Canada wants to build millions of new homes. Should they all come with solar?

Rooftop solar is ubiquitous in this row of homes in Charlottetown, P.E.I. 

With efforts to buy Canadian surging, I wanted to dig into what kind of domestic options there are for a booming energy industry — solar panels. 

Leaders of a few major Canadian solar companies were clear: Canada has not created the conditions necessary to support a domestic solar panel manufacturing industry. 

While solar energy has a growing future in the country, Canada had largely ceded the making of the panels themselves to countries in Asia, they said.

“Our supply chain in Canada is not healthy enough, it’s not built up yet. I can’t find solar cells manufactured here, in Canada,” said Katherine Zhou, founder of Ontario-based PV Technical Services, a specialty maker of roof shingles that double up as solar panels.

But Zhou also told me that Canada has a potential market, because of the amount of construction happening in this country. Anyone living in major cities like Toronto or Vancouver is used to the giant construction sites that seem to appear every few blocks, not to mention new subdivisions growing at the urban edges. 

What if all those (desperately needed) new homes came with solar panels by default?

“If we build all these thousands of houses like our prime minister is saying, which is a good thing I think, then at the same time we should make sure we make them energy efficient with solar panels,” said Andreas Athienitis, director of the Centre for Zero Energy Building Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.

“Let's do it right the first time.”

During the federal election campaign, Liberal Leader Mark Carney proposed a plan to build half a million new homes in Canada per year. A big part of the plan is directing financing to prefabricated housing builders and making bulk orders of housing units from such builders to create demand and sustain the industry. It doesn’t mention solar panels.

Adding solar requirements to new housing units could be the kind of mass demand that Zhou and others are saying is needed for boosting the solar industry at home. And it’s an idea that will reportedly be tried soon across the pond in the U.K.

The U.K. government is set to announce that nearly all new homes in England will require solar panels to be installed on them starting in 2027, according to media reports, as part of the Labour government’s plans to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2030. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who won a landslide election victory last year, has said the U.K. has to focus both on cutting carbon emissions as well as shoring up energy security.

And it could be a useful buffer against rising temperatures, which are increasingly causing dangerous heatwaves in cities. A new study from researchers at the University of Guelph found that adding urban trees and putting rooftop solar panels on all buildings was an ideal climate adaptation measure. The solar panels could produce enough energy to meet the rising demand from air conditioning.

Of course, requiring solar panels would add to the cost of new homes.

California has mandated all new homes built in the state to have a solar panel setup since 2020. In 2018, the state's energy regulator estimated that the requirement would add about $13,125 to the price of a new home. Over the course of a typical mortgage, that worked out to about $55 in extra payments per month.

 

It makes financial sense to put panels on new homes, according to John Gamble, president of Modular Energy Solution in Niagara Falls, Ont., because it can be bundled into a mortgage.

“When you have a new house and you have a mortgage on the new house, you can spread the cost … for the solar battery system out over 25 years,” he said. 

In Ontario, a 7.5 kilowatt solar set up costs roughly $25,000. Gamble said that if it's not rolled into a mortgage, that could cost $400 or more in monthly payments on a shorter-term five year loan, which is a tougher sell.

Solar panels on homes can also help the entire grid, especially in regions like southern Ontario with a lot of energy demand from large manufacturing and industrial plants. If homes can produce their own energy, more electricity can be directed to power-hungry industries.

“The government has talked about putting in more nuclear facilities and more ways of creating power, but that takes time,” Gamble pointed out. 

“The beauty with solar and batteries is we have those today. The solution can happen today overnight.”

— Inayat Singh

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Check out our podcast and radio show. In one of our newest episodes: Pattie Gonia proves why climate action is a total drag, in the most fabulous way possible. From going viral for hiking in high heels, to performing a climate anthem with acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Alaskan Indigenous artist Quinn Christopherson, Wyn Wylie (the artist behind Pattie Gonia) is on a mission to bring some joy to the fight to protect the planet — and show that 2SLGBTQ+ people are vital to the quest for climate solutions.

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Reader Feedback

Last week, Nicole Mortillaro wrote about why many landlords don't make apartments greener for tenants, and what tenants can do.

Hillary Hopps responded: "I am a renter. I would love to see clotheslines set up. There is lots of space out back of my building and in a previous building I was living in a few years ago. As it is, I never use the clothes dryer, I hang my laundry on racks and they dry overnight, as my apartment is hot. I am always hot so never turn on the heat in winter, however the reverse is true in summer. I just about die from heat so I have to use a portable AC, since there isn’t Central Air. The one summer where the building I rented in had it, I actually liked summer. I use a baking (toaster) oven, but one thing most people who don’t rent do not realize is that there isn’t much counter space in most apartment kitchens."

We also featured an article last week on a growing interest in fur, thanks in part to vintage shoppers concerned about sustainability. Ivy Grey expressed concern about this "given the climate, public health, and animal welfare risks involved,” she wrote, sharing details through a link to the web page of Fashion Collective Justice, a group focused on reducing harm to the planet, people and animals from fashion. "Canada has made commendable strides in promoting truly sustainable and ethical fashion alternatives, including plant-based, recycled, and innovative biodegradable materials," she wrote. "There are so many amazing real sustainability innovators in our country that I was shocked to see fur — of all things — highlighted!"

Write us at whatonearth@cbc.ca. (And feel free to send photos too!) 

The Big Picture: Aptera solar EV

One of the challenges of owning an electric car is finding a place to charge. California-based Aptera Motors says that's something drivers of its vehicle will rarely have to worry about. Aptera's three-wheeled two-seater passenger car is designed to travel up to 64 kilometres per day powered by the car's 700 watts of solar panels (although you can plug it into a charger to get another 640 kilometres if you plan to travel farther). The company says it aims to begin low-volume production later this year in Carlsbad, Calif., and produce up to 20,000 cars annually by 2027.

Meanwhile, two other companies have cancelled their development of solar cars targeted at consumers. Dutch firm Lightyear is now trying to focus on making solar charging available to the entire automotive industry. German startup Sono Motors cancelled its solar powered Sion crossover in 2023 to focus on solar kits for all kinds of vehicles, from trucks to buses to RVs.

— Emily Chung
 

See how Newfoundland's biggest mall keeps tonnes of food court waste out of the landfill

Every day, shoppers at the Avalon Mall food court in St. John’s leave piles of food waste behind. There’s no organic waste processing in Newfoundland and Labrador, but the province’s biggest mall found a way to keep it out of the landfill — with the province’s biggest industrial composter. From start to finish, see how diners' food scraps are collected and processed into tonnes of compost for local farms.