Welcome to Osprey Electric
Your Trusted Solar Panel Installation Experts serving Nanaimo.
Harness the power of solar energy! Discover the financial and environmental benefits of solar for your home. From understanding your energy consumption to solar panel installations, our experienced team is here to guide you every step of the way.
Nanaimo's Solar Potential:
Is Nanaimo A Good Place for Solar Panels?
The sun provides a virtually unlimited source of clean, sustainable energy that we down here on earth have only just started to take advantage of.
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Homeowners in Nanaimo and all over Vancouver Island are taking advantage of this renewable resource, a customer friendly regulatory connection process (BC Utilities Commission and BC Hydro) and federally backed financial incentives to fuel massive growth in residential and commercial solar installations.
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Surpassing the growth in solar panel installations in Nanaimo is the adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps to both heat and cool homes. These innovations are both being fueled by incentives to transition away from the consumption of fossil fuels to environmentally friendly technologies. What do EVs and heat pumps require to operate? More energy! Nanaimo homeowners are calling Osprey Electric daily to have their electrical service upgraded, EV chargers installed, and solar power systems added to their roof to offset their increased energy requirements.
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According to BC Hydro, as of April 5, 2023 there were 6,057 residential customers with a solar system on their property connected to the utility. Approximately half of these customers are located on Vancouver Island, showing that us islanders are leading the way with integrating solar into their homes. Nanaimo and neighbouring territories are in an excellent position to take advantage of this fantastic opportunity. With experienced electrical contractors such as Osprey Electric, homeowners can be certain that their projects will be installed by professional electricians.
​Is solar right for me? Understanding your
energy consumption needs.
Adding Solar power to your Nanaimo home is an investment in your energy future and a way to do your part to help the environment. To optimize your investment, it’s ideal to understand your average annual energy consumption. Here in BC you can log in to your MyHydro account with BC Hydro and retrieve your annual energy consumption.
Once you have your average annual consumption, we would suggest adding a minimum of 10% to this value for future additional energy requirements (adding an EV charger, etc.) and another 10% to account for the degradation of the solar performance over a 20-year period.
Is your roof suitable for solar panel installation? What is your roof made from?
There are 3 key factors to determine if your roof is suitable for solar panel installation.
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Your Nanaimo solar power installer will conduct a roof assessment to determine if your roof is suitable for solar panels. Solar Panels work best when your roof is made from solid and durable materials such as asphalt shingles or metal.
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What is the age of your roof? If your roof is within 5 years of replacement, it is recommended to upgrade your roof before you install your solar panels to save you time and money in the near future.
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The slope of your roof surfaces and each surface’s azimuth, or orientation to the sun, are important factors that will impact the system’s performance. South-facing roofs (180-degree azimuth) sloped at 35 to 45 degrees and having no obstructions causing shade are the ideal candidates. However, this combination is fairly rare. Fortunately, solar panels installed on a combination of East, West and South facing roofs will still generate significant and meaningful energy. Your Nanaimo solar panel installer should ensure that the solar installation is designed to minimize shade from trees, plumbing stacks, roof vents, etc. to maximize the energy production of your solar panel installation.
How much do solar panels cost in Nanaimo?
In addition to peace of mind knowing that your home is powered by renewable energy there are also significant financial benefits for adding solar power to your home in Nanaimo.
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Solar panels can save you upwards of a couple of thousand dollars on your annual energy bills and offer an environmentally friendly and sustainable way to power your home. The cost of a solar panel installation varies mostly with the overall quantity of solar panels that can be reasonably fit on your roof. Lesser factors affecting the price include the number of different surfaces used and the slope of those surfaces as these affect the amount of labour required to complete the solar panel installation. Also, the type of roof surface matters. Asphalt shingle, flat roof, or metal roof each use slightly different anchoring methods that require different materials.
Most Nanaimo solar panel installations have varied in cost between $20 to $35k, with the average installations at about $24k. In most cases, the solar panel installations are filling the roof but that doesn’t need to be the case. Designs can easily be modified to fit the budget of the client. Aiding homeowners to financially transition to clean energy, most municipalities along with both the Provincial and Federal Governments offer a series of incentives.
