Key findings and insights

Ontario’s Peak Perks program, launched in 2023, has quickly become Canada’s largest residential demand response initiative with over 100,000 participants.

Expanding this model to hot water tanks and other appliances could significantly enhance energy savings and affordability for Ontarians.

Strengths

Ontario leads in both electricity savings and capacity savings.

A recently proposed 12-year electricity efficiency framework has the potential to extend this leadership into the future, if adequately funded.

Opportunities

Ontario is the only province with a mandatory energy use reporting system for large buildings, but the results are anonymized.

Making energy performance labels public would provide the province’s tenants with clear information about their energy costs and help drive energy efficiency improvements.

The province has no timelines for achieving net-zero energy-ready buildings by 2030 and has not adopted a tiered code that could accelerate the uptake of energy-efficient building practices and enable municipalities to adopt higher standards for new construction.

As other provinces modernize their codes to cut emissions and lower energy costs, Ontario risks falling behind in its energy transition.