Ontario greenhouses and industrial operations are some of the province’s heaviest electricity users – and also some of the most forward-thinking in their energy management. Anyone walking the floor at last month’s Canadian Greenhouse Conference in Niagara Falls could see it firsthand: supplemental lighting strategies, climate automation, robotics, data-driven growing techniques, and continuous real-time optimization of square footage. Similar progress is happening across manufacturing floors, food processors, cold storage, and fabrication facilities.
These sectors already operate on tight margins. Now, electricity volatility is adding new pressure—but also new opportunity.
And Ontario’s shift to the Day Ahead Market (DAM) is creating an advantage for businesses willing to embrace it.
A Market Shift That Changes Everything
As of May 1, 2025, Ontario businesses can see tomorrow’s electricity prices today – hour by hour.
That level of forward price certainty simply didn’t exist before. Now, instead of feverishly trying to respond to real-time price information and simply reacting to volatile prices after the fact, businesses can utilize valuable costing information for planning. The IESO gets better electricity system certainty , and Ontario’s largest users get the actionable clarity they’ve been asking for.
For greenhouses and industrial loads, this is a powerful tool. It means you can match your operational needs – lighting, processing, drying, HVAC, irrigation, refrigeration – to the most cost-effective hours, without compromising output.
In short: transparency has arrived in a market that used to be largely guesswork.
What Leading Ontario Businesses Are Doing Already
Working with greenhouse operators and industrial energy teams across the province, we’re seeing impressive creativity in how businesses are using DAM insights to protect budgets and support growth.
Greenhouses are shifting lighting schedules into cheaper hours, without sacrificing plant health or yield. Factories are tweaking shift changes by 30–60 minutes. Cold storage operators are pre-cooling during low-cost hours to offset spikes later in the day. Even small hourly adjustments are creating next-month bill reductions that are impossible to ignore.
These aren’t theoretical savings – they’re material.
And in 2025’s extreme pricing environment, the stakes are high:
- Before DAM, hourly prices hit 148¢/kWh earlier this year.
A 4MW greenhouse or industrial site would have paid $5,920 for that one hour alone. - Since DAM launched, we’ve still seen prices exceed 35¢/kWh over the summer, with historically “cheap” overnight hours reaching 28¢/kWh—compared to the usual 3–4¢/kWh average.
When a few hours can make or break a budget line, being caught off guard simply isn’t an option anymore.
Electricity Savings That Fund Growth
With operating costs rising and capital investments harder to justify, DAM participation is becoming a strategic advantage for high-load businesses.
Here’s what tapping into Day Ahead insights unlocks:
- Daily alerts when tomorrow’s price crosses a customer-defined threshold
- Hourly visibility into the cost of running high-load equipment
- Opportunities to shift or avoid lighting, or energy intensive processing into cheaper hours
- Real savings that free up capital for expansions, automation, robotics, and further yield-boosting upgrades
Not every business can adjust on demand – and that’s okay. Even partial flexibility makes a measurable difference.
At the very least, being informed puts you back in control.
The Full Energy Strategy Ontario Businesses Need Right Now
DAM insights are one piece of the puzzle. When layered with Global Adjustment (GA) savings through the ICI program and Demand Response earnings getting paid to support the grid, Ontario businesses can materially reduce their electricity costs, stabilize budgets, and reinvest those dollars into growth.
In an unpredictable economic and political climate, this kind of resilience matters.
Now is the moment for every greenhouse and industrial facility to review how they manage both sides of the electricity bill – and ensure they’re getting paid for every kilowatt of flexibility they bring to the system.
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