Solar Without the Capital Line. Cash-Flow Positive From Day 1.
Our operating lease puts a fully engineered solar and storage system on your facility with zero down. The lease payment is structured below your verified utility savings — so the system pays for itself and then pays you, from the first billing cycle. No capital committee. No balance-sheet debt debate. One signature.
The structure in one line: Verified monthly utility savings − lease payment = positive cash flow, Day 1. If the audited savings don’t support the payment, we don’t propose the lease.
How does the zero-down solar lease work?
My Energy Canada (or its financing partner, as lessor) funds, engineers, and deploys the complete system — N-Type TOPCon bifacial array, structural steel mounting, EP Cube storage where specified — on your facility at no capital cost to you. You pay a fixed monthly lease payment set deliberately below the utility savings we verify in the engineering audit. The delta is yours from month one. The lessor, as system owner, monetizes the 30% Clean Technology ITC and Class 43.1 depreciation — which is exactly what allows the lease rate to be set below your savings line in the first place.
Who owns the system during the lease period?
The lessor owns the system throughout the term. That ownership is what makes the economics work: the owner claims the federal tax benefits and passes the value through as a lower lease rate. You hold quiet enjoyment and exclusive use of the system’s output; we hold responsibility for performance, monitoring, and maintenance of the asset we own. Your obligations are the lease payment and reasonable site access — not inverter warranties, not module degradation curves.
How is the lease payment structured below my current utility cost?
The sequence is audit-first. We analyze twelve months of interval data and utility invoices, model the system’s production and demand-reduction value against your actual tariff — Global Adjustment class in Ontario, demand structure in Alberta, utility rates in the Maritimes — and produce a verified savings figure. The lease payment is then set at a fixed discount to that figure. This is the inverse of conventional equipment finance, where the payment is set by the asset cost and your savings are your problem. Here, the savings are the underwriting.
What tax benefits does the lessee vs lessor receive?
Lessor (owner): claims the 30% Clean Technology ITC (Bill C-59), 100% first-year CCA under Class 43.1 (Bill C-15), and bears the paragraph 13(7.1)(e) UCC adjustment. Lessee (you): deducts the full lease payment as an operating expense — a clean, simple P&L deduction with no depreciation schedules, no ITC compliance file, no CRA audit exposure on the credit. If your corporation cannot efficiently absorb the tax benefits (loss position, REIT constraints, non-taxable entity), the lease structure is typically more valuable than direct ownership, because the lessor monetizes benefits you would waste and returns them through the rate.
What happens at the end of the lease term?
Three standard paths, elected near term-end: purchase the system at its then-fair-market value (typically a small fraction of original cost for a 25-year-life asset), renew at a reduced rate reflecting the asset’s depreciated value, or request removal. Most lessees purchase: by term-end the system is proven on your own meter data, and the FMV buyout converts a below-savings lease into outright ownership of an asset with a decade or more of remaining production.
Is this an operating lease or capital lease?
It is structured as an operating lease: no automatic title transfer, no bargain purchase option (the buyout is at fair market value), and a term shorter than the asset’s economic life. That classification is what keeps the tax benefits with the lessor — the engine of the below-savings rate — and keeps your payments as deductible opex. Note that a true “lease-to-own” with a nominal buyout would risk capital-lease characterization and collapse the structure’s tax logic; our documentation is drafted specifically to preserve operating treatment. Your accounting presentation under IFRS 16 / ASPE should be reviewed with your advisors.
How does this differ from a solar PPA?
A power purchase agreement bills you per kilowatt-hour produced — your payment floats with production and your savings float with it. An operating lease is a fixed payment against verified savings: predictable, budgetable, and directly comparable to the utility line it displaces. PPAs also monetize only energy; our lease underwrites the full value stack, including demand-charge reduction and Global Adjustment mitigation from storage — value a per-kWh contract structurally cannot price. For most Canadian C&I facilities, the lease produces both a better Day-1 cash position and a simpler CFO conversation.
General information, not tax, legal, or accounting advice. Lease classification and tax treatment depend on final documentation and your corporate circumstances.
Apply for Commercial Lease Pre-Qualification
Pre-qualification takes one form and twelve months of utility bills. We return a verified savings model and an indicative lease rate — no site visit, no commitment.