Which utility actually bills you
Summerside Electric is owned by the city and operates separately from Maritime Electric. For most households in town it is the utility you deal with, including for a net metering connection.
About 800 Summerside households are the exception, required by provincial law to buy power from Maritime Electric instead. That is a small share of the town but a large problem for anyone in it who follows advice written for a Summerside Electric customer, because the forms, the contacts and the connection process all differ.
So check a recent bill before anything else. It takes a moment and it determines who you are applying to, which is the first step of the whole sequence rather than a detail to sort out later.
The provincial rebate has paused new applications
PEI's efficiencyPEI Solar Electric Rebate has paused new applications after reaching its funding cap for the current fiscal year. That is a pause tied to a budget rather than a permanent closure, but it is the current position and it changes what a project costs you today.
Treat any quote that includes the rebate as a quote that needs rebuilding. A payback figure resting on money the programme is not currently accepting applications for is not a payback figure, and the difference is large enough to change whether a project makes sense this year.
Because the cap is described as being for the current fiscal year, it is worth asking efficiencyPEI directly what happens when the next one begins, and whether there is any queue or notification for applicants. That answer, rather than an installer's optimism, is what tells you whether waiting is worth it.
Connecting: the form, the pass, and 15 working days
Summerside Electric requires a completed Electrical Service Request Form for a new connection or a net metering connection. Alongside it you need a Prince Edward Island Electrical Pass, which is a provincial electrical inspection rather than a municipal one, and power cannot be connected until it is in hand.
Once the pass is held, new electrical service connections including net metering hookups carry a maximum of 15 working days. That is a published ceiling rather than an estimate, which is more than most utilities offer, and it gives you something concrete to hold the schedule against.
There is no separate city solar permit fee described on the utility's site. Ask your installer who obtains the Electrical Pass and who submits the service request, since these are two different processes with two different bodies and the gap between them is where projects sit idle.
Net metering, applied by the city's own utility
Prince Edward Island's net metering rules come from section 13 of the Renewable Energy Act, and they are genuine one for one: the kilowatt-hours you supply are subtracted from the kilowatt-hours delivered, with a monthly surplus credited to your account in kilowatt-hours. Summerside's own utility applies that rule within the city and Maritime Electric applies it across the rest of the Island, separately but on the same terms.
The constraint is the annual expiry. Credits hold no cash value, and on 31 October each year any outstanding from the preceding calendar year expire unless your agreement sets another compliant date. A system matched to your yearly consumption fills the bank over summer and empties it over winter. A system built well past your consumption banks credit that is written off once a year.
Generators are capped at 100 kW and installations of 30 kW and larger may need three-phase service, so neither limit binds a normal house. A net metering customer also pays one service charge even though two meters are installed. Both utilities charge 17.84 cents per kWh on the first 2,000 kWh of a billing period and 14.23 cents above that, effective 1 August 2026.
Roofs here, and what they make
About 1,124 kWh a year for every kW installed is the planning figure, taken from national photovoltaic potential data rather than measured on local roofs. It is the number for deciding whether to get quotes; a site survey produces the one worth contracting on.
Single-detached houses are 49 percent of the stock, so roughly half of residents control their own roof and can make the decision themselves. The other half share a roof or answer to a landlord, which changes the first question from what to install to who decides.
Low-rise apartments are 19.1 percent and are the largest multi-unit segment, where the roof belongs to the building owner. Row houses at 10.6 percent are a bigger share here than in most PEI towns, and they bring narrow roof planes and a shared structure at the party wall that needs establishing on site rather than from an aerial image. Semi-detached homes at 10.3 percent and duplexes at 3.5 percent round out the shared-roof housing, where an array feeds one electrical service and so reduces one household's bill.