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Atlantic Canada EV adoption lags, a new poll finds, as fewer buyers consider electric vehicles amid limited charging infrastructure, lower provincial rebates, and affordability pressures in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland compared to B.C. and Quebec.

Key Points

Atlantic Canada EV adoption reflects demand, shaped by rebates, charging access, costs, and the regional energy mix.

✅ Poll shows lowest purchase intent in Atlantic Canada

✅ Lack of rebates and charging slows EV consideration

✅ Income and energy mix affect affordability and benefits

Atlantic Canadians are the least likely to buy a car, truck or SUV in the next year and the most skittish about going electric, according to a new poll. 

Only 31 per cent of Nova Scotians are looking at buying a new or used vehicle before December 2021 rolls around. And just 13 per cent of Newfoundlanders who are planning to buy are considering an electric vehicle. Both those numbers are the lowest in the country. Still, 47 per cent of Nova Scotians considering buying in the next year are thinking about electric options, according to the numbers gathered online by Logit Group and analyzed by Halifax-based Narrative Research. That compares to 41 per cent of Canadians contemplating a vehicle purchase within the next year, with 54 per cent of them considering going electric. 

“There’s still a high level of interest,” said Margaret Chapman, chief operating officer at Narrative Research.  

“I think half of people who are thinking about buying a vehicle thinking about electric is pretty significant. But I think it’s a little lower in Atlantic Canada compared to other parts of the country probably because the infrastructure isn’t quite what it might be elsewhere. And I think also it’s the availability of vehicles as well. Maybe it just hasn’t quite caught on here to the extent that it might have in, say, Ontario or B.C., where the highest level of interest is.” 

Provincial rebates
Provincial rebates also serve to create more interest, she said, citing New Brunswick's rebate program as an example in the region. 

“There’s a $7,500 rebate on top of the $5,000 you get from the feds in B.C. But in Nova Scotia there’s no provincial rebate,” Chapman said. “So I think that kind of thing actually is significant in whether you’re interested in buying an electric vehicle or not.” 

The survey was conducted online Nov. 11–13 with 1,231 Canadian adults. 

Of the people across Canada who said they were not considering an electric vehicle purchase, 55 per cent said a provincial rebate would make them more likely to consider one, she said.  

In Nova Scotia, that number drops to 43 per cent. 

Nova Scotia families have the lowest median after-tax income in the country, according to numbers released earlier this year.  

The national median in 2018 was $61,400, according to Statistics Canada. Nova Scotia was at the bottom of the pack with $52,200, up from $51,400 in 2017. 

So big price tags on electric vehicles might put them out of reach for many Nova Scotians, and a recent cost-focused survey found similar concerns nationwide. 

“I think it’s probably that combination of cost and infrastructure,” Chapman said. 

“But you saw this week in the financial update from the federal government that they’re putting $150 million into new charging station, so were some of that cash to be spread in Atlantic Canada, I’m sure there would be an increase in interest … The more charging stations around you see, you think ‘Alright, it might not be so hard to ensure that I don’t run out of power for my car.’ All of that stuff I think will start to pick up. But right now it is a little bit lagging in Atlantic Canada, and in Labrador infrastructure still lags despite a government push in N.L. to expand EVs.” 

'Simple dollars and cents'
The lack of a provincial government rebate here for electric vehicles definitely factors into the equation, said Sean O’Regan, president and chief executive officer of O'Regan's Automotive Group.  

“Where you see the highest adoption are in the provinces where there are large government rebates,” he said. “It’s a simple dollars and cents (thing). In Quebec, when you combine the rebates it’s up to over $10,000, if not $12,000, towards the car. If you can get that kind of a rebate on a car, I don’t know that it would matter much what it was – it would help sell it.” 

A lot of people who want to buy electric cars are trying to make a conscious decision about the environment, O’Regan said. 

While Nova Scotia Power is moving towards renewable energy, he points out that much of our electricity still comes from burning coal and other fossil fuels, and N.L. lags in energy efficiency as the region works to improve.  

