Your balcony
What would a plug-in system actually produce?
Pick a city, an orientation, and a kit size. We compute production from NREL PVWatts, apply your shading estimate, and multiply by the displaced portion of your local electricity bill. Read the methodology before you cite any number from this page.
Reminder: plug-in balcony solar is currently prohibited in Canada under CEC Rule 26-720. These estimates show what Canadians would save if the same kits European neighbours install today were legal here.
Annual production
575 kWh
676 kWh before 15% shading
Annual savings
$51.71
at 15¢/kWh displaced — Newfoundland Power
Simple payback
10 years
on $502.33 kit (median of 4 EU listings, pre-tax CAD)
Monthly production in St. John's
R800 · south-facing · 15% shading. Raw PVWatts values scaled by the shading factor — no smoothing, no binning.
What’s behind the numbers
- 60% self-consumption. Only kWh you use on-site counts toward savings; the rest exports with no credit in the campaign’s proposed framework. Real households span 40–90%; 60% is the conservative lower-middle.
- Vertical (90°) panels. Balcony panels hang vertically from a railing. This matches how installed kits look in Berlin and Vienna. At Canadian latitudes, vertical panels often outperform roofs in winter.
- Bill components displaced. Energy charge + variable transmission + variable riders (carbon levy, rate rider). Fixed monthly fees are not displaced by solar. See rate breakdown.
- No price escalation. Rates stay flat through the payback horizon. In reality they rise; real payback is faster than stated.
- Rate source date: 2025-07-02. Full rate citations.