The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a statement in reference to cyber security and the electric grid, stating that they were unaware of any reports of cyber attacks.
“Cyber security is an area of concern for the electric grid. Though we are not aware of any reports of cyber attacks that have directly impacted reliability of the power system in North America to date, it is an issue the industry is working to stay ahead of.
“NERC and industry leaders are taking steps in the right direction to improve preparedness and response to potential cyber threats. There is definitely more to be done, and we look forward to continuing our work with the electric industry and our partners in U.S. and Canadian government to improve reliability standards, ensure appropriate emergency authority is in place to address imminent and specific cyber security threats, and ultimately ensure a safe, secure, and reliable energy future for North America.”
The statement comes on the heels of a report in the Wall Street Journal that cyberspies have penetrated the electrical grid of North America. The report cites current and former U.S. national security officials.
The article “Cyberspies have penetrated electrical grid” is also featured in our news section on our website.
Energy Poverty in Extreme Heat exposes vulnerable households to heatwaves, utility shutoffs, and unreliable grid infrastructure, straining public health. Community nonprofits, cooling centers, and policy reform aim to improve electricity access, resilience, and affordable energy.
Key Points
Without reliable, affordable power in heatwaves, health risks rise and cooling, food storage, and daily needs suffer.
✅ Risks: heat illness, dehydration, and indoor temperatures above 90F
✅ Causes: utility shutoffs, aging grid, unpaid bills, remote areas
✅ Relief: cooling centers, aid programs, weatherization, bill credits
In a particular pocket of America, approximately 13,000 families endure the dual challenges of sweltering heat and living without electricity, and the broader risk of summer shut-offs highlights how widespread these pressures have become across the country. This article examines the factors contributing to their plight, the impact of living without electricity during hot weather, and efforts to alleviate these hardships.
Challenges Faced by Families
For these 13,000 families, daily life is significantly impacted by the absence of electricity, especially during the scorching summer months. Without access to cooling systems such as air conditioners or fans, residents are exposed to dangerously high temperatures, which can lead to heat-related illnesses and discomfort, particularly among vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, and individuals with health conditions, where electricity's role in public health became especially evident.
Causes of Electricity Shortages
The reasons behind the electricity shortages vary. In some cases, it may be due to economic challenges that prevent families from paying utility bills, resulting in disconnections. Other factors include outdated or unreliable electrical infrastructure in underserved communities, as reflected in a recent grid vulnerability report that underscores systemic risks, where maintenance and upgrades are often insufficient to meet growing demand.
Impact of Extreme Heat
During heatwaves, the lack of electricity exacerbates health risks and quality of life issues for affected families, aligning with reports of more frequent outages across the U.S. Furthermore, the absence of refrigeration and cooking facilities can compromise food safety and nutritional intake, further impacting household well-being.
Community Support and Resilience
Despite these challenges, communities and organizations often rally to support families living without electricity. Local nonprofits, community centers, and government agencies provide assistance such as distributing fans, organizing cooling centers, and delivering essentials like bottled water and non-perishable food items during heatwaves to alleviate immediate hardships and improve summer blackout preparedness in vulnerable neighborhoods.
Long-term Solutions
Addressing electricity access issues requires comprehensive, long-term solutions. These may include policy reforms to ensure equitable access to affordable energy, investments in upgrading infrastructure in underserved areas, and expanding financial assistance programs to help families maintain uninterrupted electricity service, in recognition that climate change risks increasingly stress the grid.
Advocacy and Awareness
Advocacy efforts play a crucial role in raising awareness about the challenges faced by families living without electricity and advocating for sustainable solutions. By highlighting these issues, community leaders, activists, and policymakers can work together to drive policy changes, secure funding for infrastructure improvements, and promote energy efficiency initiatives, drawing lessons from Canada's harsh-weather grid exposures that illustrate regional vulnerabilities.
Building Resilience
Building resilience in vulnerable communities involves not only improving access to reliable electricity but also enhancing preparedness for extreme weather events. This includes developing emergency response plans, educating residents about heat safety measures, and fostering community partnerships to support those in need during crises.
