Getting three solar quotes in Alberta is easy. Telling which one is actually the best deal is the hard part — because the quotes almost never describe the same system, the same warranty, or the same assumptions about what your panels will produce.
This is a practical checklist for homeowners in Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge and everywhere in between: what to ask a solar installer, how to line up quotes so they can be compared honestly, and the red flags that should end a sales conversation early.
Start with the one number that makes quotes comparable: dollars per watt
Solar quotes come in different system sizes, so the total price tells you almost nothing on its own. Divide the total installed price (before any financing) by the system size in watts.
A 9.6 kW system is 9,600 watts. If the all-in quote is $28,800, that’s $3.00 per watt.
Our benchmark: our installer partners can usually deliver a straightforward residential rooftop install at around $2.80 per watt installed. “Straightforward” means an accessible asphalt-shingle roof, a decent-sized array, standard string or micro-inverters, and no major electrical panel work.
Quotes above that aren’t automatically bad — a steep metal roof, a ground mount, a panel upgrade, snow-country racking or a long trench all cost real money. But the installer should be able to point at the specific line that explains the gap. If they can’t, you’re paying for sales commission, not hardware.
Quotes well below that benchmark deserve the same scrutiny in reverse. Somewhere in the package, something got cheaper: the inverter, the racking, the labour warranty, or the company’s ability to still be around in year eight.
Make sure you’re dividing by the same denominator
Two quirks to watch:
- DC vs AC ratings. Panel wattage (DC) is usually bigger than inverter capacity (AC). Compare using DC panel watts consistently across all quotes.
- GST and permit/inspection fees. Ask whether the price includes GST, the municipal permit, the electrical permit and inspection, and the utility interconnection paperwork. One quote quietly excluding those can look 6–8% cheaper than it is.
The production estimate is where quotes quietly disagree
Every quote will project annual kilowatt-hours. That number drives the payback math, and it’s the easiest place for an optimistic estimate to hide.
Ask each installer:
- What tool produced this estimate? Ideally a shading-aware model (Aurora, HelioScope, PVsyst, or NRCan’s RETScreen/PVWatts with Alberta data), not a spreadsheet rule of thumb.
- What soiling and snow losses did you assume? Alberta winters cost real production. An estimate with zero snow loss is fiction.
- What degradation rate? Most tier-one panels warrant roughly 0.4–0.55% annual output loss. If a 25-year payback chart assumes no degradation, the chart is wrong.
- Is my actual roof modelled? Azimuth, pitch, chimneys, vents, and that neighbour’s spruce tree all matter.
Then apply the sniff test. Alberta is one of the sunniest places in Canada, and a well-oriented south-facing array here typically produces somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,100–1,250 kWh per installed kW per year. If a quote projects far above that range for an ordinary roof, ask them to show their work. Our city cost pages for Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge go into local production and sizing in more detail.
The 12-question installer checklist
Ask every company the same questions, in writing, and keep the answers side by side.
Company and credentials
- Are you a licensed electrical contractor in Alberta, and who pulls the permits? The permits should be pulled by the contractor, not by you. If an installer asks the homeowner to pull the electrical permit, walk away.
- How long have you been installing in Alberta, and how many systems have you completed here? Local winters, local inspectors, local wires companies — experience elsewhere doesn’t fully transfer.
- Is the crew in-house or subcontracted? Subcontracting is fine, but you want to know who answers the phone when a roof penetration leaks in year three.
- Can I have references from two installs older than three years? Anyone can produce a happy customer from last month. Ask for the ones who’ve been through a couple of winters.
Equipment and design
- Which exact panel and inverter models — make, model number, wattage? “Tier one panels” is not an answer. Get part numbers so you can compare spec sheets.
- String inverter or micro-inverters, and why for my roof? Roofs with multiple orientations or shading usually favour module-level electronics. Our guide to solar inverters covers the tradeoffs.
- What racking, and is it rated for our snow and wind loads? Ask for the attachment method and flashing type on your specific roof material.
- Does my electrical panel need an upgrade, and is that in the price? A 100-amp panel plus a large array often triggers a service upgrade. Surprise panel upgrades are one of the most common change orders.
