Solar is booming outside Alberta cities, but some say distributor delays are getting in the way

February 23, 2024 Canuck

Homeowners and solar companies say delays from a major electricity distributor are hampering the growth of solar outside Alberta’s biggest cities.

Companies say months-long waits linked to FortisAlberta mean it’s taking longer to get small solar panel projects up and running on buildings in suburbs, and in central and southern Alberta.

The delays are costing companies money and vexing their customers, who are trying to lower their power bills as quickly as possible.

“It’s frustrating for all of us,” said Jordan Forsythe, president of Boreal Connected Homes, a company that has been installing solar arrays for about four years in the Edmonton area.

FortisAlberta says it acknowledges delays are a “pain point” for customers and is addressing them.

Waiting for approvals

With thousands of dollars available in government grants and interest-free loans in recent years, solar panels have become increasingly popular. Properties with them become micro-generators of electricity.

According to the Alberta Electric System Operator, the non-profit that oversees Alberta’s power grid, the number of solar micro-generation sites more than doubled in the past two years, rising from 7,744 in January 2022 to nearly 18,000 last month.

In order to get started with solar, property owners must submit applications, along with required permits, to their electricity distributors showing their proposed systems would follow the rules.

Edmonton residents submit the forms to Epcor and Calgary residents submit them to Enmax.

Outside these cities, across southern and central Alberta, most residents submit their applications to FortisAlberta, which owns 60 per cent of Alberta’s electricity distribution network.

Forsythe said FortisAlberta has been taking two months to approve his clients’ applications and another two months to install the bidirectional meters needed to measure how much energy customers are using and generating.

Grass is in the foreground and homes with solar panels are seen in the background. — Rooftop solar panels on townhouses in Edmonton’s Blatchford neighbourhood. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)

Companies and customers say the delays aren’t as long in other jurisdictions.

Justin Bond, who had Boreal install solar panels on his Sherwood Park home last year, said the company did work for a friend in Edmonton around the same time but Epcor processed the friend’s application much faster.

An Epcor spokesperson told CBC News its average turnaround time for intake review of applications received in 2024 is 10 days.

WATCH | Long wait times hurting customers and installation companies:

The ability to generate your own electricity may take a lot longer then you might think.

3 hours ago

Duration 2:22

More and more Albertans have been installing solar panels but some homeowners say delays from a major electricity distributor are slowing the process down.

Pincher Creek resident David Desabrais, who submitted his application to FortisAlberta in October, said the company told him by email it would take 45 days to respond. He received the approval for his project last week.

“If we’re supposed to be trying to go greener, this is slowing everybody down,” said Tom Langford, who said he waited more than two months last year for FortisAlberta to approve his application in Red Deer County.

Businesses frustrated

Jared MacGowan, head of business development for Rocky Mountain Solar Co. in Calgary, said the delays make it hard for companies to manage customers’ expectations.

Bidding on projects months in advance is also challenging, he said, since prices of materials fluctuate quickly in the industry.

“Customers probably are seeing a little bit of a higher price because we’re guarding against the price of materials potentially increasing over the next five to six months versus being able to be more aggressive if we could get on site within a month or two,” MacGowan said.

Forsythe said Boreal used to receive the final 10 per cent of its payment from customers once solar panels were connected, but has dropped that to five per cent for financial reasons.

Letters and complaints

Heather MacKenzie, executive director of the non-profit association Solar Alberta, said she has been hearing complaints about delays since last summer. She wrote a letter to FortisAlberta about the issue last week.

“It’s not fair to those Albertans, for them to be receiving inadequate connectivity to the grid compared to other micro-generators in other areas,” MacKenzie said.

A person stands on a snowy street. — Heather MacKenzie of Solar Alberta says her organization has urged FortisAlberta to address its backlog of solar applications. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)

Several homeowners told CBC News they spoke with Alberta Utilities Commission staff about the delays, but did not file formal complaints with the regulator.

Langford said he has written to multiple provincial politicians about the issue.

AUC spokesperson Geoff Scotton said no formal complaints have been made but staff have seen an increase in inquiries related to FortisAlberta, solar micro-generation units and connection delays.

He said the company has approved nearly 600 applications since October and has about 1,200 more to process.

Delays often relate to disagreements about the size of solar arrays, he said.

Scotton said FortisAlberta is not mandated to process applications or change meters within a certain time period, but is required to respond within two weeks of receiving a customer micro-generation application.

What FortisAlberta is doing

FortisAlberta says it’s receiving the bulk of micro-generation applications in the province and is taking steps to tackle the queue.

Jennifer MacGowan, the company’s director of stakeholder engagement, said the timeline for application approvals peaked at about 60 days.

“Sixty days is not acceptable to anyone, and so we recognize that and we fully acknowledge that that is a pain point for our customers especially when they’re thinking about affordability and really trying to manage what their bills look like,” she said.

A sign on a building says Fortis Alberta. — FortisAlberta says it’s working to address the surge in micro-generator applications. (Trevor Wilson/CBC)

MacGowan said FortisAlberta handled 400 solar connections in 2021 and the number has doubled every year since then.

She said the company has hired more people and worked with consultants to address common errors on applications. It plans to introduce new software that will cut down timelines by the end of May, she said.

MacGowan said the company has decreased timelines by about 10 days since the beginning of the year and hopes to bring them down by another 10 days by the end of March.

“I am confident that we’ve got things in place that will help move the dial over the next coming weeks, and coming months, so that we can get to a more manageable and normalized process,” she said.

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