Conclusion
As temperatures rise and climate impacts intensify, addressing the plight of families living without electricity becomes increasingly urgent. By prioritizing equitable access to energy, investing in resilient infrastructure, and fostering community resilience, stakeholders can work towards ensuring that all families have access to essential services, even during the hottest months of the year. Collaborative efforts between government, nonprofit organizations, and community members are essential in creating sustainable solutions that improve quality of life and promote health and well-being for all residents.
Nighttime Thermoelectric Generator converts radiative cooling into renewable energy, leveraging outer space cold; a Stanford-UCLA prototype complements solar, serving off-grid loads with low-power output during peak evening demand, using simple materials on a rooftop.
Key Points
A device converting nighttime radiative cooling into electricity, complementing solar for low-power evening needs.
✅ Uses thermocouples to convert temperature gradients to voltage.
✅ Exploits radiative cooling to outer space for night power.
✅ Complements solar; low-cost parts suit off-grid applications.
Two years ago, one freezing December night on a California rooftop, a tiny light shone weakly with a little help from the freezing night air. It wasn't a very bright glow. But it was enough to demonstrate the possibility of generating renewable power after the Sun goes down.
Working with Stanford University engineers Wei Li and Shanhui Fan, University of California Los Angeles materials scientist Aaswath Raman put together a device that produces a voltage by channelling the day's residual warmth into cooling air, effectively generating electricity from thin air with passive heat exchange.
"Our work highlights the many remaining opportunities for energy by taking advantage of the cold of outer space as a renewable energy resource," says Raman.
"We think this forms the basis of a complementary technology to solar. While the power output will always be substantially lower, it can operate at hours when solar cells cannot."
For all the merits of solar energy, it's just not a 24-7 source of power, although research into nighttime solar cells suggests new possibilities for after-dark generation. Sure, we can store it in a giant battery or use it to pump water up into a reservoir for later, but until we have more economical solutions, nighttime is going to be a quiet time for renewable solar power.
Most of us return home from work as the Sun is setting, and that's when energy demands spike to meet our needs for heating, cooking, entertaining, and lighting.
Unfortunately, we often turn to fossil fuels to make up the shortfall. For those living off the grid, it could require limiting options and going without a few luxuries.
Shanhui Fan understands the need for a night time renewable power source well. He's worked on a number of similar devices, including carbon nanotube generators that scavenge ambient energy, and a recent piece of technology that flipped photovoltaics on its head by squeezing electricity from the glow of heat radiating out of the planet's Sun-warmed surface.
While that clever item relied on the optical qualities of a warm object, this alternative device makes use of the good old thermoelectric effect, similar to thin-film waste-heat harvesting approaches now explored.
Using a material called a thermocouple, engineers can convert a change in temperature into a difference in voltage, effectively turning thermal energy into electricity with a measurable voltage. This demands something relatively toasty on one side and a place for that heat energy to escape to on the other.
The theory is the easy part – the real challenge is in arranging the right thermoelectric materials in such a way that they'll generate a voltage from our cooling surrounds that makes it worthwhile.
To keep costs down, the team used simple, off-the-shelf items that pretty much any of us could easily get our hands on.
They put together a cheap thermoelectric generator and linked it with a black aluminium disk to shed heat in the night air as it faced the sky. The generator was placed inside a polystyrene enclosure sealed with a window transparent to infrared light, and linked to a single tiny LED.
For six hours one evening, the box was left to cool on a roof-top in Stanford as the temperature fell just below freezing. As the heat flowed from the ground into the sky, the small generator produced just enough current to make the light flicker to life.
At its best, the device generated around 0.8 milliwatts of power, corresponding to 25 milliwatts of power per square metre.
That might just be enough to keep a hearing aid working. String several together and you might just be able to keep your cat amused with a simple laser pointer. So we're not talking massive amounts of power.
But as far as prototypes go, it's a fantastic starting point. The team suggests that with the right tweaks and the right conditions, 500 milliwatts per square metre isn't out of the question.
