Solar panels in Squamish, British Columbia

Squamish in the Sea-to-Sky corridor has lower production (970 kWh/kW) due to mountain shadows, but solar is viable on south-facing roofs with clear exposure. BC Hydro rebates (up to $5,000 for solar plus battery rebate (up to $1,500 without Peak Saver, or up to $5,000 with Peak Saver)) and PST exemption apply. A site assessment is particularly important in Squamish.

Note: The federal Canada Greener Homes Grant and Loan programs are now closed.

BC Hydro closed its 1:1 net metering rate, Rate Schedule 1289, to new customers on 1 July 2026, following a BC Utilities Commission decision. New self-generation customers take Rate Schedule 2289, under which BC Hydro buys excess generation at a fixed 10¢/kWh and pays each billing cycle rather than once a year. Existing net metering customers stay on RS 1289 until 10 years have passed from their initial net metering service start date, then transfer automatically — except customers who received BC Hydro’s solar rebate, who were moved to RS 2289 on 1 July 2026.

Most of these city pages can tell you that the modelled figure is a reasonable guide and the roof does the rest. Squamish is the exception, and it is worth saying so plainly.

The town sits in a steep-sided valley between the Tantalus Range and the Garibaldi massif. Terrain shading — a mountain, not a tree — behaves differently from the obstructions solar designers usually model. It removes whole blocks of the day rather than scattered hours, it varies enormously between one part of town and another, and it is worst in winter when the sun is low and the ridgelines cast furthest.

So the 970 kWh per kW figure on this page should be read as a valley average rather than a prediction for your address. A Garibaldi Highlands property with open southern exposure can beat it comfortably. A property tucked under a western ridge in Valleycliffe may not reach it. Two houses ten minutes apart can differ by more than the gap between Vancouver and Kamloops.

What that means practically is that a desk estimate is worth less here than usual. The questions to put to an installer are specific: has the horizon been surveyed from the actual roof rather than assumed flat, does the production model account for terrain rather than only for nearby objects, and how does the estimate differ between December and June?

None of this makes Squamish a poor place for solar. Clear south-facing roofs here do well, and the payback of 12 to 14 years reflects a valley average that includes compromised sites. It means the spread around that average is unusually wide, and finding out which side of it you are on is the first job rather than a detail.

BC Hydro closed its 1:1 net metering rate, Rate Schedule 1289, to new customers on 1 July 2026 following a BC Utilities Commission decision. New self-generation customers take Rate Schedule 2289, under which BC Hydro buys excess generation at a fixed 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, paid each billing cycle rather than once a year. You buy electricity back at 11.87 cents on Step 1 and 14.08 on Step 2.

Generation you use yourself is therefore worth more than generation you export, and the practical response everywhere in the province is to size against your own consumption rather than your roof.

In Squamish that advice lands differently, and slightly more comfortably. Where terrain shading already limits what a roof can carry, the constraint that now applies for economic reasons is often the one the mountain applied anyway. A site that can only support 7 kW is unlikely to be exporting large surpluses in the first place, so the export price matters less to it than to a large unobstructed roof on the Fraser Valley floor.

The exception is a well-exposed south-facing property with real capacity — the kind that does beat the valley average. For those, the same discipline applies as anywhere in BC: work out twelve months of actual consumption, size to that, and treat additional panels beyond it as earning 10 cents rather than displacing 14.

Existing net metering customers are unaffected for now. BC Hydro states they stay on RS 1289 until ten years from their service start date, with one exception noted below.

• View Solar Panel Pricing →
• Check Available Rebates →
• British Columbia Solar Overview →