The Town of Hempstead deploys park officials in a fleet of electric cars to patrol its beaches and parks. A windmill atop a landfill-turned-recreation area circulates water in a nearby pond. The town is even testing hybrid garbage trucks to reduce their exhaust.
“We want to go entirely green here,” said Kate Murray, the town supervisor.
But the most ambitious of Ms. Murray’s environmental plans sits right above her head: 256 shiny blue panels on the town hall’s roof. They make up a 40-kilowatt photovoltaic — solar energy — system to power her office and a conference room next door.
In January 2006, the town began using solar systems to deliver electricity to some of its buildings, using state subsidies to cover most of the equipment and installation costs. But while town government views itself as a leader in reducing pollution, some experts say solar technology is still largely inefficient and not worth the cost to taxpayers.
A recent audit by the state comptrollerÂ’s office commended Hempstead for putting the system in place. It said the town should save $419,000 in energy costs over the estimated 50-year life of the panels. Hempstead paid a quarter of the $336,000 price tag, with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority covering the difference.
But Howard C. Hayden, a retired physics professor at the University of Connecticut who has specialized in alternative energy methods, is skeptical about the broader use of solar energy because he says its cost inefficiency does not justify the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for it. “It’s a scam,” said Dr. Hayden, the author of “The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World,” “and the public will be victimized financially and intellectually.”
It will take more than 40 years to pay for the equipment and its installation, the audit report notes. And Hempstead will have to raise its own money to wire further government buildings.
Town officials said, however, that while protecting taxpayers’ pocketbooks is important, they did not undertake the project for cost savings alone. “Our first and foremost goal is to reduce our carbon footprint and keep our planet clean,” said Michael Deery, a town spokesman.
The audit says the system at town hall will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,250 tons over a half-century — the equivalent of what 220 cars would produce over the same period.
Ms. Murray, who said her commitment to the environment is her highest priority, is buoyed by the auditÂ’s findings. The town has held several seminars on solar energy to explain to residents how it can benefit their homes and businesses and how rebates can help defray the costs.
Peter Ray, 64, who lives in Levittown, attended one of the seminars and was persuaded to buy the technology for his home. He said he installed a $54,000 system, 60 percent of which the Long Island Power Authority and the state subsidized. “I would recommend it to anybody,” said Mr. Ray, who said he expected a return on the investment from saved energy costs in three and a half years.
According to the United States Department of Energy, renewable sources — like water, wind and sun — accounted for only 7 percent of total national energy consumption in 2006. The reason is the cost of making the technology efficient, Dr. Hayden said. (The national average retail price of electricity is about 10.5 cents a kilowatt-hour, while energy from solar cells costs 18 to 40 cents a kilowatt-hour.) “They are trying to be leaders,” he said of Hempstead officials, “but they are going to lead us down a very expensive path.”
Nevertheless, William Reynolds, a spokesman for the state comptroller’s office, said, “We cannot downgrade the importance of being able to reduce emissions produced by burning fossil fuels.”
Whether private citizens choose to switch to solar or not, Ms. Murray is determined for her government to set an example.
“As focused as we have been on efforts to go green, we have been just as aggressive in pursuing the grants to pay for them,” she said. “We’re pretty successful in everything we ask for.”
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
PG&E Drum Fire Cause identified as a power line failure in Santa Barbara County, with arcing electricity igniting vegetation near Buellton on Drum Canyon Road; 696 acres burned as investigators and CPUC review PG&E safety.
Key Points
A failed PG&E power line sparked the 696-acre Drum Fire near Buellton; the utility is conducting its own probe.
✅ Power line failed between poles, arcing ignited vegetation.
✅ 696 acres burned; no structures damaged or injuries.
A downed Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power line was the cause of the Drum fire that broke out June 14 on Drum Canyon Road northwest of Buellton, a reminder that a transformer explosion can also spark multiple fires, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department announced Thursday.
The fire broke out about 12:50 p.m. north of Highway 246 and burned about 696 acres of wildland before firefighters brought it under control, although no structures were damaged or mass outages like the Los Angeles power outage occurred, according to an incident summary.
A team of investigators pinpointed the official cause as a power line that failed between two utility poles and fell to the ground, and as downed line safety tips emphasize, arcing electricity ignited the surrounding vegetation, said County Fire Department spokesman Capt. Daniel Bertucelli.
In response, a PG&E spokesman said the utility is conducting its own investigation and does not have access to whatever data investigators used, and, as the ATCO regulatory penalty illustrates, such matters can draw significant oversight, but he noted the company filed an electric incident report on the wire with the California Public Utilities Commission on June 14.
