Alberta (Canada) slaps punitive tax on solar panels(albertapolitics.ca) |
Alberta (Canada) slaps punitive tax on solar panels(albertapolitics.ca) |
In case you want to appropriately calibrate your anger.
Note that usually you mount many solar panels, not just one, so this will stack relatively quickly.
So a $336 premium, or roughly 1.3 additional panels in terms of cost.
While sure, that's not nothing, it's ~$6700 vs ~$7050, or a ~5% premium to the pre-tax cost of the panels.
The net effect along with other regulatory moves the AB gov't has taken (they banned all renewables projects outright for some months a couple years ag) is to discourage investment in what was formerly a growing sector.
https://www.aer.ca/regulations-and-compliance-enforcement/li...
(Other Canadian provinces have stronger programs, but still...)
Start with gasoline and diesel first.
I wonder how loud they'd yowl if "no trade with Canada" gores their ox?
So actually, it's a place that needs to be watched as a barometer of the future, really. And an example of why "technology will save us from climate change" is a bad take: these people (petroleum sector) will fight tooth and nail to hold onto what they have and they will take us all down with them.
Highest per capita GDP, most affordable housing for places you'd actually want to live (Calgary twice as affordable as Toronto or Vancouver), most private sector jobs, lowest taxes, etc...
It's why Alberta absolutely dominates inter-provincial migration. Thinking Alberta isn't the best province or that there's something wrong with the government has no basis in objective reality.
You should move to another Canadian province for a year, just to see.
I mistakingly moved to BC because my wife was sick of the cold and it's basically 3rd world compared to Alberta (apart from a small slice of Vancouver which is nice I guess).
These are the last gasps of the petro dollar.
Solar pv and batteries have already won the future as humanities main energy source.
Tar sand is going to be totaly abandoned as a fossil fuel even before coal.
China has reduced oil consumption by 9% so far this year, CO² reductions are more, while there overall energy consumption has gone up.Many other countrys are following suit, and thats, that.
ctrl- Danielle Smith
Ah.
One thing I find endlessly funny is when people of a particular leaning adopt “the other side”’s arguments when it suits them. People who are left leaning generally have a positive view of taxation, and reject arguments that it stifles growth and development, or that it creates a complex bureaucratic environment. Yet the author seems to have no problem applying that argument when it suits their case. You see this on the right as well when so-called personal freedom enjoyers argue for the dismantling of certain individual freedoms if they disagree with them.
In this case it sounds like a nothing burger which is being used to fuel the authors personal vendetta against Alberta’s premiers.
Alberta has no provincial sales tax for the record and is the ONLY province without provincial sales tax. Solar panels are still more expensive in every other province in Canada based on sales tax rates alone.
<1.4% to fund the proper recycling of a solar panel seems more than reasonable.
Edit - also Alberta already has the lowest cost per installed watt of any province due to generally lower taxes and more vibrant construction ecosystem. Plus no PST. Complaining about a recycling fee is completely brain-dead and/or propaganda.
Edit 2 - https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/06/05/solar-panel-recycling...
$14 per panel seems pretty good. This link estimates the cost at $15-45 USD, I've heard of costs as high as a couple hundred euros in France (except it's billed directly to the manufacturer so it's hidden). Complaining about $14 in the only Canadian province without PST is ridiculous.
Not, like good shrewd, but very tactically smart and with a very capable public relations ability capable of keeping a notoriously hard-to-tame right wing activist base in line behind her gov't.
Best not to underestimate her.
Here’s 31 445W panels for $4,650, full retail. This is literally the first google result I clicked.
Two and a half years ago I bought 18 405W panels for $3,312, full retail. They were cheaper wholesale.
https://cdnsolar.ca/products/canadian-solar-445w-all-black-p...
In theory Alberta also has a program about orphaned oil wells as well, but they're having trouble keeping up:
> Last year, the OWA estimated it would take until 2036 to clean up all the orphans. That timeline has now been extended, since it will more likely be between 2037 and 2040, said OWA president Lars DePauw in an interview with CBC News.
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bakx-owa-seqouia-albe...
And:
> As of March 2023, oil and gas companies owe rural municipalities $268 million in unpaid taxes;[17] they owe landowners "tens of millions in unpaid lease payments".[18] Original owners of what are now orphan wells "failed to fulfill their responsibility for costly end-of-life decommissioning and restoration work"; some sold these wells "strategically to insolvent operators".[18] Landowners suffer both "environmental and economic consequences" of having these wells on their property.[18] OWA funding is underfunded by at least several hundred million.[18] The total estimate for cleaning up all existing sites is as much as $260 billion. Remediation is paid for through federal and provincial bailouts, a PPP violation.[18]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_wells_in_Alberta,_Canad...
"Privatize profits, socialize costs."
Also notably there are US states like Texas which are also extremely focused on fossil fuel production which aren't taking this aggressive anti-renewables stance. Alberta is actually further on this axis than any other regime in North America -- taking on a very explicit anti-renewables stance. Even effectively (through regulation) banning their use in large scale datacentre rollouts.
The local elites there are extremely threatened by any renewable talk; they run an active disinformation campaign, and formerly the province had one of the fastest growing renewable sectors in the world. (Alberta gets a lot of solar hours and has high winds, too)
Aside, I was coming back from Edmonton a couple days ago and in the airport there's a wine/liquor store with a sandwich board out front proudly proclaiming that they "have US wine & liquor for sale!" -- completely thumbing nose at the rest of the country as a business opportunity.
Instead Canada chose to bind itself to the US.
