2009
Polar Racking Enters the Solar Industry
Our goal was simple: build solar racking better than anyone else.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF ENGINEERING FIRM
Our Story.
From local roots to larger reach and capability, we’re proud of where we’ve come from – and where we’re going.
We Were Founded By Builders.
OUR ORIGIN IS IN THE FIELD.
Most engineering consultancies are founded the same way: a group of senior engineers leave a larger firm, hang out a shingle, and build a practice from their existing book of business. It's a proven model, and it's also why so many firms in this industry look, sound, and operate alike. PRI didn't start that way. We were founded by builders. Our origin isn't in a consulting boardroom, it's in the field, on real projects, solving problems that the existing engineering market wasn't solving well enough. That difference shapes everything about how we work today.
It Started with Polar Racking
ROOTS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY
In 2009, our founders launched Polar Racking out of Toronto, just as Ontario's solar industry was beginning to take shape. The premise was straightforward: build the mounting systems Canada's solar developers needed, and build them better than anyone else. Over the next decade and a half, Polar Racking shipped more than 6 GW of mounting systems across North America and the Caribbean, growing into the largest solar mounting provider in Canada. But the real story, the one that became PRI, was unfolding in the background.
Engineering as a Differentiator
A CLIENT-CENTRIC PHILOSOPHY
From day one, Polar's philosophy was to remove friction for its clients. If a developer needed a permit-ready package, Polar would deliver it. That meant building an in-house structural engineering team to stamp rooftop racking designs, a level of service the market wasn't offering. In 2015, Polar expanded into ground-mount racking to serve the larger utility-scale projects entering the pipeline. Ground-mount brought a new challenge: foundations. So Polar hired its first geotechnical engineer, based in Lindsay, Ontario, to design foundations and provide construction support. That single hire, in that small Ontario town, would become the seed of everything that came next.
A Gap Worth Filling
SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLEX TERRAIN
North American renewable developers were repeatedly running into the same wall: foundation designs that didn't account for cold-weather performance, frost action, complex terrain, or the long-term realities of asset ownership. Polar had been solving these problems quietly for its own racking clients for years, building up a depth of experience that simply didn't exist elsewhere in the sector. Because we came at engineering from the builder's side of the table, not the consultant's, we understood what developers, EPCs, and long-term asset owners actually needed. Designs that got built. Foundations that performed. Recommendations that survived contact with a construction schedule and a Canadian winter. In 2017, Polar spun out its engineering practice as a standalone business: PRI. Our first office was in Lindsay, where it all started.
Becoming Canada's Renewable Engineering Firm
SUCCESS MARKED BY STEADY, DELIBERATE GROWTH
The years that followed were defined by steady, deliberate growth — earned one project at a time. PRI quickly became the preeminent Canadian engineering firm focused on the renewable sector. Our work isn't measured in small residential or community projects — it's measured in utility-scale assets owned by Canada's largest renewable developers, IPPs, and infrastructure investors. Among that group, PRI has completed the majority of the sector's foundation designs in Canada.
Our Roadmap to Success.
2015
Polar Racking Expands into Larger Scale Projects
Expansion into larger, high-profile projects is marked by the need for engineer-stamped foundations.
2017
PRI Engineering is Born
A standalone engineering practice dedicated to client-focused solutions for any climate, any terrain.
2019
PRI Expands into the U.S. Renewable Market
2020
Opportunities in Ontario's Municipal, Land Development and Infrastructure Sectors.
2021
Extending Renewable Energy into the Tropics
2023
Expansion into Alberta, Eastern Canada and the Maritimes
2025
PRI Acquires Assets of BC-Based Ecora
Expansion into a national, multi-disciplinary engineering consulting firm, with 10 office locations across Canada.
Where We Are Today
ENGINEERING FOR THE REAL WORLD
PRI is headquartered in Peterborough, Ontario, with additional offices in Mississauga, Toronto, Calgary, and across the country. What started as one geotechnical engineer in Lindsay, solving foundation problems for a racking company, has grown into a national, multidisciplinary firm. But the founding instinct hasn't changed. We were built by people who needed engineering to work in the real world, and that's still how we practice it. The future of consulting starts here.