What a Squamish roof produces in a year
Natural Resources Canada models Squamish at roughly 959 kWh a year for every kW of installed capacity, based on a well oriented array with clear sky access. That works out to about 4,800 kWh from a 5 kW system, 5,800 kWh from 6 kW, 7,700 kWh from 8 kW and 9,600 kWh from 10 kW. Use those as a benchmark for checking quotes: an installer projecting substantially more from a comparable system should be able to explain which assumptions produced the gap.
The figure describes an idealised roof, and yours will differ. Direction is the largest single variable, with a south facing plane collecting the highest annual total, east and west planes producing less overall but across a longer stretch of the day, and a north facing plane rarely worth the mounting cost. Shading is the second, and it needs surveying rather than estimating, because a single obstructed module can pull down a whole string unless the design isolates panels individually. Roof clutter is the third: usable area is what remains after vents, stacks, skylights and edge clearances are taken out, and it is almost always less than the roof appears to offer from the street.
The annual total is also concentrated rather than evenly distributed. Most of it arrives in the long, bright half of the year, and winter output under thick cloud is a small fraction of nameplate capacity. That shape is worth holding in mind when reading the rate section below, because BC Hydro no longer smooths a seasonal surplus across the year the way it once did.
The ten year clock runs from your start date, not from the rate change
Squamish homes connect to BC Hydro, and two dates circulate in conversations about BC solar. The first is 1 July 2026, when BC Hydro closed Rate Schedule 1289, its net metering rate, to new customers. The second is the ten year protection given to existing net metering customers, and that one is regularly misread in a way that can cost real money.
The protection is not ten years measured from the rate change. An existing net metering customer stays on Rate Schedule 1289 until ten years have passed from their own initial net metering service start date. A household that connected in 2018 moves across in 2028, not in 2036. So if you already generate here, the relevant date is on your own account rather than in a news story, and it is worth establishing precisely, because it tells you how many years of the old arrangement you have left and therefore how much a decision to switch actually costs.
If you are connecting a new system, none of that applies to you and the picture is simpler. You start on Rate Schedule 2289, the self generation rate, from day one. Your panels still power the house first, your generation is still netted against your consumption inside each billing period, and any surplus remaining when the period closes is converted to a bill credit at a fixed 10 cents per kWh against energy charges, for systems up to 100 kW. You also stay on the standard tiered residential rate, since BC Hydro's time of day pricing is opt in and solar does not enrol you in it.
The two situations meet at one decision point. Taking the BC Hydro solar rebate places you on the Self Generation Service rate. For a new Squamish connection that costs nothing, because that is where you already are. For a homeowner sitting on grandfathered years under Rate Schedule 1289, the rebate and those remaining years are alternatives rather than additions, and the arithmetic depends on how many years are left and how much surplus the array actually exports.
Budget the time as carefully as the money
The District of Squamish issues building permits for construction and alterations, and its fee scale runs from $200 for work under $100,000 of construction value up to $3,000 for projects over $5,000,000. A residential rooftop array sits firmly at the bottom of that range, so the permit fee itself is a minor line in a solar budget rather than something to plan around.
Review time is the variable that actually affects your project, and here the published guidance needs handling with care. A Builders' Corner update from 2017 is still posted on the District's site and quotes review times of roughly 8 weeks for residential and 12 weeks for commercial applications. That figure is old enough that current queues could differ in either direction, so do not build a schedule on it. What it reasonably tells you is that review here is measured in weeks rather than days, which is a meaningful planning fact on its own. Call the Building Department for a current turnaround before you commit to an installation date or accept a contractor's proposed timeline.
Sequence the rest of the project around that answer. Solar installation work is seasonal in demand, so a permit that clears late can push an install past the window you were aiming for and into the following year. Ask your installer which approvals they file and which you file, confirm who arranges the electrical permit and inspection for the connection, and get the interconnection application to BC Hydro started rather than leaving it until the panels are on the roof. Projects of this kind usually lose time where one approval waits on another, not inside any single queue.
In Squamish, sharing a roof is the normal case
Squamish has a more mixed housing stock than a typical BC community, and it changes who can act alone. Of 9,190 dwellings, 40.6% are single detached. The rest is spread across low rise apartments at 18.1%, row houses at 14.5%, semi detached homes at 9.2%, high rise apartments at 6.9% and duplexes at 6.6%. Add those together and the majority of Squamish households share a roof or a building with someone else.
That reorders the project. In an apartment, low rise or high rise, the roof is common property and there is no version where an individual owner installs panels above their own unit. The realistic path is a building scale proposal to the strata: sized against the building's shared consumption, approved under the alteration rules, and funded from the contingency reserve or a levy. Row houses at 14.5% are the case that catches people out, because the home feels detached and the roof plane above your unit looks like yours, yet strata plans commonly treat it as common property. Read your own strata plan and bylaws, or ask the property manager, before you pay anyone to draw a layout.
Semi detached homes at 9.2% and duplexes at 6.6% sit in a third category. Usually a single roof structure spans two households, so even where the decision is legally yours, the mounting penetrations, the flashing and the sequencing of any future reroof affect the home on the other side of the wall. Settling that with your neighbour in advance is far easier than renegotiating it around scaffolding.
For the 40.6% in single detached houses the decision is genuinely yours, and the remaining checks are practical: how many years of life the roof covering has left, whether the electrical service can accept a back fed breaker sized to the inverter, and where the shadows fall during production hours.
Rebates, and how people are paying for systems now
The BC Hydro solar and battery rebate covers up to $5,000 on residential solar, calculated at $1,000 per kW of installed generator capacity and capped at 50% of total installed cost. Battery storage paired with the array earns $500 per kWh up to $1,500, subject to a 5 kWh minimum and the same cost ceiling, rising to as much as $5,000 where the battery is enrolled in Peak Saver. Since 1 June 2026 the work has to be done by a member of the Home Performance Contractor Network, so confirm membership while you are still comparing installers rather than after you have chosen one.
Financing changed shape recently and it is the part most homeowners have not caught up with. The Canada Greener Homes Loan, interest free up to $40,000, stopped accepting new applications on 2 October 2025, and only loans approved before that date are still being funded. There is no drop in replacement for it: the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, which took its place, works through provincial partners to deliver no cost retrofits to low and median income households, with solar federally eligible although each province sets its own technology list. Canada has no federal investment tax credit for residential solar either, so any quote showing one is importing American figures.
The practical effect is that the capital for a Squamish installation now comes from your own funds or from ordinary lending, and the rebate reduces the cost rather than bridging it. Plan the cash flow on that basis. It is also worth pricing the array and any battery as separate decisions, since the storage rebate has its own minimum, its own cap and its own Peak Saver condition. British Columbia has at times exempted qualifying solar equipment from provincial sales tax, and because the scope moves with provincial budgets, confirm the current treatment of your specific equipment at the time of purchase rather than relying on what applied to someone else's project.