Solar in Bon Accord,
built for a town that thinks about energy.
Forty kilometres north of our Edmonton shop, in the centre of Sturgeon County, sits the first town in Canada to earn International Dark-Sky status. We install rooftop and ground-mount solar here — LONGi 500W panels and APsystems DS3 microinverters, fitted by an in-house crew supervised by a Master Electrician.
Panels work the daylight hours.
The town minds the dark.
Generation
From late morning to early evening, a south-facing array in Bon Accord pulls real production out of central Alberta's roughly 2,300 sun hours a year. Cold, clear winter days are a quiet advantage — panels run more efficiently in the cold, so a crisp February afternoon can outperform a hazy summer one.
A deliberate town
In 2015 Bon Accord became the first International Dark Sky Community in Canada — the 11th in the world — recognized for responsible outdoor lighting. Rooftop solar doesn't change the night sky, and we won't pretend otherwise. But it fits the mindset of a place that already chooses its energy and its lighting with intent.
Straight talk: solar panels generate in daylight and have nothing to do with light pollution. We mention the dark-sky identity because it says something true about Bon Accord — this is a town that decides how it uses energy on purpose. Rooftop solar is the same kind of decision.
Why the numbers tend to work.
The math in Bon Accord is the same math that works across central Alberta, with a couple of local wrinkles. You're paying retail rates for power you could be making on your own roof, and Alberta's net metering rules let you bank the summer surplus as credits to spend in the dark months. Most homeowners we design for are aiming at one number: an annual electricity bill near zero.
A typical home here lands on a 7–8 kW system. At our standard cash rate of about $2.80 per watt, that's roughly $19,600–$22,400 before incentives. Smaller 3–6 kW systems cost more per watt — the fixed parts of an install (permits, trips, racking labour) spread across fewer panels — so don't be surprised if a small system pencils out higher on a per-watt basis. Payback usually lands in the 7–8 year range; the equipment is warrantied well past that.
On hardware: LONGi 500W panels with APsystems DS3 microinverters, a critter guard along the array edge, and a lifetime leak-proof roof guarantee on every penetration we make. We've done 500+ installs since 2018, all with our own crew under a Master Electrician — we don't subcontract the roof to whoever's available.
Sun hours a year
Central Alberta gets more usable sun than most people expect — and cold weather helps panel output.
Standard cash rate
Applies to a typical straightforward 7–8 kW install. Small systems run higher per watt.
Annual bill target
Net metering credits from summer carry you through the short days of December and January.
Three straightforward ways to cover it.
Most Bon Accord homeowners use one of three paths. Cash earns the best price — roughly a 10% discount versus financed, and the $2.80/W rate above is the cash rate. $0-down financing through Financeit spreads it into monthly payments at a modest markup, set up at your free assessment. Or you roll it into your mortgage or a HELOC, which usually carries the lowest interest of the three.
There's also property-tax financing to know about. Sturgeon County runs a residential Clean Energy Improvement Program (CEIP) — up to $50,000 of solar financing repaid through your property taxes — for County and acreage properties around Bon Accord. Whether in-town addresses can use CEIP depends on the municipality, and we don't want to overstate it: check the official program-locations page below to confirm what's available at your address. We'll help you read it. See all financing options →
FortisAlberta owns the wires. You choose the rest.
In Bon Accord and across Sturgeon County, the poles, the wires and the meter belong to FortisAlberta — not EPCOR, not ATCO. That matters for solar because your micro-generation application and your bi-directional meter swap both go through Fortis. We file that application and pull the electrical permit for you — it's part of the job, not a form we hand back to you.
The retail side of your bill is deregulated in Alberta. The default rate, if you never pick a retailer, is the Rate of Last Resort (it replaced the old RRO on January 1, 2025). Either way, net metering runs under Alberta's Micro-Generation Regulation: the surplus you export earns retail-rate credits on your bill. Send extra to the grid in July, draw those credits down in January. How net metering works in Alberta →
Your distribution utility
FortisAlberta handles the meter and micro-gen connection for every address in Bon Accord.
Default retail rate
The Rate of Last Resort replaced the RRO in 2025. You can switch retailers anytime.
Retail-rate credits
Exported surplus is credited at retail rate under the Micro-Generation Regulation.
Town roofs and County ground.
The work splits into two pictures. Inside town — the established core and the newer streets — it's almost always a rooftop array, sized to the roof and your bill. Out in the surrounding Sturgeon County acreages, where there's open south-facing land and sometimes a shop or barn roof in the mix, a ground-mount often makes more sense: you orient it perfectly, keep it off an aging roof, and scale it up if you've got an EV or a shop to power.
We're close. Bon Accord is about 40 km from our Edmonton shop and minutes from St. Albert and Fort Saskatchewan, so a site visit isn't a logistics problem — it's a short drive, and the same crew that quotes you is the crew that installs. Curious how panels handle an Alberta winter? →
Battery & EV, briefly.
Battery backup
Solar makes power by day; a battery lets you hold some of it for the evening and for outages. For an out-of-town acreage on the end of a Fortis line, that's the difference between riding out a winter outage and sitting in the dark. We size it to what you actually need to keep running.
Find your battery size →EV chargers
A Level 2 charger turns daytime solar into free kilometres — you fill the car on the same power your roof made. We install clean, code-correct charger circuits as a standalone job or alongside a solar build.
See EV charger packages →Verified Google reviews.
"The team was knowledgeable, professional, and took the time to explain everything clearly. They made switching to solar feel simple and stress-free."
"They even called us a year after install just to check on the system."
"We have had our solar panels up and running for about a week."
Free assessment for Bon Accord
15 minutes. No obligation. If solar doesn't add up for you, we'll say exactly that.
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Bon Accord numbers?
A free 15-minute assessment: roof or land, your bills, and an honest design. If the math doesn't work for your address, we'll say so.