Canada announces renewed industrial energy management investment
November 5, 2026 — The 2026 federal budget proposes $400 million in funding to support industrial energy efficiency. The funding will renew the Green Industrial Facilities and Manufacturing Program — now named the “Strategic High-efficiency Industrial Facilities Transition” (SHIFT) — with an expansion toward serving small- and medium-sized enterprises. This funding is double Ottawa’s previous commitment.
This policy demonstrates two things.
First, that the government recognizes energy efficiency as both an immediate way to help Canadian businesses weather economic pressures by lowering operating costs and a long-term strategy to improve productivity.
Canadian manufacturers are already seeing the benefits. In Nova Scotia, Trans-Atlantic Preforms installed real-time metering, reducing energy use by 35 per cent and saving enough to help offset costs, including U.S. tariff-related pressures. Meanwhile, Lethbridge Iron Works will save $1.1 million in energy costs annually after developing a major capital plan to triple capacity while improving efficiency.
Second, saving energy makes more economic sense than paying more to produce it.
A government-commissioned study found that a $7-billion to $10-billion investment in industrial energy efficiency would avoid $100 billion in electricity costs. That makes saving electricity 10 times cheaper than building power plants and transmission lines.
Industrial energy efficiency can be part of a “nation-building” strategy to improve energy productivity in Canada. That means getting more value for every unit of energy used or produced in Canada, creating a less expensive energy system and affordable bills for Canadian businesses and citizens.
Background
- Budget 2026 provides $400 million over seven years to the Strategic High-efficiency Industrial Facilities Transition (SHIFT), which will de-risk projects and accelerate adoption of energy-saving technologies, which includes small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Efficiency Canada’s pre-budget submission suggested an expansion of the program to serve small- and medium-sized industry, program design innovations like roving energy managers, and streamlining the application process by enabling energy efficiency service providers to submit.
- Efficiency Canada emphasized the role industrial energy management can play in immediately reducing industrial energy costs with a tariff-proof strategy in an op-ed and its report Energy Efficiency: The “Made-in-Canada” Resource.
- Efficiency Canada’s A Policy System for Continuous Improvement report discusses strategies to expand industrial energy management in Canada.
- Budget 2026 also extends the Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit until 2040. This supports technologies such as solar panels and heat pumps. However, there is no initiative to simplify the tax credit approval and application process.
- Efficiency Canada called for an expansion and simplification of the tax credit in its pre-budget submission.
- Budget 2026 includes previously announced policies to renew the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Program to support deep retrofits in commercial, institutional, and mid-rise multi-unit residential buildings and the National Heat Pump Rebate Program.
- Efficiency Canada’s pre-budget submission called for Budget 2026 to create a new system capable of delivering more retrofits, deeper energy savings and carbon reductions consistent with net-zero emissions.
- Efficiency Canada published an op-ed highlighting the need for a stable, long-term retrofit incentive program.
- Budget 2022 earmarked $194 million for the Green Industrial Facilities and Manufacturing Program.
- Efficiency Canada, industry associations and think tanks across Canada have called for a national agenda to double energy productivity, alongside doubling electrification and Canada’s electricity grid.
- In 2023, Canada joined other nations in committing to double the average rate of energy productivity, a goal supported by almost 200 global businesses before the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in November.
Contact: media@efficiencycanada.org