Solar Club™ electricity rates are for customers who have solar panels on their home or business and are generating excess energy in the summer months that is sold back into the Alberta electricity system. Solar Club™ electricity retailers offer a high electricity rate that is meant to be used during months when more electricity is exported to the grid than is imported from the grid. The low electricity rate is meant to be used when more electricity is imported from the grid than is exported to the grid. Note that the price (either the low or high rate) applies to both the imports and the exports of electricity. 

Solar Club™ customers can move between the low and high rates at any time by submitting a “Rate Change Request” online through their account on their chosen Solar Club™ retailers’ website. Typically, customers will move from the low rate to the high rate in the spring when they begin generating more electricity and back again to the low rate in the fall when they begin generating less. 

Solar Club™ customers will have 50% of their imported energy offset or “greened” for free and they can also earn 2% cash back annually for all of their imported energy. This credit is paid directly in January or February for the previous year.  To become a member of the Solar Club™, you need only make a donation to a local food bank or charity of your choice.

Solar Club™ members will also benefit from their Price Match feature. When the highest of the Regulated Rate Option (RRO) prices exceeds 30.0 cents/kWh, members will receive that higher price for their exports and imports for that month.

In general, whenever a home is a net exporter of electricity in any one month, it is beneficial to be on the high rate for that month. When a home is a net importer of electricity from the grid, it is best to be on a low rate for that month.

For example, a home that produces around 100% percent of its annual electricity needs from solar (net-zero electrically) will typically benefit most from switching to the high rate in March/April and switching to the low rate in October/November. Solar Club™ members can switch between these two rates at any time with just 10 days’ notice, penalty-free to accommodate seasonal solar electricity fluctuations. Ask a Glean solar expert if you have questions about when to switch. Licensed Solar Club™ retailers send out reminder emails in April and October to remind members to switch their rates if they have not already done so.

The Solar Club™ is a good idea for most people with solar panels, but not everyone! The primary benefit of the Solar Club™ is created in the summer when your home exports more energy than it imports which builds credit at the high electricity rate. For this to occur, the home must have enough solar panels to be a net exporter of electricity in the summer. Our model suggests that a home that produces 70% (or more) of its annual electricity needs from solar, will produce enough in the summer to be a net exporter and benefit from the Solar Club™. In general, this is applies to most solar installations in Alberta. Check your solar installer’s original quote which should indicate the “percent electricity offset” they estimated.

A home that produces less than 70% of its annual electricity needs from solar will not produce enough electricity in the summer to be a net exporter. This means that there is no benefit to switching to the high export electricity rate and no summer credit is created. For these homes, it is best to remain on the low rate or other fixed rate all year round.

Most houses and small buildings in Alberta with solar panels do qualify for the Solar Club. The only areas not eligible are Medicine Hat and homeowners who are serviced by Peigan REA, Ermineskin REA, Wild Rose REA, Lakeland REA, North Parkland Power REA, Blue Mountain Power Co-op (formerly Rocky REA).

The technical requirements are as follows: To qualify for the Solar Club, you must be a small micro-generator with a system capacity below 150 kW and be net-billed using a bi-directional cumulative meter (not a bi-directional interval meter). A donation to your local food bank or charitable organization of your choice is also encouraged at your discretion.

You can sign up for the Solar Club using the below-cost Pre-Solar rate a as soon as you have signed a contract with your chosen solar installer. This bridges the gap between when you sign a contract with a solar installer to when the system is actually installed. As soon as you have signed a contract with a solar installer, you can sign up using a Pre-Solar Rate of $0.0728/kWh. This will remain in effect until your new solar panel system is installed and turned on. This rate is valid for 180 days from the date of enrollment. At that point, you will be immediately switched to the Solar Club low rate unless you specify otherwise. For validation, you will need to provide a signed contract with your installer and a referral code (“PRESOLAR”).

All Solar Club™ retailers all offer the same high and low electricity rates. However, there may be a small difference in their monthly admin fees. See the company descriptions above for more information about what makes each retailer unique.

Yes! If your solar installation has been sized to meet or exceed your annual electricity needs, you can expect to see $0 electricity bills for all or a portion of the summer. This is because the credit that gets built up by exporting electricity at the high rate can be put towards ALL of the fees on your electricity bill. Yes, that means fixed fees too! Any remaining credit will carry over into subsequent months.

We cannot guarantee any level of savings. It is impossible to predict exactly how many months you will have $0 electricity bills for as it depends on your electricity use habits and how much electricity your solar panels produce. However, many households see $0 electricity bills for the summer and well into the fall.

In Alberta, when it comes to the “other fees” on your bill like transmission, distribution and local access fee charges it is important to understand that the bulk of these charges are variable charges despite how they appear on your bill. This means that these charges will rise and fall with your electricity use and are at least partially charged per kWh. In Alberta, the “other fees” are charged to residential homes as follows:

The transmission charge is entirely variable – usually around 4 cents/kWh.

The distribution charge is a combination of a variable charge (usually around 1 cent/kWh) and a fixed per-day charge (usually around $1 – $2 / day).

The local access fee is calculated differently in each municipality but is often a variable (per kWh) charge.

This ultimately means that getting solar panels will reduce these “other fees” on your electricity bill, especially in the summer when solar electricity production is high. If you export enough electricity at the Solar Club™ high rate in the summer, the credit can be put towards all of the “other fees” on your electricity bill. Most people with solar panels that use the Solar Club™ will have $0 electricity bills for several months per year.

As an example, say you install solar panels that cover 100% of your annual electricity use (i.e. your home uses 8,000 kWh/year and your solar panels produce 8,000 kWh/year). Between April and October (summer), you are a net exporter of 2,000 kWh. Between November and March (winter), you are a net importer of 2,000 kWh.

If you remain on a fixed rate for electricity, you will earn the grid price for electricity exported in the summer and pay the grid price for electricity imported from the grid in the winter.

Switching to the Solar Club™ allows you to sell electricity to the grid at the high rate in the summer! This allows you to build up a significant credit that will go towards all of the fees on your electricity bill (including transmission and distribution). Any leftover credit will carry over into subsequent months. In the fall, you will switch over to the low rate and use up the credit as a net importer of electricity. The credit can last well into the fall and winter as you are using it up at the low rate. The difference between the two rates improves the payback of an investment in solar panels significantly.

The Alberta Government may change the rules around Microgeneration at any time and we do not have any control over those types of changes. On the other hand, we are not aware of any pending changes to the regulations currently.