About Community Power

What Community Power is:

Community power is the result of financial, conceptual and organizational participation of citizens (local community) in a renewable energy project.

A community power project is a renewable energy project owned in full or in part by local residents. Ownership can be organized narrowly (e.g. through a Limited Partnership) or widely (e.g. through a Co-operative). Community power democratizes electricity generation, means that investment returns will be enjoyed locally and lays the foundations for a more decentralized grid.

The Ontario Feed-in Tariff program provides special incentives for renewable energy projects to be developed as community projects: projects are eligible for a ‘community adder’ which is paid on top of the regular FIT rate and security payments asked from community power projects are lowered to $5/kW regardless of technology.

Recognizing that raising the soft cost financing can be an issue for community groups, the OPA has established the Community Energy Partnership Program (CEPP), which provides up to $200,000 of funding for core feasibility and development work.

Benefits of Community Power:

Community power has many advantages compared to commercial power development:

• The usually high personal involvement helps keeps “soft costs” low.
• An improved understanding within the community leads to higher acceptance and thus faster permitting process..
• Equity is relatively inexpensive to raise, there is no involvement of professional investors and expensive due diligence processes can be avoided.
• The locally investment dollars by investors from the community have a stimulating effect on the local economy.

Community Power offers great opportunities for:

• Business owners and the BIAs where owners are not only sharing facilities or buildings, but also values and selling propositions to their clients
• Groups of people intrigued by the idea to develop and jointly own a renewable energy system
• Charities or faith-based groups looking for an additional stream of revenue to support their operations
• Property or building owners with properties they would like to use to develop a renewable energy project jointly with others in their community.

This project has received funding support from the Ontario Power Authority through the Community Energy Partnerships Program. Such support does not indicate endorsement by the Ontario Power Authority or the Province of Ontario of the contents of this material.