In most provinces, one utility holds the exclusive right to sell power. A franchise waiver can change that, and turn a community's energy spending into community-owned revenue.
Here is a fact that surprises many communities: in most of Canada, your First Nation cannot simply build a system and sell electricity to its own members and facilities. A provincial crown utility usually holds the exclusive legal right to distribute, supply, and sell power within a defined territory, often under a single section of provincial legislation. That exclusivity is the wall between a community energy project and a community-owned utility.
There is a door in that wall. It is called a franchise waiver, and securing one is the difference between a solar project that offsets a few bills and a Nation-owned utility that retains wealth for decades.
When a community installs solar or a microgrid under standard net metering, it is still a customer of the provincial utility. The savings are real but capped, and the asset does not generate utility revenue. The community is reducing an expense rather than building a business.
A utility, by contrast, sells electricity. It earns revenue from every kilowatt-hour delivered, builds a rate base, and turns the community's own energy demand into a circular economy where money spent on power stays on the Nation. To get there, the exclusive franchise right has to be waived for that territory.
A franchise waiver is an agreement in which the provincial utility agrees to set aside its exclusive rights for a defined area and term, allowing a Nation-majority-owned utility entity to distribute, supply, and sell electricity on Nation lands. In practice it converts off-grid and microgrid projects from technical pilots into the legal foundation of a revenue-generating utility.
These agreements are rare. They are negotiated, not granted, and they require the utility, the Nation, and often a regulator to align. The first of its kind in a province is a genuine milestone, because it sets the precedent every Nation after it can point to.
A franchise waiver is the legal capstone on a stack of work that has to come first.
Energy is one of the largest ongoing expenses a community has, and under the conventional model that money flows off the Nation every month, permanently. A Nation-owned utility reverses the direction. It creates jobs members can train into, builds an asset the community owns, and secures energy continuity that protects against outages and price shocks. The franchise waiver is what makes all of it legally possible.
Related: NRCan CERRC clean energy funding · The complete funding guide
Program names, amounts, cost-share rates, and intake windows change between funding cycles. Confirm current requirements before you build a plan around any figure here, or ask us and we will check.
Tell us about your project and we will map the path. No obligation, just a conversation.
Start a Conversation