“So the power that you get is not necessarily the cleanest of power,” O’Regan said. “The green advantage is not the same (in Nova Scotia as it is in provinces that produce a lot of hydro power).” 

Compared to five years ago, the charging infrastructure here is a lot better, he said. But it doesn’t compare well to provinces including Quebec and B.C., though Newfoundland recently completed its first fast-charging network for electric car owners. 

“Certainly (with) electric cars – we're selling more and more and more of them,” O'Regan said, noting the per centage would be in the single digits of his overall sales. “But you're starting from zero a few years ago.” 

The highest number of people looking at buying electric cars was in B.C., with 57 per cent of those looking at buying a car saying they’d go electric, and even in southern Alberta interest is growing; like Bob Dylan in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival.  

“The trends move from west to east across Canada,” said Jeff Farwell, chief executive officer of the All EV Canada electric car store in Burnside.  

“I would use the example of the craft beer market. It started in B.C. about 15 years before it finally went crazy in Nova Scotia. And if you look at Vancouver right now there’s (electric vehicles) everywhere.” 

Expectations high
Farwell expects electric vehicle sales to take off faster in Atlantic Canada than the craft beer market. “A lot faster.” 

His company also sells used electric vehicles in Prince Edward Island and is making moves to set up in Moncton, N.B. 

He’s been talking to Nova Scotia’s Department of Energy and Mines about creating rebates here for new and used electric vehicles. 

 “I guess they’re interested, but nothing’s happened,” Farwell said.  

Electric vehicles require “a bit of a lifestyle change,” he said. 

“The misconception is it takes a lot longer to charge a vehicle if it’s electric and gas only takes me 10 minutes to fill up at the gas station,” Farwell said.  

“The reality is when I go home at night, I plug my vehicle in,” he said. “I get up in the morning and I unplug it and I never have to think about it. It takes two seconds.”  
 

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PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff curbs wildfire risk amid high winds, triggering California outages across Northern California and Bay Area counties; grid safety measures, outage maps, campus closures, and restoration timelines guide residents and businesses.

Key Points

A preemptive outage program by PG&E to reduce wildfire ignition during extreme wind events in California.

✅ Cuts power during red flag, high wind, dry fuel conditions

✅ Targets Northern California, Bay Area counties at highest risk

✅ Restoration follows inspections, weather all-clear, hazard checks

California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) has cut off power supply to hundreds of thousands of residents in Northern and Central California as a precaution to possible breakout of wildfires, a move examined in reasons for shutdowns by industry observers.

PG&E confirmed that about 513,000 customers in many counties in Northern California, including Napa, Sierra, Sonoma and Yuba, were affected in the first phase of Public Safety Power Shutoff, a preemptive measure it took to prevent wildfires believed likely to be triggered by strong, dry winds.

The utility said the decision to shut off power was, amid ongoing debate over nuclear's status in California, "based on forecasts of dry, hot and windy weather including potential fire risk."

"This weather event will last through midday Thursday, with peak winds forecast from Wednesday morning through Thursday morning and reaching 60 mph (about 96 km per hour) to 70 mph (about 112 km per hour) at higher elevations," it said, while abroad National Grid warnings about short supply have highlighted parallel reliability concerns.

PG&E noted that about 234,000 residents in mostly counties of San Francisco Bay Area such as Alameda, Alpine, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara were impacted in the second phase of the power shutoff, as the state considers power plant closure delays with potential grid impacts, that began around noon in Wednesday.

The unprecedented power outages sweeping across Northern California has darkened homes and forced schools and business to close, even as the UK paused an emergency energy plan amid its own supply concerns.

University of California, Berkeley canceled all classes for Wednesday due to expected campus power loss over the next few days.

The university said it has received notice from PG&E, as China's power woes cloud U.S. solar supplies that could aid resilience, that "most of the core campus will be without power" possibly for 48 hours.

A freshman at California State University San Jose told Xinhua that their classes were canceled Wednesday as the campus was running out of power.

"I had to go home because even our dormitory went without electricity," the student added.