"Beyond lighting, we believe this could be a broadly enabling approach to power generation suitable for remote locations, and anywhere where power generation at night is needed," says Raman.
While we search for big, bright ideas to drive the revolution for renewables, it's important to make sure we don't let the smaller, simpler solutions like these slip away quietly into the night.
UK Electricity Grid Investment underpins net zero, reinforcing transmission and distribution networks to integrate wind, solar, EV charging, and heat pumps, while Ofgem balances investor returns, debt risks, price controls, resilience, and consumer bills.
Key Points
Capital to reinforce grids for net zero, integrating wind, solar, EVs and heat pumps while balancing returns and bills.
✅ 170bn-210bn GBP by 2050 to reinforce cables, pylons, capacity.
✅ Ofgem to add investability metric while protecting consumers.
Prime Minister Sunak's recent upgrade to his home's electricity grid, designed to power his heated swimming pool, serves as a microcosm of a much larger challenge facing the UK: transforming the nation's entire electricity network for net zero emissions, amid Europe's electrification push across the continent.
This transition requires a monumental £170bn-£210bn investment by 2050, earmarked for reinforcing and expanding onshore cables and pylons that deliver electricity from power stations to homes and businesses. This overhaul is crucial to accommodate the planned switch from fossil fuels to clean energy sources - wind and solar farms - powering homes with electric cars, as EV demand on the grid rises, and heat pumps.
The UK government's Climate Change Committee warns of potentially doubled electricity demand by 2050, the target date for net zero, even though managing EV charging can ease local peaks. This translates to a significant financial burden for companies like National Grid, SSE, and Scottish Power who own the main transmission networks and some regional distribution networks.
Balancing investor needs for returns and ensuring affordable energy bills for consumers presents a delicate tightrope act for regulators like Ofgem. The National Audit Office criticized Ofgem in 2020 for allowing network owners excessive returns, prompting concerns about potential bill hikes, especially after lessons from 2021 reshaped market dynamics.
Think-tank Common Wealth reported that distribution networks paid out a staggering £3.6bn to their owners between 2017 and 2021, raising questions about the balance between profitability and affordability, amid UK EV affordability concerns among consumers.
However, Ofgem acknowledges the need for substantial investment to finance network upgrades, repairs, and the clean energy transition. To this end, they are considering incorporating an "investability" metric, recognizing how big battery rule changes can erode confidence elsewhere, in the next price controls for transmission networks, ensuring these entities remain attractive for equity fundraising without overburdening consumers.
This proposal, while welcomed by the industry, has drawn criticism from consumer advocacy groups like Citizens Advice, who fear it could contribute to unfairly high bills. With energy bills already hitting record highs, public trust in the net-zero transition hinges on ensuring affordability.
High debt levels and potential credit rating downgrades further complicate the picture, potentially impacting companies' ability to raise investment funds. Ofgem is exploring measures to address this, such as stricter debt structure reporting requirements for regional distribution companies.
Lawrence Slade, CEO of the Energy Networks Association, emphasizes the critical role of investment in achieving net zero. He highlights the need for "bold" policies and regulations that balance ambitious goals with investor confidence and ensure efficient resource allocation, drawing on B.C.'s power supply challenges as a cautionary example.
The challenge lies in striking a delicate balance between attracting investment, ensuring network resilience, and maintaining affordable energy bills. As Andy Manning from Citizens Advice warns, "Without public confidence, net zero won't be delivered."
The UK's journey to net zero hinges on navigating this complex landscape. By carefully calibrating regulations, fostering investor confidence, and prioritizing affordability, the country can ensure its electricity grid is not just robust enough to power heated swimming pools, but also a thriving green economy for all.
Europe 2023 Energy Shortfall underscores how weak hydro and nuclear offset record solar and wind, tightening grids as natural gas supplies shrink and demand rebounds, heightening risks of electricity shortages across key economies.
Key Points
A regional gap as weak hydro and nuclear offset record solar and wind, straining supply as gas stays tight.
