Your utility is the city, not the province
The city-owned Light and Power department supplies electricity to homeowners and businesses in Swift Current and is also responsible for the city's street lighting. It buys electricity in bulk from SaskPower, but it is Light and Power that maintains the distribution network within the city limits and Light and Power that bills you.
This is a genuine exception rather than a technicality. SaskPower has the exclusive right and the exclusive obligation to supply electricity across Saskatchewan except in Swift Current and most of Saskatoon, so provincial guidance is written for everyone but you and one other city. A quote or an article citing SaskPower's programme is describing an arrangement you are not in.
So the first and most important step is to ask Light and Power directly, in writing, before you spend anything: may a customer-owned generator connect to your network, what is the application process and what documents does it need, what interconnection and metering equipment is required and at what cost, how is exported electricity treated and at what rate, and does that rate have an end date.
Do not accept an installer's assurance in place of the utility's answer. An installer who works mostly across the province may quote SaskPower terms without noticing the municipal boundary, and you carry the risk if the assumption is wrong. Ask them plainly whether they have completed an installation in Swift Current and what Light and Power required.
Why the export rate is the number that decides the project
In most of Saskatchewan the answer is already public: SaskPower credits exported generation at 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour until March 31, 2029, against a flat residential rate of 15.476 cents per kilowatt hour plus a 31.16 $ basic monthly charge. Exports are worth under half of what a SaskPower customer pays to buy electricity back.
We are showing you those figures not because they are yours, but because they show what shape of answer to expect and why it matters. If Light and Power credits exports well below its retail rate, the design goal is self-consumption: an array matched to what your household actually uses while the sun is up, rather than to your annual total. If it credits closer to retail, sizing to annual consumption makes sense. Those are materially different systems.
For the same reason, ask whether there is any basic or fixed monthly charge and how large it is. That part of a bill is not reduced by any amount of generation, and it is the usual reason a promised zero bill does not happen. Get both numbers before you accept a payback calculation from anyone.
The connection costs worth asking about specifically
SaskPower customers pay a 315 $ interconnection study fee and at least 498.75 $ for a bi-directional meter, so over 800 $ before any equipment is installed. Whether Light and Power charges equivalents, and what they are, is a question with a real dollar answer that should be in your budget rather than a surprise.
Ask specifically about the meter. A system that exports needs metering that measures flow in both directions, and someone has to supply and install it. Ask what it costs, who supplies it, and whether the charge is one-off or appears on the bill.
Ask about any system size limit as well. SaskPower's programme runs to 100 kW, far above a house, but a municipal utility can set its own ceiling, and a limit low enough to matter would change what an installer can propose. Better to know before a design exists.
The roof and the permit, which are yours to control
The physical questions are the same everywhere. A south-facing unshaded plane produces the most, east and west planes produce usefully but give up output, and a north plane rarely repays the hardware. Shading costs the most because it removes production in the middle of the day, so ask for an assessment across the whole year rather than the hour of the site visit.
Check the roof covering before anything is ordered. Panels outlast most coverings, so one within a few years of replacement should be replaced first rather than paying later to remove and reinstall the array. In a prairie climate, ask also how the proposed pitch and layout handle snow, since a panel under snow produces nothing until it clears.
On permits, ask the city what a rooftop installation requires at your address, what the application must contain and what processing time to expect. Saskatchewan municipalities differ, and the safe assumption is that a permit question exists rather than that it does not. Since your utility is also the city, ask both questions in the same conversation and find out whether the two processes are connected or entirely separate.
Grants and financing
There is no provincial solar rebate in Saskatchewan, so nothing offsets the installed cost at the provincial level, and the case rests entirely on the value of the electricity. That is why the export rate question above is not a detail: it is most of the arithmetic.
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 still being funded. The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program replaced it in September 2025, delivering no-cost retrofits through participating provinces, which do not currently include Saskatchewan, 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. If any federal or provincial programme you look at requires a utility to confirm something, remember to name Light and Power rather than SaskPower on the form, and check with the programme that a municipal utility customer is eligible before you rely on it.