However, PG&E noted in an updated statement Wednesday night that only 4,000 customers would be affected in the third phase being considered for Kern County in Central California, compared to an earlier forecast of 43,000 people who would experience power outage.

The PG&E power shutoff was the largest preemptive measure ever taken to prevent wildfires in the state's history, and it comes as clean power grows while fossil declines across California's grid, highlighting broader transition challenges.

The San Francisco-based California utility was held responsible for poor management of its power lines that sparked fatal wildfires in Northern California and killed 86 people last year in what was called Camp Fire, the single-deadliest wildfire in California's history.

Several lawsuits and other requests for compensation from wildfire victims that amounted to billions of U.S. dollars forced the embattled the company to claim bankruptcy protection early this year.

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California Wildfire Power Shut-Offs escalate as PG&E imposes blackouts amid high winds, Getty and Kincade fires, mass evacuations, Sonoma County threats, and a state of emergency, drawing regulatory scrutiny over grid safety and outage scope.

Key Points

Planned utility outages to curb wildfire risk during extreme winds, prompting evacuations and regulatory scrutiny.

✅ PG&E preemptive blackouts under regulator inquiry

✅ Getty and Kincade fires drive mass evacuations

✅ Sonoma County under threat amid high winds

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) already faces an investigation by regulators after cutting supplies to 970,000 homes and businesses amid California blackouts that raised concerns.

It announced that another 650,000 properties would face precautionary shut-offs.

Wildfires fanned by the strong winds are raging in two parts of the state.

Thousands of residents near the wealthy Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles have been told to evacuate because of a wildfire that began early on Monday.

Further north in Sonoma County, a larger fire has forced 180,000 people from their homes.

California's governor has declared a state-wide emergency.

What about the power cuts?

On Monday regulators announced a formal inquiry into whether energy utilities broke rules by pre-emptively cutting power to an estimated 2.5 million people, amid a blackouts policy debate that intensified, as wildfire risks soared.

They did not name any utilities but analysts said PG&E was responsible for the bulk of the "public safety power shut-offs", and later faced a Camp Fire guilty plea that underscored its liabilities.

The company filed for bankruptcy in January after facing hundreds of lawsuits from victims of wildfires in 2017 and 2018.

Of the 970,000 properties hit by the most recent cuts, under half had their services back by Monday, and some sought help through wildfire assistance programs, the Associated Press reported.

Despite criticism that the precautionary blackouts were too widespread and too disruptive, PG&E said more would come on Tuesday and Wednesday because further strong winds were expected.

The company said it had logged more than 20 preliminary reports of damage to its network from the most recent windstorm.

In a video posted to Twitter on Saturday, Governor Gavin Newsom said the power cuts were "infuriating everyone, and rightfully so".

Where are the fires now?

In Los Angeles, the Getty Fire has burned over 600 acres (242 ha) and about 10,000 buildings are in the mandatory evacuation zone.

At least eight homes have been destroyed and five others damaged.

"If you are in an evacuation zone, don't screw around," Mr Schwarzenegger tweeted. "Get out."

LA fire chief Ralph Terrazas said fire crews had been "overwhelmed" by the scale of the fires.

"They had to make some tough decisions on which houses they were able to protect," he said.

"Many times it depends on where the ember lands. I saw homes that were adjacent to homes that were totally destroyed, without any damage."

In northern California, schools remain closed in Sonoma County, where tens of thousands of homes and businesses are under threat.

Sonoma has been ravaged by the Kincade Fire, which started on Wednesday and has burned through 50,000 acres of land, fanned by the winds.

The Kincade Fire began seven minutes after a nearby power line was damaged, and power lines may have started fires according to reports, but PG&E has not yet confirmed if the power glitch started the blaze.

About 180,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, with roads around Santa Rosa north of San Francisco packed with cars as people tried to flee.

There are fears the flames could cross the 101 highway and enter areas that have not seen wildfires since the 1940s.

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Municipal Renewable Energy Procurement surged as cities contracted 3.7 GW of solar and wind, leveraging green tariffs, community solar, and utility partnerships across the Southeast, led by Houston, RMI, and WRI data.