NRCan’s ‘Canada Greener Home Initiative’ provides three incentives:
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A grant in the form of a post-project rebate of $1,000 for every kW of solar modules installed on your primary residence, up to 5 kW or $5,000
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$600 rebate to cover required energy assessments of your home that are required before and after the installation of the solar system
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Up to $40,000 interest-free loan with a 10-year repayment term.
How long does it take to pay off - an investment in solar? How about Day One?
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Based on market research, the most impactful influence on payback is the increase to the market value of your home. In BC, the value of a solar array is reflected in the price of the home at 125% to 150% of the installed system's cost. This means that the return on your solar investment is immediate and the day it was installed you recuperate the cost within your home investment. That makes the value of all energy generated over the warrantied 25-year life of the system pure profit.
BC Hydro’s Net Metering Program
The energy generated by your solar system is consumed by your house loads first. When your solar power system generates more energy than your home requires, the excess is sent out to the grid and is registered on your BC Hydro Smart Meter as an ‘Outflow’ of energy. In the reverse case, your energy loads are greater than the output of the solar system, so you need to import energy from BC Hydro to meet your demand and this is registered as ‘Inflow’ on your Smart Meter.
Every 2-month billing cycle the amount of your Inflow and Outflow is registered and if your Outflow is greater than your Inflow, the excess kWh are credited towards your next billing cycle. You are not ‘paid’ for the excess you generate; you accumulate the kWh credit for future use. If during the 2-month period your Inflow exceeds your Outflow, then you have a net energy charge that you will have to pay. This is Net Metering.
If on your annual anniversary date (typically March 1st) you have a net Outflow for the year, you will be credited for the net amount at the market rate which is set every January (for 2023 this rate is $0.106/kWh). If you have a net Inflow as of March 1st you will have an energy charge for the net amount, like your regular billing cycle energy charges.
Every solar system that is installed on a residential home connected to BC Hydro must complete a Net Metering application. Clients with a 200A service or less can complete the Simple Net Metering application themselves with a little technical help from us. Clients with a service capacity greater than 200A must complete a Complex Net Metering application, if your project includes a Battery Energy Storage System a Complex application is also required.The Complex application is to be started by the homeowner but will require some greater technical assistance from Osprey to finalize the application and complete the Field Verification process after the construction has completed. In both cases, Osprey will fully support you as needed.
Permits and Regulations
Getting solar in Nanaimo has never been a better time. Our Nanaimo solar team is here to walk you through the whole process and aid you with the next steps. With their expertise, they will be able to help you obtain the permits you need depending on where you live and provide you will all the information on grants and funding available. If you are interested in installing solar onto your home in Nanaimo please contact us here https://ospreyelectric.formstack.com/forms/solar_qualifier . You can answer a few questions to get us started.
The Environmental Impact of Going Solar
There are two primary reasons homeowners in Nanaimo are interested in solar energy: one is the financial benefit and the second, is how it positively effects the environment. Solar power has wide-ranging advantages for our planet, especially when it comes to our environment. Climate change is on the rise and by adding solar power to your home you can reduce the demand for fossil fuels, limit greenhouse gas emissions and reduce your own carbon footprint. Nanaimo Foodshare Society is a non-profit community organization to has installed solar panels to produce more sustainable energy for their project and reduce their environmental impact.
Osprey Electric has the privilege to donate our time to install a solar panel system for the Nanaimo Foodshare Society. Here is a video to see more https://youtu.be/3jwnvL8GPNI - this video shows Osprey talking about solar and volunteering to install solar panels in Nanaimo.
Osprey Electric Solar Systems
solar panel
installation
for your home or business in nanaimo
Want to go green in your home? Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity to provide you with efficient and clean energy for your home. We provide Solar Power Panel installation and custom design solar energy solutions to fit any home.
solar power systems for your house or business
We help businesses develop new ways to improve energy efficiency, reduce power costs and reduce your cardon footprint. Our solar power experts will design and install high efficiency solar power systems custom to your business needs.
You can gain energy independence by using Osprey as your solar power experts.
renewable energy
systems
Renewable energy is energy produced from sources like the sun and wind that are naturally replenished and do not run out. Renewable energy can be used for electricity generation. We provide solar power panel installation and design services for your home, business and backup generation needs.*
*Generators support renewable installs like gravy on a turkey dinner