Case Study: City of Edmonton | Alberta, Canada

Adding megawatt-scale solar to local grid with stackable rebates and easy-to-use solar map

Solar Maps | Awareness

The City of Edmonton adds megawatt-scale solar with rebates that cover up to 15% of install costs

Quick Stats

2,358 solar installs completed since map launch in July 2020
1.4 MW of generation capacity added to local grid
23.5% engagement rate with Edmonton rebate call-to-action
Emissions reduction impact of 329,011 tCO2e over lifetime of solar arrays

The Challenge

In a province with high grid carbon intensity and a new solar rebate program, the City of Edmonton wanted to increase awareness of the new rebate to encourage residents to adopt rooftop solar.

The Approach

Through a partnership with Google Project Sunroof, MyHEAT launched a residential Solar Map for the City of Edmonton in July 2020. Its goal was twofold:

Educate Edmontonians in an efficient and visually engaging way about their home’s solar potential, and
Help them take further action by learning more about local rebates and approved installers.

The map also included information about Edmonton’s excellent solar rebate of $0.40/watt towards the cost of the solar pv system, which covers approximately 15% of the costs of going solar. Amazingly for residents of Edmonton, this rebate is stackable with the federal government’s Greener Homes Grant, offering up to $5,000 for energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements. The combination of these two rebate programs make the cost of installing solar panels in Edmonton extremely attractive!

Since launch, the platform has been marketed by the City of Edmonton via a small email list and through links on their Change for Climate program webpage. Traffic to the website is also driven by organic search engine traffic and other media coverage.

Hosted by Google Earth, MyHEAT, Google and the City of Edmonton discuss the Edmonton Change Homes for Climate program and the MyHEAT Solar Map

"The City of Edmonton is excited to be the first municipality in Canada to access this new solar potential platform.

We are committed to delivering a solar program to help Edmontonians invest in local, renewable energy generation while continuing to help create economic opportunities in the solar energy sector."

Mark Brostrom

Director of Environmental Strategies (former)

The Results

solar installs since July 2020

0 %

engagement rate with rebate program

0 MW

of local generation capacity added

The MyHEAT Solar Map encourages residents to click through to the City’s solar incentive page, and has achieved a 25% engagement rate to-date.

Since the introduction of the solar rebate in Edmonton, supported by the launch of the MyHEAT Solar Map, there has been a noticeable increase in rooftop installs from 2020 onwards in data published by the City.

Since the launch of the map in July 2020, the City has seen an increase of 2,358 solar installations, adding 1.4MW of generation capacity to the local grid. The lifetime carbon reduction impact of these systems is 329,011 tCO2e.

City Resident Survey Results

In addition to these program results, the City conducted a survey among citizens to determine the reception of the MyHEAT SOLAR Platform and its usefulness.

When asked “What do you like or dislike about Edmonton’s Solar Potential Map? Do you have any feedback on the tool and its functionality?“, residents of Edmonton shared these responses:

“It helps sell the idea that a northern community still has great solar potential.”
“The roof of my house is entirely shaded by American Elms but the map alerted me to the potential of my garage, where I installed 24 panels”
“It was the key in my decision to have solar panels installed on my house.”
“It was the first thing we did when we started looking into installing solar.”