201cBecause it is so cheap in Australia, people install a lot of solar.\u201d<\/p>\n While Griffith\u2019s numbers refer to the US, his argument holds for Canada as well, according to several energy experts consulted by the Star. Widespread solar adoption will save individuals money on their own bills and encourage them to convert their stoves, furnaces and cars to run on the cheap electricity they generate on their roofs, he says, all while they feed excess energy into the grid, driving down the cost of electricity for everyone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most impactful way to make U.S. electricity cheap again is to maximize the amount of rooftop solar. This is key to unlocking household savings, as cheap solar amplifies the efficiency of electric machines in your life, and their economic advantage over fossil machines,\u201d Griffith wrote.<\/p>\n Currently, installing a rooftop solar array requires at least seven permits and inspections, according to Steve Dyck, president of Guelph Solar. Some utilities, like Hydro One, have started speeding things up by introducing apps where photos taken by the contractor replace in-person inspections, he said, but bureaucratic delays still add costs to every project.<\/p>\n The city has committed to reducing soft costs by amending zoning bylaws, streamlining permits and approvals and reviewing licensing fees. Staff say solar permit review timelines have already been reduced from 10-30 days to three days.<\/p>\n More than anything else, it\u2019s the inconsistent incentives that come and go that affect homeowners\u2019 decision-making more than anything else, Dyck said. When the MicroFIT program, which paid above-market prices for solar generation, ended in 2017, it decimated the industry. In 2024, the federal government ended the Greener Homes grant program<\/a>, which provided grants and zero-interest loans for energy-saving renovations, taking with it most of the demand for new rooftop solar. In both cases, installations already approved took a year or so to be built, delaying the drop-off.<\/p>\n Smart grids share the cheap power<\/p>\n Dyck also decries the new provincial Home Renovation Savings Program<\/a>, which offers up to $10,000 in rebates for rooftop solar, but only if it doesn\u2019t feed energy back into the grid \u2014 called \u201cnet metering.\u201d He says this undermines the wider community benefit of solar \u2014 sharing the cheap power.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the government subsidizes the equipment, it should be used as a public asset,\u201d Dyck said. \u201cInstead of saying you can\u2019t net meter, net metering should be required, so all ratepayers can benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n In a report put out last year<\/a>, the Ontario Clean Air Alliance said in order to promote more rooftop solar, homeowners shouldn\u2019t just offset their own bills; they should be paid for providing power into the grid, just like industrial generators are.<\/p>\n While critics of solar point out that the electricity is only available when the sun is shining, battery technology is now able to soak up that power and make it \u201cdispatchable\u201d just like a gas plant, so it\u2019s available 24\/7. In the U.K., people are using their EV batteries to help the grid<\/a>, charging up when power is cheap and selling back when demand \u2014 and price \u2014 rises.<\/p>\n A new analysis<\/a> commissioned by Clean Energy Canada found that rooftop solar, EV batteries and remotely-controlled thermostats<\/a> could save the Ontario grid billions of dollars in planned electrical system upgrades by making the grid more efficient.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of room for more solar on Toronto\u2019s power grid, says Matthew Higgins, Vice President of Engineering & Asset Management at Toronto Hydro. More solar will unlock all sorts of futuristic power solutions that promise to make power cheaper, grids more efficient, all while cutting emissions and creating new economic opportunities, he said.<\/p>\n This evolution moves us from a \u201cdumb grid\u201d that simply turns up supply to meet demand, into a \u201csmart grid\u201d that, like the internet, manages the flow of power between millions of nodes on a network, co-ordinating supply and demand simultaneously.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re investing in the kinds of software technologies, sensors and controls that are going to allow us to better manage a grid that\u2019s more dynamic in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cThe more we can orchestrate the grid in real time, the more we can run it hotter, with more solar and more load.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From street level, Cathy Bogaart\u2019s block resembles many others in Toronto, with cars parked along the curb, recycling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-642966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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