Clear answer, explained.
Ontario’s Market Renewal Program went live on May 1, 2025 and introduced major changes to the province’s wholesale electricity market, including a Day-Ahead Market and a new Ontario Electricity Market Price. IESO
Those changes do not create an automatic improvement in solar returns. A commercial solar system creates financial value primarily by reducing the electricity a facility needs to purchase from the grid when onsite generation is available. The value of that avoided electricity depends on the facility’s rate structure, consumption pattern, demand characteristics and other applicable electricity charges.
This is why two businesses consuming the same number of annual kWh can have different solar economics. One may have a daytime load that closely aligns with solar production, while another may consume a greater share of its electricity outside solar-producing hours. A facility-specific commercial solar assessment should therefore model actual consumption and expected solar production rather than assume that market changes will improve ROI across all facilities.
What this means in practice.
- MRP went live in Ontario on May 1, 2025.
- MRP does not automatically increase commercial solar ROI.
- Solar value remains dependent on the individual facility’s electricity profile and rate structure.
- The timing of solar generation relative to facility consumption affects the electricity being displaced.
- Solar economics should be calculated through facility-specific modelling rather than market-wide assumptions.
Best-fit environments.
- You are evaluating commercial solar in Ontario after the introduction of MRP.
- You want to understand whether electricity-market changes materially affect a proposed solar project.
- Your facility has variable operating hours or electricity consumption.
- Your financial team wants solar savings modelled using actual utility data rather than general electricity-price assumptions.
