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Business owners looking for commercial HVAC rebates: your energy bills have probably been climbing for years. Between rising electricity rates, aging equipment, and tenants expecting consistent comfort, keeping costs in check can feel like a losing battle.
Luckily, Ontario just expanded one of the most significant funding programs for commercial buildings in the province’s history, and added a new one to help reduce strain on the energy grid during the hottest and busiest days of the year.
As well, as these programs grow, if your facility runs on older HVAC controls, inefficient scheduling, or equipment that hasn’t been touched since the last lease cycle, you may be sitting on thousands (or millions!) of dollars in available incentives.
Our team works with property managers across Hamilton, Burlington, Niagara, and the Golden Horseshoe every day, and when the Ontario government announced major changes to its commercial HVAC rebates, we paid close attention. Here’s what changed, who qualifies, and how smart HVAC and building automation upgrades put you in the best position to take advantage.
Reach out to schedule a free site consultation. We’ll review your equipment, walk through your utility data, and give you a straight answer about whether and how a project makes sense for your facility. No jargon, no pressure, no vendor lock-in.
Ontario’s electricity demand is expected to grow by 75% by 2050. To manage that, the province launched a 12-year, $10.9-billion Energy Efficiency Framework, described as the largest investment in energy-efficiency programming in Canadian history. The goal: reduce Ontario’s peak electricity demand by 3,000 megawatts by 2036. You can read the full announcement on the Ontario Newsroom, and the province’s full integrated energy plan is available at Energy for Generations.
For commercial building managers and industrial facility operators, the most relevant piece of this is the Save on Energy XLerate Program. Here’s what it now offers:
For smaller-scale upgrades, the Save on Energy Retrofit Program also covers up to 50% of eligible project costs, including HVAC controls, pumps, variable frequency drives, and more.
If your building uses a significant amount of electricity and you’ve been putting off an upgrade because of the upfront cost, there has never been a better time to act on commercial HVAC rebates in Ontario.
The Peak Performance Program is run by Save on Energy, which is administered by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and supported by the Government of Ontario. It’s one of the newer commercial HVAC rebates in Ontario, designed specifically for buildings that can manage HVAC load during summer peak demand events.
Here’s the core concept: on the hottest days of summer, Ontario’s electricity grid comes under the most strain. Buildings running air conditioning at full capacity all afternoon are a major contributor to that peak. The Peak Performance Program pays commercial operators to ease off HVAC output during those windows (typically three hours on summer afternoons) in exchange for incentive payments based on how much load they reduce.
You don’t commit to a fixed reduction every time. You choose how much to participate on each event day, which means you stay in control of your building’s comfort levels and operational needs.
You may have realized the key to this already: you need to automate your building’s energy usage to take full advantage of these peak hours. It isn’t practical to manually turn everything off at the hottest point of the day all summer long. That also isn’t the goal of programs like the Peak Performance Program. They’re for buildings that are quietly wasting energy without knowing it.
An older HVAC system running on manual schedules (or no schedule at all, yikes) can account for more than half of your electricity bill. If your system is cooling empty floors during peak hours, running at full capacity when it doesn’t need to, or managing zones with an uncalibrated thermostat, you have some work to do before taking advantage of this grant. A Building Automation System is the key to that.
A properly installed BAS doesn’t just save energy, either. Your BAS generates the documented, verified savings data that government energy rebates require to deliver incentive payment. By pairing sensors, smart scheduling, and open-protocol controls with your existing HVAC equipment, you’re setting yourself up for success.
Still not convinced? A BAS gives you:
The incentive is based on your average megawatt (MW) reduction across the full event season, not a one-time calculation. That means consistent participation over the summer leads to a meaningful payment at the end of the season.
To put a real number on it: if your facilities curtail an average of 1.25 MW over the 2026 season, you could earn approximately $94,000. That breaks down to roughly $69,000 in seasonal performance incentives plus $25,000 in enabling incentives for new participants setting up the required equipment.
Two types of incentives are available:
The enabling incentive is particularly relevant for buildings that need a BAS upgrade or smart controls installation to participate. It directly reduces the cost of getting the infrastructure in place.
The Peak Performance Program is open to commercial and institutional facilities, including offices, hospitals, schools, retail buildings, warehouses, and more. To participate, your operation must:
Projects in grid-constrained areas (look outside your window… if you see a lot of other buildings, they’re talking about you!) are eligible for a higher incentive rate of $450/MWh.
The Peak Performance Program is a Save on Energy program run by the IESO that pays commercial and institutional buildings in Ontario to reduce their HVAC load during summer peak demand events. Buildings that can curtail at least 500 kW of demand response capacity — at least 75% of which must come from HVAC equipment — earn performance incentive payments based on their average MW reduction across the June to September event season.
As a benchmark, a building or portfolio that averages 1.25 MW of curtailment across the 2026 season could earn approximately $94,000 in total incentives, roughly $69,000 in performance payments plus $25,000 in enabling incentives for new participants. Larger portfolios with more curtailment capacity earn proportionally more.
No, you don’t necessarily need a BAS to participate in the Peak Performance Program. But, most commercial buildings cannot reliably deliver, monitor, and report on their energy usage without one. The Peak Performance Program requires that you have the technical capacity to track and report energy data from participating facilities. A BAS makes that possible, and the enabling incentive is specifically designed to help offset the cost of installing that equipment.
Yes! Alpine HVAC is made up of HVAC experts who help commercial property managers across Hamilton, Burlington, Niagara, and Toronto assess eligibility, upgrade or configure their BAS for demand response participation, document enabling incentive costs, and maintain the controls infrastructure needed to stay event-ready through the summer. Reach out to schedule a free consultation and we’ll tell you what’s realistic for your specific building.
Ontario’s commercial HVAC rebates including the Peak Performance Program are available now, and the 2026 pre-season application window is already open. The sooner you engage, the more flexibility you have to get your controls infrastructure in place.
Ontario’s commercial HVAC rebates are available now, and the project timelines that qualify run up to five years, but the earlier you engage, the more flexibility you have to scope the right project at the right pace.
Alpine HVAC serves Hamilton, Burlington, Niagara, Toronto, and everywhere in between. If you want to understand what a BAS or HVAC controls upgrade could look like for your building and what rebates might offset the cost, give us a shout!