"We are grateful to the first responders who fought the 2020 Drum fire in Santa Barbara County and helped make sure that there were no injuries or fatalities, outcomes not always seen in copper theft incidents, and no reports of structures damaged or burned," PG&E spokesman Mark Mesesan said.
"While we are continuing to conduct our own investigation into the events that led to the Drum fire, and as the Site C watchdog inquiry shows, oversight bodies can seek more transparency, PG&E does not have access to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department's report."
He said PG&E remains focused on reducing wildfire risk across its service area while limiting the scope and duration of public safety power shutoffs, including strategies like line-burying decisions adopted by other utilities, and that the safety of customers and communities it serves are its most important responsibility.
Renewable Energy Tax Incentive Extensions urged by US trade groups to offset COVID-19 supply chain delays, tax equity shortages, and financing risks, enabling direct pay, PTC and ITC qualification, and standalone energy storage credits.
Key Points
Policy measures that extend and monetize clean energy credits to counter COVID-19 disruptions and financing shortfalls.
✅ Extend start construction and safe harbor deadlines
✅ Enable direct pay to offset reduced tax equity
✅ Add a standalone energy storage credit
Renewable energy and other trade bodies in the US are calling on Capitol Hill to extend provision of tax incentives to help the sector “surmount the impacts” of the COVID-19 crisis facing clean energy.
In a signed joint letter, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Energy Storage Association (ESA), National Hydropower Association (NHA), Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance (REBA), and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) stated: “With over $50bn in annual investment over each of the past five years, the clean energy sector is one of the nation’s most important economic drivers. But that growth is placed at risk by a range of COVID-19 related impacts”.
These include “supply chain disruptions that have the potential to delay utility solar construction timetables and undermine the ability of wind, solar and hydropower developers to qualify for time-sensitive tax credits, and a sudden reduction in the availability of tax equity, which is crucial to monetising tax credits and financing clean energy projects of all types.” The letter goes onto state: “Like all sectors of our economy the renewable and clean grid industry – including developers, manufacturers, construction workers, electric utilities, investors and major corporate consumers of renewable power – needs stability.
“The current uncertainty about the ability to qualify for and monetise tax incentives will have real and substantial negative impacts to the entire economy.
On behalf of the thousands of companies that participate in America’s renewable and clean energy economy, the coalition of organisations is requesting the US Government, echoing Senate calls to support clean energy, take three “critical” steps to address pandemic-related disruptions.
The first is an extension of start construction and safe harbour deadlines to ensure that renewable projects can qualify for renewable tax credits amid the Solar ITC extension debate and despite delays associated with supply chain disruptions.
The second is the implementation of provisions that will allow renewable tax credits to be available for direct pay to facilitate their monetisation, supporting U.S. solar and wind growth in the face of reduced availability of tax equity.
Thirdly, the signatories have requested the enactment of a direct pay tax credit for standalone energy storage to foster renewable growth as the industry sets sights on market majority and help secure a more resilient grid.
Affordable Clean Energy Rule Lawsuit pits EPA and coal industry allies against health groups over Clean Power Plan repeal, greenhouse gas emissions standards, climate change, public health, and state authority before the D.C. Circuit.
Key Points
A legal fight over EPA's ACE rule and CPP repeal, weighing emissions policy, state authority, climate, and public health.
✅ Challenges repeal of Clean Power Plan and adoption of ACE.
✅ EPA backed by coal, utilities; health groups seek stricter limits.
✅ D.C. Circuit to review emissions authority and state roles.
The largest trade association representing coal interests in the country has joined other business and electric utility groups in siding with the EPA in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
The suit -- filed by the American Lung Association and the American Public Health Association -- seeks to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to drop a new rule-making process that critics claim would allow higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, further contributing to the climate crisis and negatively impacting public health.
The new rule, which the Trump administration calls the "Affordable Clean Energy rule" (ACE), "would replace the 2015 Clean Power Plan, which EPA has proposed to repeal because it exceeded EPA's authority. The Clean Power Plan was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court and has never gone into effect," according to an EPA statement.
EPA has also moved to rewrite wastewater limits for coal power plants, signaling a broader rollback of related environmental requirements.
America's Power -- formerly the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity -- the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association have filed motions seeking to join the lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has not yet responded to the motion.
Separately, energy groups warned that President Trump and Energy Secretary Rick Perry were rushing major changes to electricity pricing that could disrupt markets.
"In this rule, the EPA has accomplished what eluded the prior administration: providing a clear, legal pathway to reduce emissions while preserving states' authority over their own grids," Hal Quinn, president and chief executive officer of the mining association, said when the new rule was released last month. "ACE replaces a proposal that was so extreme that the Supreme Court issued an unprecedented stay of the proposal, having recognized the economic havoc the mere suggestion of such overreach was causing in the nation's power grid."