Key Points

The process by which cities contract solar and wind via utilities or green tariffs to meet climate goals.

✅ 3.7 GW procured in 2020, nearly 25% year-over-year growth

✅ Houston runs city ops on 500 MW solar, a record purchase

✅ Southeast cities use green tariffs and community solar

Cities around the country bought more renewable energy last year than ever before, reflecting how renewables may soon provide one-fourth of U.S. electricity across the grid, with some of the most remarkable projects in the Southeast, according to new data unveiled Thursday.

Even amid the pandemic, about eight dozen municipalities contracted to buy nearly 3.7 gigawatts of mostly solar and wind energy — enough to power more than 800,000 homes. The figure is almost a quarter higher than the year before.

Half of the cites listed as “most noteworthy” in Thursday’s release —  from research groups Rocky Mountain Institute and World Resources Institute — are in the region that stretches from Texas to Washington, D.C. 

Houston stands out for the sheer enormity of its purchase: In July, it began powering city operations entirely from nearly 500 megawatts of solar power — the largest municipal purchase of renewable energy ever in the United States, as renewable electricity surpassed coal nationwide.

The groups also feature smaller deals in North Carolina and Tennessee, achieved through a utility partnership called a green tariff.

“We wanted to recognize that Nashville and Charlotte were really blazing a new trail,” said Stephen Abbott, principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute.

And the nation’s capital shows how renewable energy can be a source of revenue: It’s leasing out its public transit station rooftops for 10 megawatts of community solar.

All of these strategies will be necessary for scores of U.S. cities to meet their ambitious climate goals, researchers believe. An interactive clean energy targets tracker shows all 95 clean energy procurements from the year in detail.

Tracker 
Even before former President Donald Trump promised to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, a lack of federal action on climate left a void that some cities and counties were beginning to fill, as renewables hit a record 28% in a recent month. In 2015, the first year tracked by researchers at the Rocky Mountain Institute and the World Resources Institute, municipalities contracted to buy more than 1 gigawatt of wind, solar and other forms of clean energy. 

But when Trump officially set in motion the withdrawal from the climate agreement, the ranks of municipalities dedicated to 100% clean energy multiplied. Today there are nearly 200 of them. The growth in activity last year reflects, in part, that surge of new pledges.

“It takes a while to get city staff up to speed and understand the options, and create the roadmap and then start executing,” Abbott said. “There is a bit of a lag, but we’re starting to see the impact.”

Even in Houston — one of the earliest to begin procuring renewable energy — there has been a steep learning curve as market forces change and prices drop, including cheaper solar batteries shaping procurement strategies, said Lara Cottingham, Houston’s chief of staff and chief sustainability officer.

No matter how well resourced and educated their staff, cities have to clear a thicket of structural, political and economic challenges to procure renewable energy. Most don’t own their own sources of power. Nearly all face budget constraints. Few have enough land or government rooftops to meet their goals within city limits.

“Cities face a situation where it’s a square peg in a round hole,” Cottingham said.

The hurdles are especially steep in much of the Southeast, where only publicly regulated utilities can sell electricity to retail customers, even large ones such as major cities. That’s where a green tariff regime comes in: Cities can purchase clean energy from a third party, such as a solar company, using the utility as a go-between.

Early last year, Charlotte became the largest city to use such a program, partnering with Duke Energy and two North Carolina solar developers to build a solar farm 50 miles north in Iredell County. At first, the city will pay a premium for the energy, but in the latter half of the 20-year contract, as gas prices rise, it will save money compared to business as usual.

“Over the course of 20 years, it’s projected we would save about $2 million,” Katie Riddle, sustainability analyst with Charlotte, told the Energy News Network last year.

The growing size of projects, innovative partnerships like green tariff programs, and the improving economics all give Abbott hope that renewable energy investments from cities will only grow — even with the Trump presidency over and the country back in the Paris agreement.

And when cities meet their goals for procuring renewable energy for their own operations, they must then turn to an even bigger task: reducing the carbon footprint of every person in their jurisdiction with broader decarbonization strategies and community engagement.

