Two years of Solar and what have we learned?

We've had our roof top solar panels for a couple years now. It's been a bit of a bumpy ride as first our monitoring system wasn't set up right then one of our panels failed (very rare). EVEN SO our power generation is quite consistent year over year, which was quite surprising, and there are ways to optimize the value of panels.

Alberta has a LOT of sunshine hours, even during the winter, so our 5.2 kWh annual use is net zeroed with 4.8kWh of panels. The power is contracted to a public company (aka listed on stock market). Our generation agreement is with ATCO Electric and any well run company would be happy to offload the cost of infrastructure installation and purchase energy production. So how do we benefit?

Alberta has energy resellers similar to Texas so we can optimize our electricity costs. We are with a reseller that allows us to shift our kW cost depending on the time of year. In the summer our sell/buy cost is $0.22 and our panels generate from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. with our panels maxing out so we export as much as we can as this contributes to our costs netting zero as well as our electricity use. Winter is another story as we only generate between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 pm and our peak panel generation is a lot lower because of the angle of the sun. We buy/sell electricity around $0.07. It can be quite depressing to see how much our solar production offsets our power bill (maybe a couple dollars) but that's not the whole story.

2020 was a crap spring/summer for sun

Our installer told us we'd have to change how we used our power to get the most benefit. I used to set stuff to happen in the middle of the night when power costs were the lowest but that no longer applies. The more we use the power we generate, the less we spend on all the transmission and distribution fees. So we schedule chores for daylight hours instead of the evening. We plan on getting an EV which will be mostly charged at home during the day.

If the power fails we can't use our panels for electricity because of the hazard to electrical workers. Power has failed for over an hour once in the last 10 years🤷‍♀️

This resistance to roof top solar is mysterious to me, even moreso at the commercial level. Parking lots often provide electricity in winter. Solar panels over stalls would create an additional income stream as well as providing cover for vehicles. Building roofs are underused and solar panels could provide low cost electricity for AC in summer. ROI on panels is usually about 10 years but the panels lose 10% efficiency after 25 years.