✅ Hydro and nuclear output fell sharply in early 2023
✅ Record solar and wind could not offset the deficit
✅ Industrial demand rebound pressures limited gas supplies
Shortfalls in Europe's hydro and nuclear output have more than offset record electricity generation from wind and solar power sites over the first quarter of 2023, leaving the region vulnerable to acute energy shortages for the second straight year.
European countries fast-tracked renewable energy capacity development in 2022 in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February, which upended natural gas flows to the region and sent power prices soaring.
Europe lifted renewable energy supply capacity by a record 57,290 megawatts in 2022, or by nearly 9%, according to the International Energy Agency (IRENA), amid a scramble to replace imported Russian gas with cleaner, home-grown energy.
However, steep drops in both hydro and nuclear output - two key sources of non-emitting energy - mean Europe's power producers have limited ways to lift overall electricity generation, as the region is losing nuclear power at a critical moment, just as the region's economies start to reboot after last year's energy shock.
POWER PLATEAU Europe's total electricity generation over the first quarter of 2023 hit 1,213 terawatt hours, or roughly 6.4% less than during the same period in 2022, according to data from think tank Ember.
At the same time, European power hits records during extreme heat as plants struggle to cool, exacerbating supply risks.
As Europe's total electricity demand levels were in post-COVID-19 expansion mode in early 2022 before Russia's so-called special operation sent power costs to record highs amid debates over how electricity is priced in Europe, it makes sense that overall electricity use was comparatively stunted in early 2023.
However, efforts are now underway to revive activity at scores of European factories, industrial plants and production lines that were shuttered or curtailed in 2022, so Europe's collective electricity consumption totals are set to trend steadily higher over the remainder of 2023.
With Russian natural gas unavailable in the previous quantities due to sanctions and supply issues, Europe's power producers will need to deploy alternative energy sources, including renewables poised to eclipse coal globally, to feed that increase in power demand.
And following the large jump in renewable capacity brought online in 2022, utilities can deploy more low-emissions energy than ever before across Europe's electricity grids.
Ontario Hydro Disconnection Ban ends May 1, prompting utilities and Hydro One to push payment plans, address arrears, and link low-income assistance, as Sudbury officials urge customers to avoid spring electricity disconnections.
Key Points
A seasonal policy halting winter shutoffs in Ontario, ending May 1 as utilities emphasize payment plans and assistance.
✅ Disconnections resume after winter moratorium ends May 1.
✅ Hydro One delays shutoffs until June 1; arrears down 60%.
The first of May has taken on new meaning this year in Ontario.
It's when the province's ban on hydro disconnections during the winter months comes to an end, even as Ontario considers extending moratoriums in some cases.
Wendy Watson, the director of communications at Greater Sudbury Utilities, says signs of the approaching deadline could be seen in their office of the past few weeks.
"We've had quite an active stream of people into our front office to catch up on their accounts and also we've had a lot of people calling us to make payment arrangements or pay their bill or deal with their arrears," she says.
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Watson says there are 590 customers in Sudbury who could face possible disconnection this spring, compared with just 60 when the ban started in November.
"They will put off until tomorrow what they can avoid today," she says.
Watson says they are hoping to work with customers to figure payment plans with more choice and flexibility and avoid the need to cut power to certain homes and businesses.
"As we like to say we're in the distribution of energy business, not the disconnection of energy business. We want you to be able to turn the lights on," she says.
Joseph Leblanc from the Social Planning Council of Sudbury says the winter hydro disconnection ban is one of several government measures that keep low income families on the brink of disaster. (CBC)
Hydro One executive vice-president of customer care Ferio Pugilese, whose utility later extended disconnection bans across its service area, tells a different story.
He says the company has worked hard to configure payment plans for customers over the last three years amid unchanged peak-rate policies and find ways for them to pay "that fit their lifestyle."
"The threat of a disconnection is not on its own something that's going to motivate someone to pay their bills," says Pugilese.
He says Hydro One is also sending out notices this spring, but won't begin cutting anyone off until June 1st.
He says that disconnections and the amount owing from outstanding bills to Hydro One are down 60 per cent in the last year.