Around the same time, a coal industry CEO blasted a federal agency's decision on the power grid as harmful to reliability.
The trade and business groups have argued that the Clean Power Plan, set by the Obama administration, was an overreach of federal power. Finalized in 2015, the plan was President Obama's signature policy on climate change, rooted in compliance with the Paris Climate Treaty. It would have set state limits on emissions from existing power plants but gave wide latitude for meeting goals, such as allowing plant operators to switch from coal to other electric generating sources to meet targets.
Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt argued that the rule exceeded federal statutory limits by imposing "outside the fence" regulations on coal-fired plants instead of regulating "inside the fence" operations that can improve efficiency.
The Clean Power Plan set a goal of reducing carbon emissions from power generators by 32 percent by the year 2030. An analysis from the Rhodium Group found that had states taken full advantage of the CPP's flexibility, emissions would have been reduced by as much as 72 million metric tons per year on average. Still, even absent federal mandates, the group noted that states are taking it upon themselves to enact emission-reducing plans based on market forces.
In its motion, America's Power argues the EPA "acknowledged that the [Best System of Emission Reduction] for a source category must be 'limited to measures that can be implemented ... by the sources themselves.'" If plants couldn't take action, compliance with the new rule would require the owners or operators to buy emission rate credits that would increase investment in electricity from gas-fired or renewable sources. The increase in operating costs plus federal efforts to shift power generation to other sources of energy, thereby increasing costs, would eventually force the coal-fired plants out of business.
In related proceedings, renewable energy advocates told FERC that a DOE proposal to subsidize coal and nuclear plants was unsupported by the record, highlighting concerns about market distortions.
"While we are confident that EPA will prevail in the courts, we also want to help EPA defend the new rule against others who prefer extreme regulation," said Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of America's Power.
"Extreme regulation" to one group is environmental and health protections to another, though.
Howard A. Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center of the Midwest, defended the Clean Power Plan in an opinion piece published in June.
"The Midwest still produces more electricity from coal plants than any other region of the country, and Midwesterners bear the full range of pollution harms to public health, the Great Lakes, and overall environmental quality," Learner wrote. "The new [Affordable Clean Energy] Rule is a misguided policy, moves our nation backward in solving climate change problems, and misses opportunities for economic growth and innovation in the global shift to renewable energy. If not reversed by the courts, as it should be, the next administration will have the challenge of doing the right thing for public health, the climate and our clean energy future."
When it initially filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration's Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the American Lung Association accused the EPA of "abdicat[ing] its legal duties and obligations to protect public health." It also referred to the new rule as "dangerous."
Rattlesnake Ridge Wind Project delivers 117.6 MW in southeast Alberta for BHE Canada, a Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary, using 28 turbines near Medicine Hat under a long-term PPA, supplying renewable power to 79,000 homes.
Key Points
A 117.6 MW Alberta wind farm by BHE Canada supplying 79,000 homes via 28 turbines and a long-term PPA.
✅ 28 turbines near Medicine Hat, 117.6 MW capacity
✅ Long-term PPA with a major Canadian corporate buyer
✅ Developed with RES; no subsidies; competitive pricing
A company linked to U.S. investor Warren Buffett says it will break ground on a $200-million, 117.6-megawatt wind farm in southeastern Alberta next year.
In a release, Calgary-based BHE Canada, a subsidiary of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy, says its Rattlesnake Ridge Wind project will be located southwest of Medicine Hat and will produce enough energy to supply the equivalent of 79,000 homes.
"We felt that it was time to make an investment here in Alberta," said Bill Christensen, vice-president of corporate development for BHE Canada, in an interview with the Calgary Eyeopener.
"The structure of the markets here in Alberta, including frameworks for selling renewable energy, make it so that we can invest, and do it at a profit that works for us, and at a price that works for the off-taker," Christensen explained.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy also owns AltaLink, the regulated transmission company that supplies electricity to more than 85 per cent of the Alberta population.
BHE Canada says an unnamed large Canadian corporate partner has signed a long-term power purchase agreement, similar to RBC's solar purchase arrangements, for the majority of the energy output generated by the 28 turbines at Rattlesnake Ridge.
"If you look at just the raw power price that power is going for in Alberta right now, it's averaged around $55 a megawatt hour, or 5.5 cents a kilowatt hour. And we're selling the wind power to this customer at substantially less than that, reflecting wind power's competitiveness in the market, and there's been no subsidies," Christensen said.
Positive energy outlook
Christensen said he sees a good future for Alberta's renewable energy industry, not just in wind but also in solar power growth, particularly in the southeast of the province.
