Image: Business Customers - Medium Power - Empower Progam for Building Optimization







	Program summary

	Financial assistance overview

	Sample projects

	Customer success stories

	Commonly implemented measures

	Participant’s Guide [PDF]


	Procedure for obtaining assistance

Empower Program for Building Optimization

Financial assistance overview

The amount of financial assistance granted depends on the energy efficiency gain achieved. This gain is determined by dividing eligible energy savings by the total equivalent energy consumption of the reference building.

The higher the tier your efficiency gain falls into, the higher the contribution (cents per kilowatthour).

Eligible energy savings correspond to the lower of the following amounts:

Electricity savings in kilowatthours: the difference between the reference building’s electricity consumption and the proposed building’s electricity consumption
Total energy savings in kilowatthours: the difference between the reference building’s energy consumption proposed building’s energy consumption.

Method of calculating financial assistance

Energy efficiency gain	Type A measures Control and automation measures that require relatively little investment per kilowatthour saved	Type B measures All other measures: as these measures require a greater investment per kilowatthour saved, the financial assistance granted per kilowatthour is greater as well
Up to 10%	5¢/kWh	15¢/kWh
Over 10% and up to 25%	10¢/kWh	30¢/kWh
Over 25%	15¢/kWh	55¢/kWh

Rule for calculating financial assistance	For each project, the financial assistance = Sum of amounts (one for each tier of efficiency gain, based on eligible kilowatthours saved annually), each amount being the product of Hydro-Québec’s contribution* and the kilowatthours for that tier.

*Hydro-Québec’s contribution varies depending on the type of measure (A or B).

For more information about type A measures, see Appendix 2 of the Participant’s Guide.

Compensation for the partnering professional

Here is the compensation offered (paid to the customer at the same time as the financial assistance):

A lump sum of $1,000 is paid for submitting a completed project
+ 10% of the amount of the financial assistance granted by Hydro-Québec
Maximum: $20,000

Percentage increase in building energy efficiency taking into account Program reference parameters. When baseline parameters have not been defined by Hydro-Québec for application to a given building, Hydro-Québec will define the appropriate baselines from codes, standards or laws in force.