Government of Canada Incentive Programs

Planning and Audit Assistance - Commercial

The Government of Canada no longer provides incentives for energy audits. They do however have significant incentives for implementation of energy saving measures. These are not available for industrial or federal government facilities, or for new construction.

To be eligible for any of these incentives you must get approval prior to granting a contract with any contractor or consultant.

Energy Retrofit Assistance - Commercial

Natural Resources Canada's (NRCan's) ecoENERGY Retrofit program provides a financial incentive of up to 25 percent of project costs to a maximum of $50,000 per application and $250,000 per corporate entity to help small- and medium-sized industrial facilities implement energy-saving projects. This helps to improve industrial energy efficiency and contributes to reducing energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution.

To be eligible for an incentive, companies must apply to NRCan for funding before implementing the energy retrofit. To be eligible for funding, a retrofit project must:

• involve capital expenditures that retrofits the building envelope or existing equipment/systems
• result in a measurable and verifiable reduction of energy use
• have a net simple payback period of more than one year
• Facilities that are eligible for retrofit assistance must demonstrate the technical and financial feasibility of their projects in their applications.

Value of Incentive

The maximum amount payable per application is $50,000. The incentive will be calculated after taking into account funding from other sources and will be the lowest of the following amounts:

$10 per gigajoule (GJ) of energy estimated to be saved by a retrofit project per year
= estimated annual GJ of energy saved × $10

25 percent of the total eligible project costs (including GST, HST and PST net of tax rebate)
= 25% × [total project cost - other incentives]

the amount required to reduce the net simple payback period for each project included on the application form to no less than one year
= dollars of annual energy savings × (net payback period in years ? 1 year)