How solar provider Zeno Renewables is weathering shifting energy market dynamics

It’s a critical time for Canada’s economy and its business community. The country needs innovation and growth more than ever, yet businesses across a wide range of industries are facing trade disruptions, rising costs and technological change, among other challenges. This series profiles forward-thinking Canadian companies that are growing their markets by re-examining their business practices and trying new things.

Over the last 11 years, Calgary-based solar panel installation provider Zeno Renewables has weathered shifting energy market dynamics, three waves of government incentives and ongoing policy uncertainty in its home province of Alberta.

But Kai Fahrion, chief executive officer, says the company’s latest offering, Zeno Energy, gives it a stronger foothold in the market and more stability. By expanding into selling electricity, natural gas, renewable energy and high-speed internet, Zeno can offer a branded experience from installation through to delivering the utilities.

“We can support behind the meter with solar, and now we can also be your energy provider on the other side of the meter,” he says.

Mr. Fahrion, who founded the company alongside Gursh Bal, the current chief growth officer, says solar adoption has shifted from a conversation about carbon footprint and climate change to a conversation about the economic benefit. In the past, after the install, it was on the client to find the incentives that would help them recuperate the upfront costs.

“We have so many clients who we work with that really, at the end of the day, only benefit 100 per cent from our solution if they’re signed up for the solar rates,” he says. Solar rates are the credit you receive from a utility company when your panels send excess electricity back into the grid.

Now, as an energy provider as well, Mr. Fahrion says Zeno can help onboard clients with programs such as Alberta’s Solar Club, a plan where microgenerators – homes, farms and small businesses using rooftop solar systems to produce their own electricity– can feed into the grid at a higher rate in the summer to earn credits, then use those credits in the winter to pay a lower rate.

“Currently, it’s 35 cents per kilowatt-hour in the summer, and in the winter you can buy it back for 5.9 cents,” he says. That puts the payback on solar in the province to around seven years versus the 15-to-20-year range when Zeno started in 2015.

High risk, high reward

The Zeno founders always knew building a company in the solar sphere was going to be a challenge. They met while working as electricians and originally launched the company as Virtuoso Energy, before rebranding in 2022 as Zeno Renewables to reflect its focus on residential solutions.

To date, the company has done 5,500 solar installs, generating around 55 megawatts of solar across Canada – 80 per cent residential with the remaining focused on commercial projects. In addition to its Calgary headquarters, the company has offices across Alberta and a location in Mississauga.

Mr. Fahrion says early conversations required a lot of educating customers around the benefits of rooftop solar. Adoption has been helped by the rising cost of electricity – Alberta saw residential electricity rates climb more than 40 per cent between 2020 and 2024, according to Statistics Canada – combined with the declining cost of solar installation, which has been cut in half over the past decade, according to the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank.

Phil McKay is senior director of member programs at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA), where he leads the Behind-the-Meter and Utility Grid Integration programs. He says the province’s ongoing energy market restructuring is slowing down large-scale solar farm projects to nearly non-existent. But at the same time, smaller-scale solar adoption is growing.

“You’ve got this build-out not just in residential, but also commercial and industrial, that’s happening quite rapidly and almost catching up with Ontario,” says Mr. McKay.

John Parkins, a dean and researcher on energy transition at the University of Alberta, says there’s a “contagion effect” taking place where once one or two people adopt solar in a community and other people see the possibility, installations spread. There’s also the push and pull of energy prices.

“If we get to a point where we start to see more demand on the gas resources that we use for electricity production, then we probably will start to see more solar adoption because people will be more motivated to reduce their electricity costs.”

Electric vehicles could further incentivize that loop, he adds. “If they’re charging EVs at home, then they might get motivated to put solar on their homes because their electricity costs have gone up quite a bit.”

The cost of policy uncertainty

It’s not all forward momentum, says Mr. Fahrion. In October, the province launched Canada’s first mandatory recycling program and a $14 per-panel environmental fee for new solar panels, paid upfront by the customer.

“I have no issues with it – it makes sense to have a recycling fee for our product,” says Mr. Fahrion. But he does feel that the government “was a bit vague” about how they calculated the specific cost.

Mr. McKay says a lot of CanREA’s membership across the country is concerned with policy uncertainty as well. “These are long-term investments, so the customer themselves, the businesses – they’re all looking at how this is going to look in the next five, 10, 15 years,” he says.

The cost of capital is also having an impact, says Mr. Fahrion. High interest rates make the investment less fruitful. Mr. McKay points out that Alberta residents have access to the Clean Energy Improvement Program, which lets property owners finance up to $50,000 toward solar panels, with a low-interest loan repaid through local property taxes.

Ultimately, Mr. Fahrion says incentives and policy can accelerate or decelerate the market, but his focus is on educating consumers and ensuring the company has a foot in all aspects of the market.

“We started in Alberta, one of the hardest places,” he says. “We still have a long way to go towards some of our goals, but we’ve made a pretty big impact and been at the forefront of shaping the solar industry in Alberta.”