John's 13 kW solar installation in Roseneath, Ontario

0:00 I retired about 15 years ago I worked in Toronto I designed software before that programming it World basically my whole

0:08 career and at the time I wasn't thinking solar panels but uh the barn bases south

0:16 or the uh one side PES South which turned out to be perfect for solar panels the electricity went in in

0:23 1962 so before that it was no electricity I had looked at it uh probably 5 years after I bought this

0:32 place and at the time the technology wasn't as good as it is now and there were not companies that did everything

0:40 and then as time goes on the technology changed and more and more people started doing it and you see around the countryside more and more buildings with

0:47 panels carbon footprint um getting off fossil fuels uh I drive an electric car uh it's

0:56 been 9 years I've been driving electric car gas prices don't bother me I do have a lawnmower right on lawn mower so there

1:03 is gas in but uh the furnace is U I've got a heat pump and uh a boiler electric

1:11 boiler for under floor heating and so it made sense to have solar to feed the house and with net

1:19 metering I get credits as it produces more it's covered 70% of my energy costs

1:26 the whole the one year as I mentioned I drive an electric car so I charge my car at home almost

1:34 exclusively and I drive about 25,000 km a year so if you factor all that in it

1:41 makes sense that my my uh electricity draw is higher but once once it got going uh it was a few days to put the

1:48 panels up another couple days to hook up the inverters um all the inspections were taken care of when it finally got

1:56 hooked up Esa came and reviewed it uh in Ed and um turned it on I used to check

2:03 daily like cuz it's connected to the internet I could see the daily amounts and after about 3 4 months I were like okay and then it was weekly now about

2:12 once a month I go look at the stats you know and I get my uh bill from Hydro 1 and it has the uh the net metering so it

2:20 shows how much is going in and going out they just work getting rid of the oil furnace U

2:27 getting electric car um the solar panels reducing the carbon footprint uh it's all part of the

2:34 picture I know it's a tiny piece in the big grand scheme of things but if more and more people do it it adds up so

2:41 there was a $5,000 Grant helped pay for The Upfront costs 40,000 interest free loan for 10 years if those two things

2:50 hadn't been there I probably wouldn't have gone ahead be patient you know it's a process takes time and that's not just the company per se it's the uh the loan

2:59 the GRE homes it's a it's a bureaucracy so it takes time you got to go through the steps find someone else that's been through the process um it would be a

3:08 great help