Paperwork, warranty and money
- Who handles the micro-generation application with my wires company? A good installer files it and manages approval-to-connect. You should not be chasing that yourself.
- What exactly is warranted, by whom, and for how long? Separate the product warranty (manufacturer), performance warranty (manufacturer) and workmanship/labour warranty (installer). Ten years on workmanship is a strong signal; two years is not. See our Alberta solar warranty guide.
- What’s the payment schedule? A modest deposit, a progress payment, and a final payment after inspection is normal. A demand for most of the money up front is not.
- If financing is offered, what’s the rate, term, and total interest — and what’s the cash price? Some “monthly payment” pitches bury a dealer fee in the system price. Always ask for the cash price first, then compare. Our financing guide walks through CEIP, HELOCs and installer financing.
Red flags that should end the conversation
- “This price is only good if you sign today.” Solar equipment prices don’t move hourly. Pressure tactics are a sales culture, and sales culture tends to correlate with weak service later.
- A quote with no equipment model numbers. You cannot evaluate what you cannot look up.
- Promises about rebates or grants that they won’t put in writing. Federal and provincial program availability changes. Anything that affects your payback should be documented, not verbal. Our Alberta solar tax and incentives guide explains what genuinely applies to homeowners versus businesses and farms.
- “You’ll eliminate your power bill.” You won’t. Distribution, transmission and administration charges stay on the bill even at net-zero energy. Anyone claiming otherwise is either uninformed or hoping you are.
- A payback chart with no assumptions page. Escalation rate, degradation, export credit rate — if those aren’t stated, the payback number is decoration.
- No door-to-door discipline. Legitimate installers do knock on doors in Alberta. But an unsolicited “energy audit” that ends in a same-day contract is a pattern worth avoiding.
The assumption most quotes get wrong: your export rate
Here’s the part almost no installer will tell you, because it isn’t their business: the payback in your quote depends heavily on what your electricity retailer pays for the power you export.
Under Alberta’s micro-generation rules, your export credit is set by your retailer’s rate, not by a fixed government tariff. Two identical systems on two identical Calgary roofs can have meaningfully different paybacks purely because the homeowners are on different plans.
Most quotes simply assume you’ll be credited at whatever generic rate the salesperson typed in. Ask which rate they used, then check it against what you can actually get.
Get Energy’s Solar Club is built around this: members can switch between a high rate of 35.00¢/kWh and a low rate of 5.90¢/kWh, so you can sit on the high rate through the strong production months when you’re exporting, and on the low rate in the dark months when you’re mostly importing. Rates as of August 2026 — current numbers are always on our rates page.
For context on the import side, our 30-day average floating electricity rate was 5.61¢/kWh (calculated August 10, 2026) and our fixed Advantage natural gas rate was $3.77/GJ as of August 17, 2026. Rates change — always check the rates page for today’s numbers.
How to run the comparison in one page
Put your quotes into a single table before you decide. Columns worth having:
- System size (kW DC) and panel count
- Panel make/model and inverter make/model
- All-in price, GST and permits included (yes/no)
- Dollars per watt
- Estimated year-one production (kWh) and kWh per kW
- Workmanship warranty length
- Who files the micro-generation application
- Payment schedule and cash price vs financed price
When you see them lined up, the decision usually makes itself. The best quote is rarely the cheapest and almost never the one with the biggest production estimate — it’s the one where every number has a source behind it.
After the install: two things people forget
First, maintenance is light but not zero. Alberta arrays mostly need snow management and an occasional inspection; our maintenance guide covers what’s worth doing and what’s a waste of money.
Second, batteries are a separate decision. Most Alberta homeowners don’t need them for economics — they need them for outage resilience. We wrote a full breakdown in Do I need batteries with solar in Alberta?
Ready to sort out the retail side?
Whichever installer you choose, the plan you’re on determines what your solar production is actually worth. Compare current electricity and natural gas rates on our rates page, or read up on the Solar Club if you’re generating — or about to be.
Serving homeowners across Alberta, including Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge.
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