The Urban Rooftop Solar Project demonstrated the potential for commercial or community rooftops in dense urban areas to become hosts for distributed generation. Utilizing the top engineers & solar designers in the province. SunAlta Power Inc. changed how the market views and evaluates risk in urban projects compared to utility-scale solar PV projects in rural areas.

SunAlta Power's urban solar PV DCG feasibility study in Calgary identified the challenges in location suitability, project scale, OpEx costs, interconnection processes and distribution system costs. It outlined steps, requirements and business model recommendations, including aggregation and standardized transactions. Advocacy proposes updated market design, equivalent DER study cost treatment, property tax holiday and federal grant inclusion for urban solar projects.

They are looking at ways to aggregate these projects on a larger scale to make the economics more attractive.