Funding & incentives

Most of this work
is already funded.

Three programmes pay for different parts of the same job: one to find out how your building actually runs, one for the controls and equipment that cut gas, and one for using less at the hours the grid is tightest. They stack. Sequenced properly, the difference is one funded project instead of three unfunded ones.

Three funding routes compared: IESO EBCx pays to find and fix how the building runs, Enbridge Custom Retrofit pays for controls and equipment that cut gas, IESO Peak Performance pays for demand reduction
The same instrumentation and the same controls work qualifies under all three.
01

Existing Building
Commissioning

IESO Save on Energy

Quwa Smart Services is an approved commissioning provider under this programme, and we run all three phases — investigation, implementation and the persistence year that follows.

  • Investigation — $0.06 per sq ft, to a maximum of $50,000 or 75% of cost
  • Implementation — $0.03 per kWh of confirmed savings
  • Persistence — $0.03 per kWh that is still there a year later
  • Eligibility: 750,000 kWh a year or more, twelve months of consecutive data, and no commissioning exercise in the last two years
The three funded phases of the IESO Existing Building Commissioning programme: investigation, implementation and persistence, with the incentive terms for each
The persistence phase is the one most owners skip, and it is the reason commissioning savings decay.
02

Commercial Custom
Retrofit

Enbridge Gas

Pays on the natural gas a project saves. Building automation, ventilation controls, heat recovery, VFDs and steam improvements are all eligible — which means the controls upgrade that a commissioning study recommends can usually be funded here.

  • Up to $0.40 per m³ of gas saved
  • Up to 75% of project cost
  • $100,000 per project, $500,000 for institutional
  • Pre-approval is mandatory — the paperwork has to be done before anyone touches the equipment

The current offer runs to 31 October 2026. Projects need an Energy Solutions Advisor sign-off before work begins, so the practical deadline to start a conversation is earlier than the published one.

The Enbridge Commercial Custom Retrofit process: site assessment, pre-approval, install, incentive paid, with programme terms
Pre-approval before installation. Skipping it disqualifies the project.
03

Peak
Performance

IESO Save on Energy · delivered through Q-Peak

Demand response pays for the kilowatt at the peak, not the kilowatt-hour across the day. On roughly ten afternoons a year, a building that can shed load for three hours earns a season payment for doing it — and the same controls work that qualifies for the other two programmes is what makes the shed possible.

  • $54,845 per MW of season performance, at the 2026 rate
  • Settled on metered performance against an IESO baseline, not on enrolment estimates
  • No capital required — this is a controls and dispatch exercise
What happens on a demand response event day, from the standby notice the day before through pre-cooling, the event window, baseline computation and settlement
Occupants should not notice an event. Comfort drifts a fraction of a degree an hour while the building coasts on its own thermal mass.
What it produced

Measured, not
estimated.

This is one building on one dispatched event last summer. The dashed line is the IESO baseline built from temperature-matched days; the solid line is what the meter recorded. The gap is 438 kW, held for three hours, and nobody in the building noticed.

Demand curve for one building on a dispatched event day, showing the IESO baseline against metered load with 438 kW of curtailment delivered during the event window
Metered interval data, dispatched IESO event, summer 2026. Anonymised — no client or building is identified.
Where to start

Sequence the funding
before you scope
the work.

The order matters more than the paperwork. An investigation that is written knowing which incentive will fund the fix produces a very different measure list from one that is not. Send us twelve months of utility data and we will tell you which of the three you qualify for.