FindSolar.caWhy the production estimate is the number to attack
Price per watt tells you if a quote is expensive. The production estimate, the annual kilowatt-hours the installer claims the system will generate, tells you if the savings story is honest, because every payback promise downstream multiplies from it. Inflate production 20 percent and the payback slides three years without touching the price. It is the easiest number in a proposal to quietly pad and the least-checked one.
Tool one: NRCan's photovoltaic potential maps
Natural Resources Canada publishes photovoltaic potential and solar resource maps for Canada, showing how many kilowatt-hours a kilowatt of well-oriented panels yields per year in your location. Look up your area and you hold the federal benchmark for your postal code, alongside NRCan's broader solar tools. A quote's implied yield, its claimed annual production divided by system size in kW, should land in the same neighbourhood.
Tool two: satellite data through our calculator
Our savings calculator includes a satellite mode built on PVGIS, the European Commission's open solar model that covers Canada. Click "use my location," allow the permission prompt, and the calculator swaps its provincial planning average for modeled irradiance at your actual coordinates, adjusted for the roof orientation you choose. Now you have a second independent estimate, and neither of them came from anyone with a commission on the answer.
Reading the gap between quote and tools
Some daylight between numbers is legitimate: panel tier, exact tilt, local shading and snow assumptions all move production single digits. A quote sitting within roughly 10 percent of the tools is quoting the same planet. A quote 20 percent or more above both benchmarks needs to explain itself with something concrete, like a shade study from your actual roof, and "our panels are special" is not concrete. The conversation is one sentence: "NRCan and satellite data put my location around this yield; walk me through why your estimate is higher." A good installer answers with a monthly model. A bad one changes the subject to the monthly payment.
Common questions
What is a normal production number for Canada?
Roughly 1,000 to 1,300 kWh per kW per year across most populated regions, with the Prairies at the strong end. Your location's own figure, from the tools above, beats any national range including this one.
The quote has no production estimate at all. Now what?
Ask for it in writing with the monthly breakdown. A proposal that only talks payments and savings, never kilowatt-hours, is hiding its load-bearing assumption, and that is your answer about the company.
Do these tools account for shading from my trees?
No. They model an unshaded roof at your location, which makes them the ceiling. Site-specific shading comes from the on-site evaluation, and our calculator's shade setting approximates the haircut.