What a kilowatt of panels produces in Repentigny
Natural Resources Canada's photovoltaic potential dataset puts Repentigny at 1,194 kWh a year for every kW of installed capacity, at the tilt and orientation the dataset models. That number is the useful starting point for any conversation about size, because it converts a proposed array straight into an annual figure: a 6 kW array at that yield lands near 7,160 kWh a year, and a 9 kW array near 10,750 kWh. Compare either against the annual consumption on your own Hydro-Québec bills before you accept a proposed size.
Treat the figure as a planning benchmark rather than a guarantee. It assumes an unobstructed installation; a roof shaded by mature trees in the afternoon, or one whose only usable slope faces east, will land under it, and snow cover on a Quebec winter roof means the annual total is earned disproportionately between March and October. An installer's own production model should explain why their number differs from the regional benchmark, and it is fair to ask them to.
The credit clock, and why it runs on a fixed date
Under Hydro-Québec's option de mesurage net, surplus production is banked as a kilowatt-hour credit rather than a dollar credit, and it offsets later consumption one for one. The bank does not run forever. It is zeroed every 24 months, on 31 March of an even year, and whatever positive balance stands at that moment is paid out at a wholesale price well below the retail rate you pay to buy a kilowatt-hour back.
The date matters more than it looks. The reset is a fixed calendar event, not a rolling two years from your own enrolment, so a system commissioned well into a cycle has less time to draw down whatever it banks over its first summer than one commissioned right after a reset. That is not a reason to delay a project by a year, but it is a reason to understand where in the cycle you are standing when you sign, and to expect the first reset after commissioning to clear a balance rather than pay out much.
The strategic point is the same either way: a Quebec system pays you by displacing the electricity you would otherwise buy, not by exporting for cash. Surplus above your annual consumption is the least valuable output your roof can produce, because the bank cannot carry it past the reset at retail value. Size to your household's own use and treat any export as incidental.
Declaration of work or a full permit in Repentigny
Repentigny distinguishes a free, faster declaration of work from a full building permit, and the distinction is drawn on what the work does to the roof. Replacing the roof covering on a single-family home can be filed as a declaration, with no documents or fees and a shorter processing path. Modifying the roof's configuration requires a full permit reviewed by the Service de l'urbanisme et du développement durable. The city does not publish a specific turnaround time for either track, so the difference is one of paperwork weight rather than a promised number of days.
For a solar project, the practical move is to describe your actual mounting method to the Service de l'urbanisme before you commit to a schedule, and to ask which of the two tracks it lands on. Repentigny has no US-style homeowners' association, so there is no private covenant sitting behind the municipal rules: the city's own permit and declaration process is the whole approval story on the municipal side, with Hydro-Québec's authorization running alongside it.
Roofs, districts and who gets to decide
At 59.8 percent single-detached, most Repentigny homes give the owner sole control of the roof. Low-rise apartment buildings under five storeys account for 26.6 percent of dwellings, and in those the roof is common property, so the decision runs through the syndicate of co-owners rather than one unit. High-rise buildings are only 3.4 percent of the stock, so a building-wide rooftop decision affects only a small part of the housing stock here. Semi-detached homes at 6.6 percent and row houses at 1.9 percent share roof structure with a neighbour, which turns mounting and penetration details into a shared conversation.
The city spans districts including Le Gardeur, Vieux-St-Paul, Repentigny-les-Bains, Le Bourg-Neuf, Du Fleuve and Félix-Leclerc, among others, and housing age and lot size vary noticeably across them. That variation matters less for approvals, which are city-wide, than for the physical assessment: roof pitch, remaining life of the covering, panel access and the size of the electrical service are all address-specific. Any installer proposing a system without having looked at your service panel and your roof covering is guessing at two of the three things that drive cost.
Batteries, backup, and what they are actually worth
Storage gets pitched alongside solar almost automatically, so it is worth being clear about what it buys in Quebec. Tarif D has no time-of-use periods, so there is no price gap between hours for a battery to exploit. Meanwhile Hydro-Québec's net metering bank already returns surplus one for one in kilowatt-hours, which means exporting a summer afternoon's production and drawing it back on a January evening is economically the same as storing it. On this rate, in this programme, a battery does not create energy value that the bank was not already giving you.
What it does create is resilience. A battery paired with the right transfer equipment keeps selected circuits running through an outage, which matters more to some households than others: a well on a pump, a home office, medical equipment or a freezer full of food all change the answer. Decide that on how often your own address loses supply and what an outage costs you, rather than on a payback calculation, because the payback case is not what justifies it here.
One practical note specific to how this gets built: the same requirement that governs the solar connection governs the rest of the electrical work, so a licensed electrician who is a member of the Corporation des maîtres électriciens du Québec is involved either way. If you think you may add storage later, say so at the design stage. Leaving room in the layout and the service is cheap now and expensive to retrofit.
The grant that scales with system size
Hydro-Québec's LogisVert solar grant is structured per kilowatt: $1,000 per kW of installed capacity, capped at 40 percent of eligible project costs, which typically lands at $5,000 to $6,000 for a residential system. Because it scales with size while the credit bank punishes oversizing, the two rules pull in opposite directions, and the resolution is straightforward: let annual consumption set the size, then claim the grant on whatever that size turns out to be. Installations must be completed on or after June 30, 2025, and the application goes through the LogisVert portal within 9 months of the installation date.
On the federal side, the Canada Greener Homes Loan, interest-free up to $40,000, closed to new applications on October 2, 2025, and only previously approved loans are still funded. The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program replaced it in September 2025, delivering no-cost retrofits through provincial partners for low- to median-income households, with solar PV federally eligible but each province setting its own technology list. There is no federal investment tax credit for residential solar in Canada, so do not build a budget that assumes one.