In a ground-breaking move for a financial institution, the Toronto-Dominion Bank has decided to go as green as its logo.
The main initiative is to get Canadians to install solar panels on their roofs and reduce the tyranny of non-renewable energy. To do that, the bank is running a national advertising campaign extolling the benefits – environmental and financial – of every home generating its own solar power and has introduced a new series of low-cost loans to let homeowners finance their conversion to solar power.
“It started about six months ago when Karen Clarke-Whistler, our chief environmental officer, got all the operating units of the bank together to see if we could come up with a bank-wide initiative to promote green energy,” says Don Cooper, manager of TD financing services.
“A bank-wide initiative like that was the first for us and we were able to come up with a number of programs.”
One of the things that persuaded the bankers to take solar power seriously was a survey the bank had done of 1,000 Canadians 25 years or older who owned their own home.
“It showed that while 47 per cent of Canadians are aware solar power can reduce home energy costs only 5 per cent understand that by installing solar panels they can actually make money from provincial power authorities.
Other statistics gathered showed 91 per cent are aware green energy reduces the environmental impact of power generation but only 5 per cent have taken the step of installing their own solar-powered systems.
About 33 per cent have thought about installing solar panels but 75 per cent says cost is the number one deterrent.
“We decided there was a role we could play on two fronts,” says Mr. Cooper. “We could use traditional advertising to explain the financial benefits of solar power and we could create lending programs to make sense of the cost.”
The first of those programs is a deal struck with solar panel installation companies across Canada. TD now provides them financing packages they can make available to customers, much as car dealers have instant financing available from banks and other lenders.
“They can sit down in customers’ living rooms, sign a contract and instantly make financing available,” Mr. Cooper says.
That financing comes in the form of non-secured loans of up to $50,000 amortized over 15 years.
The second option is new Green secured lines of credit. TD customers can get a line of credit to pay for solar panels and pay just 1 per cent above prime. The Green line also comes with a 1 per cent cash rebate. Take a loan for $25,000 and immediately get $250 back in cash.
But TD goes further than just lending money and letting customers figure out what to do with the power their solar panels generate. The new ad campaign, launched this month, explains how you can turn your solar-panel equipped roof into a domestic profit centre.
“We wanted to drive home the point that there is a strong business case to be made for solar panels,” says Mr. Cooper.
He points out that many provinces now have plans where power companies purchase solar generated power from homeowners on long term contracts at very attractive rates.
A case in point is Ontario Power Generation’s MicroFit program where the OPG buys solar power at the rate of 80.2 cents a kilowatt hour from homeowners.
The result can be a 13 per cent to 15 per cent returns on investment over the projected 25-year lifespan of today’s panels, he says.
“That has to be a lot better than getting maybe 2 per cent by putting your money into GICs,” he says.
“The biggest challenge we face is that people are not aware investing in solar panels makes sense financially and is easy to do now. We think that once people start to understand those benefits and see financing is not a problem any more that the move towards homeowners generating solar power will really pick up in speed.”
To help Canadians understand the steps they must take toward creating their own renewable energy projects, TD has even created a step-by-step guidebook called Going Green: A Homeowners’ Guide to Solar Energy. It is available at www.td.com/renewableenergy.
Will TD’s ad campaign and loans make a difference? The survey suggests they will. It said that 40 per cent of Canadians would indeed install solar panels on their roofs if financing was available to help meet upfront costs.
