Making money from microFIT if you don’t have a good location or own a house

There are a few situations where you can’t participate in microFIT directly:

• You don’t own a house
• Your roof is not in a good location (facing north, shade from trees, etc)
• You’re going to move in a few years (though you can sell your microFIT contract to the new owners)
• You can’t afford or justify the upfront costs (though you can make enough money that borrowing most of the upfront costs is feasible)

If you’re in a situation where you can’t participate in microFIT directly, you can still get involved in another way. There are some co-op ownership programs available in Ontario, that let you purchase part of a larger system. These systems would typically be under the FIT program and not the microFIT program, so the rates are different and the rules are more complex. But at the end of the day, they will be making money from generating solar electricity, and so will you.

The two programs that I’m aware of are Options for Green Energy, and TREC’s SolarShare. Both of these programs are pursuing commercial scale projects, and offer attractive returns to their members over a 20 year period.

Full disclosure: I am a member of Options for Green Energy.

There are other smaller opportunities in communities across Ontario. Churches have sold bonds to raise money to buy systems for their roofs. If you look around, you might find interesting things happening near you. Or maybe you could even start a group project yourself!