Big fan of solar, and big fan of high performance home design strategies as listed above, but I did get out of an unfavorable 15-year solar contract in the upper Midwestern US a decade ago, because the installers cheerfully put the install on my new 4/12 slope shingled roof, and a convective loop problem formed (ice damming in the center of the roof beneath the panels) which sent water into my home. If any of you do get solar installed in a snowy zone, do it at a steep pitch, preferably over a metal roof or the ground. And of course, with the price of panels as low as it is now, nobody should enter into one of those multi-year contracts. Also, net metering becomes less and less favorable the more surcharges the power company can figure out to tack on, so get a good look at the math for your own particular situation.
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