Repair Plan For Micro-Fit In North Frontenac

Jeff Green | Aug 07, 2025

In 2013, North Frontenac Township jumped into the energy business, much as thousands of rural property owners across the province did. The Micro-Feed in Tariff (Micro-Fit) program guaranteed a very favourable price for property owner energy-producers, who invested in small solar panel arrays . The North Frontenac project fulfilled a commitment that all of the Frontenac municipalities made as part of  a county-wide initiative.

The program had several iterations, and each time the price was lowered. North Frontenac Township got in on the second of these, which pays the township a price of 54.9 cents per kilowatt hour. A solar array was affixed to the roof of the township office, which started feeding energy into the provincial power grid

The program was designed to start a transition to renewable energy sources for the Ontario electrical grid in a small way, and to promote the solar panel industry as well.  The initial investment into the panels and the equipment and labour to hook into the Ontario grid were projected to soak up the revenue from the project for about 7 years, leaving 13 years of profit to help ease the tax burden on North Frontenac residents.

It has not quite worked out that way. Not only was there an interruption in power generation due to a renovation of the building in 2018, but a series of equipment failures have resulted in less power being generated than originally projected.

According to a report to North Frontenac Council, to be considered by Council at their meeting this week, income from the system, which was installed at a cost of just over $50,000, averaged $6,000 per year, between 2014 and 2020, with the exception of 2018.  At that pace, the system would have been paid for by 2023, leaving a full ten years of profit under the FIT contract.

However, income has been declining since 2021, and inverter failures in 2024, and 2025, followed by a panel failure last month, have forced the system off line.

In order to get the system up and running again, an investment of $12,000 is required, and Council will consider that option when they meet on Thursday night.

As of now, expenses related to the Micro-Fit project in North Frontenac have outstripped revenue by almost $3,000, according to the report to Council from Manager for Community Development Brooke Ross.

If Council invests in new panels, it will take about 2.5 years of revenue from the electricity that the system will generate, leaving 8 more years on the contract, with estimated net revenue of $48,000 for North Frontenac ratepayers over the life of the program.

Staff are proposing that the money for the replacement panels be taken from the Infrastructure Sustainability Reserve Fund. The fund is currently sitting at $2million.