Have Your House Make You Money with the OPA's microFIT Program:

The microFIT program is an initiative of the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) Feed-in Tariff OPA's microFIT Program - Have Your House Earn Income - Richmond Hill program to assist in the development of “micro” renewable energy sources across Ontario. The premise of the program is to encourage property owners to invest in small scale renewable energy projects in return for a contract with the Ontario Government that pays them a fixed price for the power their project generates for the full term of their contract. The prices are set to allow for the investors to recover their costs and earn a reasonable return on their investment over the contract term.

The most common form of microFIT program is expected to be solar photovoltaic (PV) installations on homes and small businesses. These projects will produce 10 kW or less of electricity.

To participate in the microFIT program you must apply for a microFIT contract, meet all of the eligibility requirements, work with your local power distribution company to get your project connected to the grid and finally accept your microFIT contract.

The eligibility requirements are:

be a renewable energy facility that uses solar photovoltaic (PV), wind, waterpower and bioenergy (biogas, biomass, landfill gas)
be 10 kW or less in size and located in Ontario
be connected, directly or indirectly, to the distribution system
must have metering that is suitable for data collection and payment calculation. All microFIT projects require a separate meter so that the amount of electricity produced by the project can be accurately measured.
not be the subject of an existing OPA contract. For example, a project must not have a contract through the OPA’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program (RESOP). There are options to allow certain projects with a RESOP contract to transition to the microFIT Program. These are outlined in the Transition Options section Click HERE for more information.
Solar (PV) contracts have domestic content requirements to ensure that a minimum percentage of the materials being used in the program are manufactured or produced in Ontario. For more information on the domestic content requirements Click HERE.
If your microFIT program is an extension/expansion of an existing renewable energy program some additional requirements apply. For more information on the additional requirements Click HERE.

microFIT Pricing:

Once you have entered into your microFIT contract you are guaranteed to receive the fixed price for the power you generate for the duration of your contract. The price OPA is paying for Solar (PV) microFIT projects is 80.2¢/kWh, with a contract term of 20 years. For more information on microFIT pricing and pricing of microFIT programs other than solar (PV) Click HERE.

Investment requirements will vary based on every projects specifications, for example the size of installation that your property can support, and the connection configuration to your local power distributor. More information on connection configurations can be found by Clicking HERE.

Additional real estate related benefits of the microFIT program include that the programs government contract is transferable. This way if you choose to move prior to your 20 year contract being up, the microFIT system is an upgrade that sells with your home increasing its value, as the new owner will receive the revenue for the balance of your contract. Another great benefit of this program is that in many cases the programs investment costs can be blended into your mortgage increasing your monetary return.

If having your home provide you with an additional revenue stream through the microFIT program is of interest to you, contact us today. We will put you in direct contact with a solar system provider that will assist you in securing your contract with the Ontario government and installing your system.