Homeowners considering solar power have a new digital tool to help make the decision.

Calgarians look to solar to sidestep electric bill Interest is growing in solar power as a way to manage high electricity prices. Kevin Green reports.

The City of Calgary has launched

.  City environmental specialist Lewis Percy said it’s a simple way for people to determine the cost benefit of installing panels.

"The whole process is extremely quick," Lewis said. "You log on, you input your address, and select the size of your home and within a number of seconds, that calculator will give you your solar potential, and also the cost and the benefit from a financial perspective."

Percy added that the city’s calculator is not a replacement for a site survey, which can produce more specific results, but is a good starting point to explore solar options.

“You can very quickly get an idea of ‘is my house actually, you know, pretty well positioned for solar, or might I need to talk to someone to understand why it's not showing the results I'm expecting?" he said.

SOLAR PAYS FOR ITSELF

Zeno Renewables specializes in residential solar installations. Co-CEO Kai Fahrion said while a federal grant of up to $5000 for installing energy efficient upgrades to homes has boosted solar uptake, even without the government support solar pays for itself.

“Financially, it makes sense. You're seeing paybacks in seven-to-nine-year period, if not quicker. So yeah, it makes sense. Day and night. It makes sense.”

In explaining how it makes sense both day and night – since there’s no sunshine at night – Fahrion pointed to Alberta’s microgeneration agreements which allow homeowners to feed excess power back into the grid through bidirectional power meters.

“So that in those times when it's not sunny you can take that power back, and you're getting in a one to one ratio. So, you're not really missing out," he said. "Where it comes into play here is that you have about eight months of really sunny days here (in Calgary), where you're often over-producing, you can use those credits for ... winter months.”

SUBSTANTIAL INITIAL INVESTMENT

An average home installation can run between $10,000 to $20,000, so for most homeowners it’s a substantial investment.

Calgarian Boyd Stewart crunched the numbers before shelling out for an 11.16 kilowatt solar installation for his Coventry home.  Stewart expects his system to pay for itself and start pumping out profit in as few as seven years.

"Obviously, with the long days in the summertime, and there's only two of us in the house we're not utilizing a whole lot of energy," Stewart said. "In the end, we're going to be probably using half of the power that we will be producing."

Despite that, Stewart said the financial payoff wasn’t his prime motivation in installing the panels on his roof.

"I just wanted to do my part," he said. "I've been looking into the environment part of it. Even though I am in oil and gas, I still want to do my part."