Solar panels in Ontario

Roofs across Ontario get about 1,434 hours of usable sunlight a year, and electricity costs 15.2¢/kWh. That combination puts a typical system's payback at 15.8 years. Here's the detail, from real rooftop data across 26 Ontario cities.

Check your own roof in Ontario → These are regional figures; your roof's size, pitch and shading move them a lot.

How Ontario compares

Ontario gets more sunlight than 38% of the cities we measure, and its electricity costs more than 44% of states and provinces. Both matter, but not equally: the electricity rate usually matters more, because solar saves money by replacing power you would otherwise buy. A sunny state with cheap power often pays back slower than a cloudy state with expensive power. Why that happens →

Solar by city in Ontario

What a system costs in Ontario

Payback stops improving as systems grow, then gets worse. You can only save on electricity you were going to buy, so once a system covers your usage the extra panels mostly export at a lower rate.

Ontario solar incentives

The 30% US federal tax credit does not apply in Canada, and the figures on this page exclude it. Canadian support comes through federal programmes such as the Canada Greener Homes Loan plus provincial and utility schemes, which vary and change — check current Ontario programmes directly rather than trusting a figure on a website.

Ontario solar questions

Worth reading before you buy

Regional estimates generated 2026-08-22 from Google Solar API rooftop samples across 26 Ontario cities, and average Ontario electricity rates. Not a quote and not financial or tax advice.