Annual output from a Port Moody roof
Natural Resources Canada's photovoltaic dataset puts Port Moody at 980 kWh a year per kilowatt of installed panels, assuming optimal tilt and orientation. A 5 kW array on that basis models at roughly 4,900 kWh a year and an 8 kW array at about 7,800 kWh. Use it as a sanity check on any quote rather than as a promise, because it describes an ideal roof, not yours.
The deductions from that ideal are the usual three. Orientation, where anything off south costs you some annual yield. Shading, where a chimney, a dormer or a mature tree can cut a string's output out of proportion to the area it covers unless the design isolates panels electrically. And soiling and age, which are slow and small but real. A careful proposal will state its assumptions for each rather than presenting a single confident number.
None of that is unusual. What is worth more attention in Port Moody now is not the annual total at all, but the daily shape of it, and the reason for that is the rate you will be connecting under.
Why array layout is now a financial decision, not just a technical one
BC Hydro closed net metering, Rate Schedule 1289, to new customers on 1 July 2026. Port Moody systems now connect under Rate Schedule 2289. Panels still power the house first, and generation is still netted against consumption within each billing period, but a surplus is no longer banked as kilowatt-hours at retail value. It converts to a bill credit at a fixed 10 cents per kWh, applied against energy charges, for systems up to 100 kW.
Under the old arrangement a kilowatt-hour was a kilowatt-hour whenever it arrived, so the only sensible design target was maximum annual production, which usually meant putting every panel on the best south-facing slope. That is no longer automatically the right answer. Because 10 cents sits below the residential energy rate, generation that lands while the house is consuming is worth more than generation that leaves the property, and the two design targets, most kilowatt-hours and most value, have come apart.
The practical consequences are concrete. A south-facing array concentrates output around the middle of the day. Splitting panels across east and west slopes lowers the annual total but flattens the curve, pushing production into the morning and late afternoon when a household is more likely to be drawing power. A steeper tilt gives up some summer output and holds up better in the shoulder seasons. Which of these suits you depends on when your house actually uses electricity, which is a question about your household, not about your roof.
So ask for two modelled layouts rather than one, and ask each to be reported as annual production plus expected self-consumption rather than annual production alone. If the answers are close, take the simpler installation. If they are not, you have learned something a brochure would never have told you.
Ioco Townsite and Moody Centre change the approval path
Port Moody has two recognised Heritage Conservation Areas: Ioco Townsite and Moody Centre. If your property sits inside either, you must obtain a Heritage Alteration Permit before you subdivide, add to, construct or alter a building or structure. That wording is broad enough to reach a rooftop solar installation, so for those properties the heritage permit is a genuine first step, not a formality to sort out later.
Outside those two areas the position is different. Being on the City's Heritage Register alone does not create the alteration permit requirement. So the first thing to establish is a boundary question, not a design question: find out whether your address falls inside a Conservation Area before you spend time on array layouts.
If it does, build the extra step into the schedule and treat it as sequential rather than parallel. Panel placement, visibility from the street and mounting hardware are the sorts of details a heritage review looks at, so it is worth having your installer prepare a layout that anticipates the question rather than one that has to be redrawn afterwards.
The solar ready rule, and which permits the City does not issue
New single-family homes in Port Moody must be built solar ready under the Province's Solar Hot Water Ready Regulation, which requires a structural engineer's note confirming the roof can carry future solar collectors. If your house is recent, that note may already exist, and it is worth asking your builder or looking through the permit file for it before paying an engineer to answer the same question twice.
Be clear about what solar ready does and does not mean. It is a statement about structural capacity and provision for a future installation. It is not an approval, it does not size an array, and it does not remove the need for permits when you actually install one. Treat it as one item of evidence that shortens a conversation, not as a step already completed.
The City does not issue gas or electrical permits and does not inspect that work. Technical Safety BC handles the electrical connection step, which means your installer is dealing with a provincial body on that side and with the City on the building side. Ask which permits are in the quoted price, and get the expected order of the two approvals in writing so that your commissioning date is built on something real.
In Port Moody, most roofs are not owned by one household
Only 30.1% of Port Moody's dwellings are single-detached. Apartments account for 39% of the stock, split between 24.5% low-rise and 14.5% high-rise, and row houses add another 19.8%, with duplexes at 8% and semi-detached homes at 3.1%. Close to 70% of homes here are therefore in buildings where the roof is shared.
For that majority the roof is common property and the strata corporation, not the individual owner, holds the decision. That is not the same as a refusal. It means the project has a different shape: the corporation applies, the corporation holds the account and the credit, and the benefit reaches owners through the operating budget rather than through their own bills. Getting to a decision usually means a proposal to the council, then a resolution, and the timeline is set by meeting dates rather than by installer availability.
If you own one of the detached houses, none of that applies to you and the process is the ordinary one: permit, install, inspect, connect. If you own a townhouse or a duplex half, the question to settle first is whether the roof plane above you is common property or limited common property assigned to your unit, because that single line in the strata plan decides who can authorise anchors going through it.
Rebates, batteries and federal programs
BC Hydro pays up to $5,000 for a residential solar installation, worked out at $1,000 per kW of installed generator capacity and capped at 50% of total installed cost. Both limits apply at once, so on a smaller array the per-kW figure governs and on a cheaper or partly self-performed job the cost cap can govern instead. Ask for the rebate to be shown as a line calculated from your actual system, not as a headline.
A paired battery earns up to $1,500 more, at $500 per kWh with a 5 kWh minimum and the same 50% cost cap, rising to as much as $5,000 when the battery is enrolled in Peak Saver. Storage deserves a closer look here than it did under net metering, because a battery holds midday production for the evening instead of exporting it at 10 cents per kWh. Whether that pays depends on your consumption pattern and on the installed cost, which is exactly the modelling to ask for.
One rule constrains hiring: as of 1 June 2026 rebated work must be carried out by a member of the Home Performance Contractor Network. On the federal side, the Canada Greener Homes Loan (interest-free up to $40,000) stopped accepting applications on 2 October 2025 and only previously approved loans are being funded. The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, launched in September 2025, delivers no-cost retrofits through provincial partners for low- and median-income households, with solar federally eligible but each province choosing its own technology list. Canada has no residential investment tax credit. British Columbia has at times exempted qualifying solar equipment from provincial sales tax, and because the scope moves with provincial budgets you should confirm the PST position at the time of purchase.