Our Power

About Us

Our Power

The Our Power project grew out of efforts in the Riverdale and Bathurst-St.Clair neighbourhoods of Toronto, where neighbours got together to gather information, evaluate installers and simplify the solar investment decision together. With an overwhelming demand for the information gathered by these groups and a gap in the market for a strong customer service offering identified, TREC took Our Power in house to expand the program's reach. Now with an updated website, over 3200 members and the strongest renewable energy policy in North America in place, Our Power is ready to help homeowners take advantage of this unique investment opportunity that offers environmental and social benefits with strong financial returns

Like all TREC projects, OP is governed by the TREC Board of Directors and advised by a Steering Committee made up of volunteer professionals with engineering, small business, marketing, website development and solar development experience as well as the TREC Executive Director.

Steering Committee

Judith Lipp - TREC's executive director and former researcher and consultant on energy issues in Europe

Ken Traynor - Our Power program director and winner of OSEA and CanSIA community solar awards

Scott Snowden - Co-founder of Trioro Internet Services in Toronto

Mike Brigham - Business owner, chair of the TREC Board of Directors and Feed-In Tariff Consultant to the Green Energy Act Alliance

David Booz - Engineer and President of Booz Engineering

Rebecca Black - Founder of Blackcurrent Marketing Services

Peter Litster - Our Power program assistant

The Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative’s (TREC) Our Power project is a Residential Solar Program that helps homeowners simplify the decisions involved with investing in a solar photovoltaic (PV) system on their roof. In 2008 the Community Power Fund and Toronto Atmospheric Fund provided support for TREC's exploration of how to evolve Our Power into a self-sustaining social enterprise. We recently completed our business plan which identifies a central role for TREC in developing the residential solar market in Ontario; uniquely positioned to connect industry players and homeowners, and to drive massive change in solar energy uptake in this province.

The Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative

Our Power is a project/initiative of the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative (TREC), a not-for-profit organization that has been at the forefront of community renewable energy development in Ontario for more than 10 years. As a not-for-profit project, OP reports to its funders, and stakeholders at large on a regular basis. Our Power may only conduct those operations and activities considered to be consistent with the TREC mission and as approved by the Board. Generally, these include the stated activities of the “Solar Exchange” regarding purchasing support to Members and providing a valuable marketing resource to the solar industry.

The Toronto Renewable Energy Cooperative has a two-part mission:

Building community-based and owned renewable energy projects on a commercial and residential scale

Educating Ontarians and visitors about renewable energy, energy efficiency/conservation and the community power model (co-operative ownership which ensures revenues remain in the local community)

TREC consists of 6 full time employees and a large group of volunteer professionals, lawyers, accountants, engineers, project managers and business owners that generously donate their time in the service of the organization