Solar panels are becoming a more and more common sight on rooftops across the province, but a delay in the installation of bidirectional power meters is causing frustration for those with panels already in place, but no way to put their excess power back into the grid.
Brian LeGard installed solar panels on his roof back in July, but is still waiting for the special meter to be added onto his home in northwest Regina.
“There’s actually a return on the investment, by building up these credits the systems are sized to flatten out your power bill so you don’t have a power bill,” LeGard told CTV News.
But without the device installed, SaskPower is unable to measure how much excess power back he's feeding back to the crown corporation and is still receiving a bill: cancelling out part of the reason he decided to make the financial commitment to getting solar panels put up.
“SaskPower came out, did their full inspection and that, and that’s when I learned that the bidirectional meters weren’t available. So that was of course a frustration, a weekly when are they coming, that sort of thing. SaskPower wasn’t able to tell me much of anything,” LeGard said.
SaskPower says the reason for the delay is a shortage of components the company’s supplier uses to build the two-way power meters.
LeGard says SaskPower has been in contact with him and said he’ll get credit on his first post-installation power bill for some of the energy he’s produced, but it will only start after a 30 business day window from the inspection of his solar setup.
Once the meter is in place and the credit is given, SaskPower will start paying for LeGard’s contributions to the grid.
SaskPower says it expects a shipment of the bidirectional meters to come in next week, and installation will begin shortly afterwards.
