# Solar in Nova Scotia



## lenaitch (Feb 10, 2014)

There's some folks on here that can give you some general advice about solar. Not everybody puts their location on their public profile, but I can't think of any regulars here that are Bluenosers. I just Goggled 'solar power installers Nova Scotia' and got a bunch of hits. Your local utility ad/or Nova Scotia Power might have some links.


----------



## user_12345a (Nov 23, 2014)

If you're heating water with electricity now, look into solar-thermal first. 

It could save a lot of electricity since heating water is only second to heating when it comes to energy use.

Down side - you have a pump and water loop to maintain vs pv having no moving parts.

Solar thermal is like 80% efficient and you store the energy you harvest, use it directly. PV is well under 30%, so you need to more area of panels to get the same amount of energy. Solar spins the meter back or you have a separate meter and get compensated - more of a numbers game, grid dependent vs actually harvesting energy for your own use, on demand.

See what local incentives there are and maybe get some quotes both for solar thermal and electric.

You can get a rough idea of kwh per year per kw installed here -> https://solarpanelpower.ca/solar-power-maps-canada/


----------



## Deja-vue (Mar 24, 2013)

You'll probably need to upgrade your Service panel to install Solar. It takes a 200A Panel, some of them are Solar ready. See Yelp for Installers and carefully read the Reviews. If you know a good Electrician, you might be able to do it yourself.
(This is a DIY Forum after all, lol.)

Do it now, don't wait. Electricity will go up, every month. I don't know about Canada.
YMMV.

Example:
Here in SoCal we're paying twice as much for Electricity as we did in 2006. That's a Fact, you can look it up.


----------

