Case Study: City of Saskatoon | Saskatchewan, Canada

City of Saskatoon uses Solar Maps to demonstrate strong solar potential as part of suite of city-wide energy tools and services

Solar Maps | Awareness

The City of Saskatoon wants residents to know it's one of the sunniest places in Canada, drive PV adoption.

Quick Stats

The province of Saskatchewan is among the sunniest in Canada
4,894 web visits to the Solar Map within first 30 days
3.1% click-through rate for marketing, 8X higher than benchmark
On track for 20,000 visits to the map by end of first year

The Challenge

Located in one of Canada’s sunniest provinces, the City of Saskatoon want to make residents aware of their home’s rooftop solar potential, and bust some solar myths along the way. The City has a few key objectives for this Residential Solar Potential Map.

Overcome common barriers to solar adoption by busting some solar myths and misconceptions.
Use the power of a visual solar potential map to engage residents.
Focus on pointing residents to financial rebates available though the Canada Greener Homes Grant.

The Approach

The Residential Solar Potential Map, built by MyHEAT, was the first launch as part of a suite of new city-wide energy tools and services being offered by the City.

Experienced Saskatoon city staff knew that promoting uptake of solar panel technology to homeowners is a challenging endeavor. To engage residents successfully on this topic, they crafted a detailed and well-thought out marketing campaign with a variety of tactics (including digital and traditional media) to reach and educate residents across multiple channels and touchpoints.

The City also engaged residents in person, attending the annual Saskatoon Home Show, which attracted the perfect target audience for rooftop solar panel adoption.

The core of this campaign relied on the strong visual hook of MyHEAT Solar Maps, as well as the personalized recommendations provided by the map.

Alongside other visually-attractive marketing images, MyHEAT and the City of Saskatoon collaborated on a promotional video that could be viewed by residents, and used as an advertisement in the marketing campaign.

The promotional video created by the City of Saskatoon and MyHEAT to promote the Residential Solar Potential Map, launched by the City

"Promoting uptake of solar panel technology to homeowners is a challenging endeavor that requires a blend of communication, marketing and advertising tactics across multiple channels and touchpoints.

Working with MyHEAT has been a pleasure. They are responsive, passionate, subject matter experts who understand the challenges of solar adoption in Canada and the complexities of working with municipal government. It has been especially valuable to collaborate with them on marketing materials as they are able to provide insights based on successes in other municipalities as well as specialized content related to solar PV and background information."

Megan Evans

Marketing Consultant, City of Saskatoon

The Results

web visits in first 30 days

0 X

higher engagement rate over benchmark

0 +

map visits likely by end of first year

Following a successful launch, supported by the well-planned marketing campaign by the City, the Residential Solar Potential Map saw 4,894 web visits within the first 30 days.

Since the initial launch, there has been additional local news coverage, sponsored ads launching across social media and online news sites, as well as a 2 page article in the Spring edition of the Saskatoon HOME magazine.

The sponsored ads campaign launched by the City, which ran for just over two weeks, achieved excellent results, including