Ontario’s 2021-2024 conservation and demand management (CDM) framework fell short of its target, but an impressive finishing kick helped to reel the deficit back to a respectable gap. Newly released results from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) report that the suite of provincial CDM programs delivered 3,570 gigawatt-hours (3.57 million megawatt-hours) of energy savings and 604 megawatts (MW) reduction in peak demand reduction for the four-year period, with more than 50 per cent of both tallies accomplished in 2024.
The dramatic performance improvement is attributed to additional program spending and offerings that rolled out over the course of 2023 and were fully available for 12 months of 2024. This was seen in an 75 per cent year-over-year uptick in energy savings coupled with a 480 per cent gain in peak demand savings over 2023.
With this final push, the CDM framework achieved 94 per cent of targeted energy savings and 83 per cent of targeted peak demand. Retrofit programs were the largest contributor, accounting for nearly 1,890 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy savings and 317 MW of peak demand reduction. However, the IESO also highlights the “exceptional performance” of the Peak Perks incentive for residential customers with smart HVAC controls, which is credited with nearly 186 MW of peak demand reduction for less than $31 million of spending.
The program — which has been expanded to include small business customers in the in-progress 2025-27 electricity demand side management (eDSM) framework — gives volunteer enrollees a $75 prepaid Mastercard when they first sign up and an additional $20 for each subsequent year they participate. In return, they agree to allow remote adjustments of their household cooling or heating when peak demand triggers the necessity. After the program was introduced in 2023, the IESO reports that 2024 enrollment grew to 206,000 participants, in a year when there were nine activation events.
Also making a debut in 2023, subsidies for LED lighting installations in the greenhouse sector delivered more than 729 GWh of energy savings by the end of 2024. As well, the IESO points to the Instant Discounts incentive, also known as the midstream lighting program, as an exceptional performer in 2024.
It was introduced in late 2023 to make energy-efficient lighting available to consumers with discounts built into the purchase price. More than 150 lighting distributors, collectively selling product through more than 500 outlets province-wide, had signed on for the program by the end of 2024. The IESO pegs the results at approximately 550,000 “efficient-lighting measures” before the CDM framework closed out.
