Quote:
Originally Posted by CroFlames
Maybe we should take climate change seriously, and governments should mandate the panels on new builds, regardless of ROI payback timeline.
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The government does mandate a much, much more energy efficient building than it did 10 years ago (technically it's up to the provinces, but they are all following the same general trend). You can no longer build a building with poor energy performance in most of Canada now and the cost of new builds has gone up significantly.
It's a complicated issue that cannot be considered in a bubble. The increased cost of new builds is one of the factors pushing affordable housing out of reach of many people, PV systems can increase total construction budgets by 10-20%. We're also limited by how effectively the current grid can absorb electricity generated by private PV systems.
Most buildings get more out of spending a fraction of the cost of PV on improving mechanical systems instead. At this point, it would be a wildly impractical thing to mandate, maybe in 10-20 years?