The paradox is that if we take the US administration at their word, that it is the trade deficit that is the problem they need to solve, then Alberta is 100% of the problem. Ontario, BC, Quebec have basically equal trade with the US. We ship a lot to the US, but we ship a lot of things we could make domestically from the US, though that is rapidly changing (for instance a major rail car manufacturing process is spinning up to replace that as an import from the US).
Alberta is basically 100% exports to the US, with negligible imports from the US.
So it's hilarious when Alberta says this isn't their trade war. Again, if we take Trump and his crew of stunningly incompetent self-dealing grifters and rapists at their word, it is completely Alberta's trade war.
Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
But yes, Danielle Smith is a vile human and is a traitor to Canada. I get why Albertans elected her -- there are legitimate grievances and a better "deal" to be had -- but she is going to do spectacular damage to the province.
Can Alberta apply it to oil and gas companies too?
https://solarpowerdepot.ca/canadian-solar-450w-mono-bifacial...
https://solarshoppingmall.com/products/renesola-450w-mono-so...
Those numbers point more towards 5-10% cost per panel.
I think your “$1,000+ panel” is conflating the hardware with its share of the entire installation. I don't know how else to explain it.
Also the "$14" number was put out by AMRA (the government's body) without any explanation of how they arrived at that number.
TFA is biased, yes, but its bias is frankly justifiable in the current context. While your "take" seems profoundly dishonest.
Also, 5% would still be lower than the lowest PST of any province lol.
Where are the tech giants or manufacturing giants? We have 1 tech giant who constantly criticizes Canada, 1 large manufacturer that gets bailed out twice a decade and otherwise we're just a country of housing schemes, financial services and fast food/retail.
Alberta real estate is affordable relative to the rest of Canada because it's actually not a good investment. Not that I think real estate should be treated as an investment, and this isn't a knock per se, but it's also nothing to brag about that every few years scores of people in Alberta are losing their shirts on real estate.
I'll probably buy a house next year in Edmonton for my daughter to use (and rent out) while she's at the UofA, but I fully expect to either lose money or not gain on it.
Contrast with Vancouver, which is hemmed in by ocean, mountains, and a border.
I imagine there's a similar thing going on with California wines. But less so.
I think Canada needs to come up with a trade name/standards for their Bourbon-likes.
But bulk buyers of panels aren't the end consumer. Passing that on as part of a $15000 installation over 15 years is nothing.
Full retail.
Now 605w bifacial are $220 full retail, no bulk buy discount. I bet you can find cheaper.
My entire 7290w install all finished was $13k in BC. Much cheaper now.
https://www.pioneersolarenergy.com/shop/solar-panels/longi-6...
The standard unit in rural Alberta is the quarter section - 160 acres (half mile by half mile). Greater Edmonton is surrounded by mostly flat quarters in every direction as far as the eye can see.
And 605w bifacial for $220 [2]
That’s full retail, not buying quantity. they’re cheaper wholesale.
[1] https://www.pioneersolarenergy.com/shop/solar-panels/longi-5...
[2] https://www.pioneersolarenergy.com/shop/solar-panels/longi-6...
Also it goes up and down drastically. After Trump is finished making a mess in Hormuz, the number will go down again, and Alberta finance ministers will go back to ranting about reigning in excessive spending.
Well it's a hard problem because companies that are still in business clean up their own wells. Only bankrupt companies leave orphan wells. So guesstimating the costs is difficult. Yes there should be more planning perhaps, but if it does have to come out of general revenue it's still a net win.
Conventional oil is legacy at this point in Alberta though -- the broader concern is how much we can expect oil sands facilities to be properly decommissioned and closed up once it becomes uneconomical to sell the stuff in 30-40 years. That has a rather more concerning footprint.
I mean they clearly actually mean the opposite. And are doing the opposite. They're making moves to push Alberta out of confederation. I think at this point it should be clear the Trump regime funding and supporting Alberta "separatist" campaigns. At least giving it a megaphone far beyond its actual real local support base.
So, yeah, one way of "dealing with" the "trade deficit" there is to simply push Alberta out of Canada.
Another (longer-term) move is taking over Venezuela and getting an alternate source for heavy crude.
Notably both paths are being taken.
So if they see a number above 25% I can guarantee you they'll take that as a blank cheque to pursue all sorts of things that the majority does not agree with.
Somehow their provincial polling numbers as a party don't even reflect the unpopularity of this referendum. It's very weird.
I left the province 25 years ago during Klein years. The same insanity has always been there. My parents, brother, etc are all very anxious about this right now and openly talking about moving (less so my parents as they're elderly). And we just sent my eldest off to her first year at the University of Alberta. So a lot of skin in the game for our family. The whole thing is extremely.. fucked up.
Feels like a one party state sometimes. Despite the ANDP holding quite high levels of support, there's just this sense that no other party can ever be allowed to govern. My parents have had election signs removed from their property, vandalized etc in the past. I volunteered for the NDP in elections in the early 90s and was openly threatened. It's very weird.
But yeah, I 100% understand what they're really doing. But they keep up with this trade deficit farce, and when there was almost an agreement signed (which would have been a massive mistake on Canada's part), Trump immediately started celebrating even more oil capacity from Alberta and reviving Keystone XL...which...jesus christ, keep some sort of consistency.
Alberta separatism is hugely unpopular and will fail, and even better even this tepid one is "be in Canada but with more individual powers and all the benefits of Canada" -- to even get to double digits they have to push an absolute fantasy -- but when it's tied with becoming a part of the US it becomes amazingly unpopular. Even right wing Albertans look at the corrupt kleptocracy the US has become and say no thanks. I mean, there are the loudmouthed slobbering smooth-brain sorts that say their stupid nonsense online -- they should all be deported, fwiw -- but they're a tiny minority.
https://afl.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/False-Promises-Bi...