Three price plans, and what solar does to the choice
Hydro One's Woodstock page tells customers they can choose between Tiered, Time-of-Use and Ultra-Low Overnight prices. That choice is normally framed as a question about when your household uses electricity, but once you have panels it becomes a question about when your household uses electricity that it has not generated, which is a different profile entirely.
The reasoning is worth doing carefully rather than by rule of thumb. A rooftop array covers a large part of daytime consumption, so what remains to be bought skews toward evenings, early mornings and winter. Under net metering, exported electricity earns a kilowatt hour for kilowatt hour credit at the retail rate against future bills, so the credit you bank is denominated in the same prices you would otherwise pay. The plan that suited you before the array may not be the plan that suits you after it.
Ultra-Low Overnight is the plan worth thinking hardest about if you charge an electric vehicle or run electric heating, because it concentrates cheap hours where a solar array cannot help you anyway. Tiered pricing removes timing from the equation and prices on volume instead. Time-of-Use sits between them. The honest answer is that the right plan depends on your own consumption after the array is running, which is why the sensible move is to revisit the choice a few months after commissioning rather than settling it in advance on a guess.
The service charge, the smart meter charge, and the expiry date
Woodstock's monthly service charge under the acquired urban density residential class is $34.85, with a $0.42 smart meter entity charge, both effective January 1, 2026. Hydro One notes that a credit adjustment has been applied to that service charge and that the adjustment expires on December 31, 2026.
That expiry is the detail to carry into any payback conversation. A twenty-five year model built on the current service charge is building on a figure that Hydro One has said is temporarily reduced, so the fixed side of the bill can be expected to change even if nothing else does. Ask an installer whether their model uses the current charge or an adjusted one, and treat a proposal that has never looked at the question as one that has not read your rate class.
Either way, neither charge is offset by generation. Net metering settles energy, so the service charge and the smart meter entity charge stay on the account regardless of how much your array produces. A projection showing a Woodstock bill reaching zero has the account structure wrong, which is a fast test to apply before examining anything else in a quote.
How a Woodstock connection actually goes through
For a rooftop system, net metering runs through Hydro One's Dx Generation Connections group. Hydro One asks that you contact that group before submitting Form C, which is the micro-generation connection application used for projects of 12 kW or less. That pre-contact step is not decoration: it is where you find out anything specific about your service or your part of the distribution system before an application is formally in.
The 12 kW figure moved recently and in the homeowner's favour. As of May 1, 2026 the Ontario Energy Board raised the simplified micro-embedded generation threshold from 10 kW to 12 kW, so more residential systems now qualify for the streamlined route. A quote or a guide written before that change may still assume the old threshold, so check rather than inherit.
As for what the connection gets you, Ontario net metering credits exported electricity kilowatt hour for kilowatt hour at the retail rate against future bills, with unused credits carried forward for up to 12 months and no cash payment for a net annual excess. That rolling twelve month window is the reason to size against your own consumption: an array matched to the household builds credits over the summer and spends them over the winter, while a larger one accumulates a balance whose oldest part expires unpaid each month. Ask for the projected credit balance month by month rather than a single annual production number.
Woodstock roofs, and the fifth of homes that are apartments
Single-detached homes are 57.5 percent of Woodstock's dwelling stock and semi-detached a further 7.7 percent, so most residents own a full detached or semi-detached roof outright. Row houses add 11.6 percent, where shared party walls mean roof lines and fire-separation rules affect array layout.
About 21 percent of dwellings are apartments, split between low-rise at 12.1 percent and high-rise at 8.9 percent. For those residents the rooftop decision rests with a landlord or a condominium corporation rather than with the occupant, so the useful first step is identifying who holds the roof rather than gathering quotes. Duplexes account for a further 2.1 percent, where one roof serves two legal units and both owners may need to agree on a shared install.
For a detached or semi-detached house, the checks are the usual ones and worth being specific about. Which planes face closest to south, what pitch they carry, what shades them when the sun is low rather than in July, and how much life the roof covering has left. Panels commonly outlast the shingles beneath them, so if the roof is within a few years of replacement, reshingling first is cheaper than removing and refitting an array partway through its life. On a semi-detached house, expect the party wall and often a shared chimney to shape where the array can go.
Rebates and financing for a Woodstock project
Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program provides combined rebates of up to $10,000 for solar PV paired with battery storage. It launched in January 2025 and was expanded for the 2026-27 programme year running April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027. There is a question to settle before applying: homeowners taking the HRSP solar incentive are generally directed to a load-displacement configuration rather than full net metering, so ask your installer which arrangement your system will be in and confirm the current rules rather than relying on how a project was handled previously.
That question has extra weight in Woodstock because of the price plan choice. A load-displacement configuration and a full net metering arrangement do different things with electricity your household does not consume, and which of the three price plans suits you depends on what happens to that electricity. Settle the configuration first, then revisit the plan.
Federally, the Canada Greener Homes Loan, interest-free up to $40,000, stopped accepting new applications on October 2, 2025 and only previously approved loans are being funded, so it is not available for a new project. The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program launched in September 2025 and delivers no-cost retrofits through participating provinces, which do not currently include Ontario, for low- to median-income households, with solar PV federally eligible but each province setting its own technology list. Canada has no federal investment tax credit for residential solar. Some municipalities and utilities offer local financing such as local improvement charges from time to time, so ask what is currently available rather than working from an older list.