What a Moncton roof produces in a year
The number to design from is 1,143 kWh per installed kilowatt per year. Multiply it by the size of the array and you have a realistic annual estimate: a 6 kW system lands near 6,900 kWh, a 9 kW system near 10,300. That is an annual total rather than a monthly one repeated twelve times. Production is weighted heavily toward the long days on either side of midsummer, and a panel under snow produces nothing at all until the snow slides or melts off it.
Orientation and shade move that number more than equipment choice does. A roof plane facing near south collects the most over a year, east and west planes spread output across the morning and the afternoon while giving up some annual total, and a north plane is rarely worth covering. A single chimney, vent stack or mature tree that shades one corner for part of the day costs more than most homeowners expect, which is why a quote worth trusting is built from a shade study of your actual roof rather than from its square footage.
Size follows your electricity bill, not your roof area. Because NB Power credits exports rather than buying them outright, an array that produces more in a year than the household uses is largely wasted effort. Bring twelve months of bills to the first conversation and let the consumption figure set the system size.
How NB Power credits your exports, and why March 31 matters
New Brunswick runs true net metering. NB Power credits the electricity you export at the same volumetric rate you would otherwise pay for it, one kilowatt hour against one kilowatt hour, rather than at a reduced buy-back rate. Those credits are not split into tiered or time-of-use bands either, so an exported kilowatt hour at noon is worth exactly what one at six in the evening is worth, and there is nothing to be gained by shifting when you run appliances.
The catch is the calendar. Unused credits roll from month to month, but the balance resets to zero every March 31 and nothing is paid out for what is left. In practice the reset date is reasonably placed: an array builds credit through the long days of summer and spends it through the winter, and the clock runs out at the end of the heating season rather than at the start of it. What it rules out is banking a permanent surplus. Anything generated beyond a year of your own consumption is given away.
So the sizing rule in Moncton is straightforward. Systems are capped at 100 kW, which no house comes near, meaning the practical ceiling is your own annual use rather than any programme limit. Before you sign, check that the array in the quote was sized against a full year of your bills, electric heat included if you have it, and not against how many panels happen to fit.
Your roof, and who actually controls it in Moncton
Moncton's housing mix matters more here than in most cities of its size. 42% of dwellings are single-detached houses, the straightforward case where one owner decides. A combined 55% live in semi-detached homes (12.5%), duplexes (6.6%), row housing, low-rise apartment buildings under five storeys (30.2%) and high-rises (3.2%), where the roof is either shared with a neighbour or belongs to somebody else entirely.
If you are in a semi or a duplex, the array itself is still a single-owner electrical system. It connects to your meter, your service panel and your account, and your neighbour's supply is untouched by it. What is shared is the structure. Roof planes often cross the property line, mounting hardware lands on rafters that may be common, and a re-roof ten years from now becomes a two-household conversation. Settle that with your neighbour before the design is fixed, not after the racking is ordered.
If you rent, or own a unit in a low-rise or high-rise building, the roof is a building-wide asset and the decision belongs to the landlord or the board. That does not make solar impossible, but it makes it a building project rather than a household one, and it starts with a proposal to whoever holds the roof rather than with a quote for your unit.
For owners of detached houses the practical filter is roof age. If the shingles are near the end of their life, replace them before the array goes on. Removing and reinstalling panels to re-roof underneath is paid labour that a homeowner who sequenced the work the other way never spends.
The two permits Moncton asks for before work begins
Moncton wants a Development Permit and a Building Permit for residential work. The Development Permit is $43 for a single or two-unit dwelling or a semi-detached home. The Building Permit is charged at $8 per $1,000 of construction value with a $25 minimum, so its cost tracks the value of the job rather than sitting at a flat rate you can budget in advance.
What the city does not do is name solar. Moncton's permit page has no separate category for solar panels and publishes no review-time target, which means there is no page telling you how long an application will sit or which category yours falls under. Call Planning and Development before you commit to an install date, and take the answer from them rather than from an installer's assumption about how the city works.
Two more approvals sit outside city hall entirely. NB Power's programme requires an electrical wiring permit and an inspection by the New Brunswick Department of Public Safety, both provincial, neither issued by Moncton. When an installer says they handle the permits, ask which ones: the municipal development and building permits, the wiring permit, or all of them.
Which incentives a Moncton project can still use
The programme most New Brunswick homeowners have heard of is gone. NB Power's Total Home Energy Savings Program covered residential solar PV at $200/kW, capped at $3,000 on a 15 kW system, but solar enrolment closed on May 27, 2026. A quote that still shows it as a deduction is out of date, and that is worth checking line by line, because it changes the net cost by thousands.
What does not remain at the federal level is a credit you can claim. The Clean Technology ITC is often raised at this point, but the Income Tax Act limits it to taxable Canadian corporations and certain trusts, not individual homeowners. Eligibility rules decide whether a given project and a given taxpayer qualify, so treat it as something to confirm with an accountant rather than as a discount you can assume when comparing quotes.
With the provincial rebate closed, the return on a Moncton system is the electricity you stop buying. That is exactly why the credit rules and the sizing question above deserve more attention than any headline incentive figure: get the array matched to your consumption and the arithmetic works on the bill you avoid.