Ontario Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault says there is plenty of help from government programs and utility financing options like Hydro One's relief fund for those having trouble paying their power bills. (CBC)
Sudbury MPP and Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault says his hope is that people having trouble paying their power bills will talk to their hydro utility and look at the numerous programs the government offers to help low-income citizens.
"You know, I really want every customer to have a conversation with their local utility about getting back on track and we do have those programs in place," he says.
However, Joseph Leblanc, the executive director of the Social Planning Council of Sudbury, says the winter disconnection ban is just another government policy that keeps the poor on the brink of disaster.
"It's a feel good story for the government to say that, but it's a band-aid solution. We can stop the bleeding for a little while, make sure people aren't freezing to death in Ontario," he says.
"People choose between rent, hydro, medicine, food, and there's an option for one of those to take some pressure off for a little while."
Instead, Leblanc would like to see the government fast track the province-wide implementation of the basic income program it's testing out in a few cities.
UK Future System Operator to replace National Grid as ESO, enabling smart grid reform, impartial system planning, vehicle-to-grid, long duration storage, and data-driven oversight to meet net zero and cut consumer energy costs.
Key Points
The UK Future System Operator is an independent ESO and planner, steering net zero with impartial data and smart grid coordination.
✅ Replaces National Grid ESO with independent system operator
✅ Enables smart grid, vehicle-to-grid, and long-duration storage
✅ Supports net zero, lower bills, and impartial system planning
The government plans to strip National Grid of its role keeping Great Britain’s lights on as part of a proposed “revolution’” in the electricity network driven by smart digital grid technologies.
The FTSE 100 company has played a role in managing the energy system of England, Scotland and Wales, including efforts such as a subsea power link that brings renewable power from Scotland to England (Northern Ireland has its own network). It is the electricity system operator, balancing supply and demand to ensure the electricity supply. But it will lose its place at the heart of the industry after government officials put forward plans to replace it with an independent “future system operator”.
The new system controller would help steer the country towards its climate targets, at the lowest cost to energy bill payers, by providing impartial data and advice after an overhaul of the rules governing the energy system to make it “fit for the future”.
The plans are part of a string of new proposals to help connect millions of electric cars, smart appliances and other green technologies to the energy system, and to fast-track grid connections nationwide, which government officials believe could help to save £10bn a year by 2050, and create up to 10,000 jobs for electricians, data scientists and engineers.
The new regulations aim to make it easier for electric cars to export electricity from their batteries back on to the power grid or to homes when needed. They could also help large-scale and long-duration batteries play a role in storing renewable energy, supported by infrastructure such as a 2GW substation helping integrate supply, so that it is available when solar and wind power generation levels are low.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the energy and climate change minister, said the rules would allow households to “take control of their energy use and save money” while helping to make sure there is clean electricity available “when and where it’s needed”.
She added: “We need to ensure our energy system can cope with the demands of the future. Smart technologies will help us to tackle climate change while making sure that the lights stay on and bills stay low.”
The energy regulator, Ofgem, raised concerns earlier this year that National Grid would face a “conflict of interest” in providing advice on the future electricity system because it also owns energy networks that stand to benefit financially from future investment plans. It called for a new independent operator to take its place.
Jonathan Brearley, Ofgem’s chief executive, said the UK requires a “revolution” in how and when it uses electricity, including demand shifts during self-isolation to help meet its climate targets and added that the government’s plans for a new digital energy system were “essential” to meeting this goal “while keeping energy bills affordable for everyone”.
A National Grid spokesperson said the company would “work closely” with the government and Ofgem on the role of a future system operator, as well as “the most appropriate ownership model and any future related sale”.
The division has earned National Grid, which has addressed cybersecurity fears in supplier choices, an average of £199m a year over the last five years, or 1.3% of the group’s total revenues, which are split between the UK – where it operates high-voltage transmission lines in England and Wales, and the country’s gas system – and its growing energy supply business in the US, aligned with investment in a smarter electricity infrastructure in the US to modernize grids.
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