New incentives from the Ontario provincial government

Recently the Ontario provincial government introduced a new home energy efficiency rebate program (source). It builds on an older greener homes program, and offers rebates on a variety of projects: Home insulation, heat-pumps, solar and battery storage to name a few. Lets explore the new incentives and what that could mean for your projects.

Lets start with heat-pumps. The headline rate is 12k rebate for “heat-pumps”, but that is only under some very specific conditions, the table below outlines the new incentives (source).

Current heating system	New heating system	Additional conditions	Rebate available
Gas	Air source heat-pump	Enbridge customer	$500/ton, up to $2000
Gas	Ground source heat-pump	Enbridge customer	$3000
Electric	Air source heat-pump		$1250/ton, up to $7500
Electric	Ground source heat-pump		$2000/ton, up to $12000

“ton” here refers to one million British thermal units, admittedly a rather obscure metric of heat production, but for reference, I had a “2-ton” heat-pump installed in my home a few years back, to reduce my reliance on natural gas. Hence, I could expect to see a $1000 rebate under this program if I had procrastinated. This is quite the step down from the $6500 rebate offered under the old greener homes program (source).

Next we have solar and battery storage. The inclusion of battery storage is interesting here, all-told, $10k are on offer, but there is a major caveat: Net-metering is not permitted under the rebate. For us, who are working towards a 11 kW solar system installation, net-metering offers a better opportunity, as export-credits to the grid would generate more value for us over the 20 year life of the system (we estimate about $20k). For smaller systems, these new incentives might make more sense. The table below outlines the new solar and storage incentives.

System	Size for max rebate	Rebate amount	Conditions
Solar	5 kW	$1k/kW	Up to 50% of project budget
Battery storage	16.7 kWh	$300/kWh	Up to 50% of project budget

There is a $75 incentive for a programmable thermostat, something you ought to get if you do not have one already. I would also suggest you consider enrolling in the PeakPerks program if you can, (source). That $75 pre-paid master card, and another one for $20 every year you stay enrolled sure sounds nice.

There are further incentives for windows, doors and insulation available. Those require a home assessment, by an energy advisor. I did have one of these when I went through the greener homes program, I found my advisor to be very capable, helpful and gave us some ideas on insulation we had not thought of. There is a $600 incentive, which does cover the home assessment costs.

I was somewhat surprised to see a $500 rebate for a heat-pump water heater included in the home-assessment required list, given that heat-pumps do not require an assessment. When I did mine a few years back, I did get a $1500 rebate, and as discussed, since a tank based water heater can act like a battery, it can be very cost effective to operate compared to gas (source).