Grant Supports Electricity Conservation

The IESO Conservation Fund offers grants of up to $1 million to pilot and/or develop innovative conservation programs, practices, and technologies. Funding is available to private business as well as not-for-profit organizations. Eligible expenses include:

• Equipment and products, including diagnostic and testing tools, instruments, and software
• Professional, engineering, scientific, technical, management and contracting services, including training, permitting and licensing fees
• Salaries and benefits directly involved in project (max $800/day)
• Marketing, communications, and workshops directly related to project activities
• Monitoring, verification and evaluation project impacts, including data collection, processing, analysis and management

Eligible projects must lead to/promote the conservation of electricity; the IESO Conservation Fund supports the following project outcomes:

• The creation and/or development of a new conservation program (up to 75%; maximum $500,000)
• Development and assessment of new energy management tools such as mapping tools or policies (up to 75%; maximum $500,000)
• Piloting new training programs (up to 75%; maximum $250,000)
• Creation of a Community of Practice, a network to share information and best practices (up to 75%; maximum $250,000)
• Strategic research that leads to pilot projects (up to 100%; maximum $100,000)
• Development and demonstration of near-commercial, emerging technologies or processes (up to 75%; maximum $500,000)
• Strategic Opportunities: 50% up to $1 million will be provided for large scale energy reduction initiatives, such as the development of incentive programs to encourage energy reductions, i.e., pay-per-performance energy reduction programs to be implemented across a franchise, service providers creation of energy use monitoring software and programs to encourage conservation.

Projects to research, develop or demonstrate transmission, distribution, or electricity generation technologies (e.g. wind, hydro, bioenergy) are ineligible. Approved projects must be longer than 3 years, and cannot receive any additional IESO funding. The next intake window to submit applications is July 1 to 31, 2018.