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Most of a solar installation is paperwork, and most of the paperwork is not yours.
The whole solar installation process in Calgary runs like this. Someone comes and looks at your roof, and you get a quote. If you accept it, we pull the electrical permit from the City of Calgary. Separately, we submit a micro-generation application to Enmax, because a system that exports power to the grid needs the distributor’s approval before it can be connected. The panels go on — usually a couple of days on the roof. An inspector attends. Once the inspection passes and Enmax registers the site, the system is energised and starts producing. After that, and only after that, it is worth looking at your electricity rate.
Two honest notes before the detail. The stages we control are quick; the ones the City and the utility control are not, and the whole sequence typically runs weeks to a few months. And at almost every step, the answer to “what do I need to do” is nothing.
Step 1: the site assessment and the quote
Someone visits the property and looks at four things: the roof itself, the electrical panel, what the building shades and is shaded by, and twelve months of your power bills.
The roof matters for pitch, orientation, structure and age. South-facing is best in Alberta, but east and west both work; what matters more is that the roof has life left in it. Panels last 25 years and shingles usually do not, so a roof near the end of its life is worth doing first — taking an array off and putting it back is a real cost nobody enjoys paying.
The electrical panel matters because solar connects to it. Some have room for the connection as they are; some need work. This is a common source of an unwelcome surprise later, which is why it belongs in the assessment rather than on installation day.
Your bills matter because Alberta’s Micro-Generation Regulation sizes a system to your own consumption rather than to your roof. Twelve months of kilowatt-hours tells us what the system is allowed to be, and what share of your use it can realistically cover.
What you get back should state the system size in kW, the estimated annual production and the assumptions behind it, the percentage of your consumption covered, and the exclusions. If you are comparing quotes, our guide on how to choose a solar installer sets out what to read in each one.
What you have to do: find twelve months of bills, and be there for the visit.
Step 2: permits and City of Calgary approval
Solar is electrical work, so it needs an electrical permit. In Calgary that permit is pulled by the licensed electrical contractor doing the installation — us — and the permit is what triggers the inspection at the end.
Two things are worth knowing about this step.
First, a residential rooftop array on an existing house does not usually need a development permit as well. The panels follow the roofline, and the City treats that as part of the building rather than a new structure. Ground mounts are a different conversation, and so are properties with heritage or architectural controls.
Second, and more important: an installation done without a permit is never inspected. That sounds like the installer’s problem and it is not. It becomes yours at resale, at insurance renewal, and any time somebody asks to see the paperwork for the electrical system on your roof. If a quote is unusually cheap, this is one of the first places to look.
You do not apply for anything or attend anything. The permit is pulled in the contractor’s name against the property address, and the City’s timelines are the City’s.
What you have to do: nothing.
Step 3: Enmax micro-generation approval
This is the step almost nobody has heard of before they start, and it is the one that most often sets the schedule.
A solar system that sends power back to the grid is a micro-generator, and under Alberta’s Micro-Generation Regulation it has to be approved by the wires company that owns the poles and the meter — not by your electricity retailer. In Calgary that is Enmax. In Edmonton it is EPCOR; across much of the province it is FortisAlberta; Red Deer runs its own municipal utility. The distinction matters because people routinely call their retailer about it, and the retailer is not who decides.
The application sets out the system, its size and the equipment. Once approved and built, the distributor exchanges your meter for a bidirectional one measuring power in both directions. Without that meter, exported power is simply given away.
The honest part: we submit the application, we chase it, and we cannot speed it up. It is on their schedule, not ours, which is the largest single reason the overall timeline runs in weeks rather than days.
What you have to do: nothing, beyond confirming the account details on the application are right.
Step 4: installation day
The visible part, and the shortest.
A residential system is usually a couple of days on the roof. Racking is mounted and flashed into the roof structure, panels are attached, DC wiring is run to the inverter, and the inverter is tied into your electrical panel. There is a period — normally under an hour, arranged with you — where the power is off while the connection is made.
What good work looks like on the day: penetrations properly flashed, conduit runs planned rather than improvised, the site left clean, and a crew willing to explain what they are doing. Rashid B., whose system went on a roof in Edmonton, described it as “nice and clean installation” — and while EPCOR rather than Enmax handled that approval, the work on the roof is the same work.
Weather moves this step and nothing else. A crew will not install in high wind or on an iced roof.
What you have to do: clear access to the electrical panel, keep pets in, and expect a short outage.
Step 5: inspection and energisation
Once the array is on, two things have to happen before it produces anything.
An electrical inspection, against the permit pulled in step 2. An inspector attends and checks the installation against the Canadian Electrical Code — the mounting, the grounding, the wiring, the labelling and the disconnects. This is the independent check that the work was done properly, and it is the reason the permit matters.
Then the distributor completes the micro-generation registration and, where it has not already happened, exchanges the meter. Only at that point can the system legally be switched on and export power.
The gap between “the panels are on my roof” and “the system is running” surprises people, and is worth expecting rather than discovering. The panels are finished and the system sits idle, and that is normal.
When it is energised, monitoring is set up and you can watch production in real time — which is, without exception, the part everybody enjoys.
What you have to do: provide access for the inspection, and nothing else.
Step 6: enrolling in a Solar Club rate
Once the system is registered as a micro-generator, your electricity rate becomes the largest financial decision left, because it sets what your exported power is worth.
We are not the people to sign you up. Selling an electricity rate in Alberta requires a licence as a marketer of energy under the Consumer Protection Act. We are a solar installer, not a retailer, and we do not take a position on which retailer you should use. You enrol with a retailer directly.
Where it falls in the build sequence is the useful part. Enrolment need not be the last step — a pre-solar rate is available once an installation contract is signed, before a single panel is on the roof, so the waiting period in steps 2 and 3 does not have to be dead time. How the programme works, what the rates are and who it does not suit is set out in our guide to the Alberta Solar Club.
For completeness, because it still appears in older guides and in one of the reviews below: the Canada Greener Homes Loan closed to new applications on 1 October 2025. Projects already in it continue. It is not available to a system being quoted today, and any page suggesting otherwise is out of date.
What you have to do: this one is actually yours. Read the rate options and choose.