"It's not a choice of one or the other. I think there is still opportunity to make investments in oil and gas," he said.
"We're really excited about having this project and hope to be able to make other investments here in Alberta to help support the economy here, amid a broader renewable energy surge across the province."
The project is being developed by U.K.-based Renewable Energy Systems, part of a trend where more energy sources make better projects for developers, which is building two other Alberta wind projects totalling 134.6 MW this year and has 750 MW of renewable energy installed or currently under construction in Canada.
BHE Canada and RES are also looking for power purchase partners for the proposed Forty Mile Wind Farm in southeastern Alberta. They say that with generation capacity of 398.5 MW, it could end up being the largest wind power project in Canada.
Ontario Clean Energy Expansion signals IESO-backed renewables, energy storage, and low-CO2 power to meet EV-driven demand, offset Pickering nuclear retirement, and balance interim gas-fired generation while advancing grid reliability, decarbonization, and net-zero targets.
Key Points
Ontario Clean Energy Expansion plans to grow renewables and storage, manage short-term gas, and meet rising demand.
✅ IESO long-term procurements for renewables and storage
✅ Interim reliance on gas to replace Pickering capacity
✅ Targets align with net-zero grid reliability goals
After cancelling hundreds of renewable power projects four years ago, the Doug Ford government appears set to expand clean energy to meet a looming electricity shortfall across the province.
Recent announcements from Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith and the province’s electric grid management agency suggest the province plans to expand low-CO2 electricity with new wind and solar plans in the long-term, even as it ramps up gas-fired power over the next five years.
The moves are in response to an impending electricity shortfall as climate-conscious drivers switch to electric vehicles, farmers replace field crops with greenhouses and companies like ArcelorMittal Dofasco in Hamilton switch from CO2-heavy manufacturing to electricity-based production. Forecasters predict Canada will need to double its power supply by 2050.
While Ontario has a relatively low-CO2 power system, the province’s electricity supply will be reduced in 2025 when Ontario Power Generation closes the 50-year-old Pickering nuclear station, now near the end of its operating life. This will remove 3,100 megawatts of low-CO2 generation, about eight per cent of the province’s 40,000-megawatt total.
The impending closure has created a difficult situation for the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), the provincial agency managing Ontario’s grid. Last year, it forecasted it would need to sharply increase CO2-polluting natural gas-fired power to avoid widespread blackouts.
This would mean drivers switching to electric vehicles or companies like Dofasco cutting CO2 through electrification would end up causing higher power system emissions.
It would also fly in the face of the federal government’s ambition to create a net-zero national electricity system by 2035, a critical part of Canada’s pledge to reduce CO2 emissions to zero by 2050.
Yet the Ford government has appeared reluctant to expand clean energy. In the 2018 election, clean electricity was a key issue as it appealed to anti-turbine voters in rural Ontario and cancelled more than 700 renewable energy contracts shortly after taking office, taking 400 megawatts out of the system.
But there are signs the government is having a change of heart. IESO recently released a list of 55 companies approved to submit bids for 3,500 megawatts of long-term electricity contracts starting between 2025 and 2027, and the energy minister has outlined a plan to address growing energy needs as well.
The companies include a variety of potential producers, ranging from Canadian and global renewable companies to local utilities and small startups. Most are renewable power or energy storage companies specializing in low- or zero-emission power. IESO plans additional long-term bid offerings in the future.
This doesn’t mean gas generation will be turned off. IESO will contract yearly production from existing gas plants until 2028 (the annual contract in 2023 will be for about 2,000 megawatts). As well, IESO has issued contracts to four gas-fired producers, a small wind company and a storage company to begin production of about 700 megawatts to boost gas plant output starting between 2024 and 2026.
While this represents an expansion of existing gas-fired generation, Smith has asked IESO to report on a gas moratorium, saying he doesn’t believe new gas plants will be needed over the long term.
The NDP and Greens criticized the government for relying on gas in the near term. But clean energy advocates greeted the long-term plans positively.
The IESO process “will contribute to a clean, reliable and affordable grid,” said the Canadian Renewable Energy Association.
Rachel Doran, director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada, said in an email the potential gas generation moratorium “is an encouraging step forward,” although she criticized the “unfortunate decision to replace near-term nuclear power capacity with climate-change-causing natural gas.”
There will have to be a massive clean energy expansion to green Ontario’s grid well beyond what has been announced in recent days for Ontario to meet its future energy needs (think a doubling of Ontario’s current 40,000-megawatt capacity by 2050).
But these first steps hold promise that Ontario is at least starting on the path to that goal, rather than scrambling to keep the lights on with CO2-polluting natural gas.
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