“The city needs to do its part for sure,” said Houston’s Cottingham. “Then we have this challenge of how do we get everyone else to.”

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Octopus Energy and DTEK Partnership explores licensing the Kraken platform to rebuild Ukraine's power grid, enabling real-time analytics, smart-home integration, renewable energy orchestration, and distributed resilience amid ongoing attacks on critical energy infrastructure.

Key Points

Collaboration to deploy Kraken and renewables to modernize Ukraine's grid with analytics, smart control, and resilience.

✅ Kraken licensing for grid operations and customer analytics

✅ Shift to distributed solar, wind, and smart-home devices

✅ Real-time monitoring to mitigate outages and cyber risks

Octopus Energy, a prominent UK energy firm, has begun preliminary conversations with Ukraine's DTEK regarding potential collaboration to refurbish Ukraine's heavily damaged electric infrastructure as ongoing strikes threaten the power grid across the country.

Persistent assaults by Russia on Ukraine's power network, including a five-hour attack on Kyiv's grid, have led to significant electricity shortages in numerous regions.

Octopus Energy, the largest electricity and second-largest gas supplier in the UK, collaborates with energy firms in 17 countries using its Kraken software platform, and Ukraine joined Europe's power grid with unprecedented speed to bolster resilience. This platform is currently being trialled by the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) for power and water customers in the UAE.

A spokesperson from Octopus revealed to The National that the company is "in the early stages of discussions with DTEK to explore potential collaborative opportunities.”

One of the possibilities being considered is licensing Octopus's Kraken technology platform to DTEK, a platform that presently serves 54 million customer accounts globally.

Russian drone and missile attacks, which initially targeted Ukrainian ports and export channels last summer, shifted focus to energy infrastructure by October, ahead of the winter season as authorities worked to protect electricity supply before winter across the country.

These initial talks between Octopus CEO Greg Jackson and DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko took place at the World Economic Forum in Davos, set against the backdrop of these ongoing challenges.

DTEK, Ukraine's leading private energy provider, might integrate Octopus's advanced Kraken software to manage and optimize data systems ranging from large power plants to smart-home devices, with a growing focus on protecting the grid against emerging threats.

Kraken is described by Octopus as a comprehensive technology platform that supports the entire energy supply chain, from generation to billing. It enables detailed analytics, real-time monitoring, and control of energy devices like heat pumps and electric vehicles, underscoring the need to counter cyber weapons that can disrupt power grids as systems become more connected.

Octopus Energy, with its focus on renewable sources, can also assist Ukraine in transitioning its power infrastructure from centralized coal-fired power stations, which are vulnerable targets, to a more distributed network of smaller solar and wind projects.

DTEK, serving approximately 3.5 million customers in the Kyiv, Donetsk, and Dnipro regions, is already engaged in renewable initiatives. The company constructed a wind farm in southern Ukraine within nine months last year and has plans for additional projects in Italy and Croatia.

Emphasizing the importance of rebuilding Ukraine's economy, Timchenko recently expressed at Davos the need for Ukrainian and international companies to work together to create a sustainable future for Ukraine, noting that incidents such as Russian hackers accessed U.S. control rooms highlight the urgency.

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Germany's Economic Downturn reflects an energy crisis, deindustrialization risks, export weakness, and manufacturing stress, amid Russia gas loss, IMF and EU recession forecasts, and debates over electricity price caps and green transition.

Key Points

An economic contraction from energy price shocks, export weakness, and bottlenecks in manufacturing and digitization.

✅ Energy shock after loss of cheap Russian gas

✅ Exports slump amid China slowdown and weak demand

✅ Policy gridlock on power price cap and permits

Germany went from envy of the world to the worst-performing major developed economy. What happened?

For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.

Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.

No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.

It follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the loss of Moscow’s cheap Russian gas that underpinned industry — an unprecedented shock to Germany’s energy-intensive industries, long the manufacturing powerhouse of Europe.

The sudden underperformance by Europe’s largest economy has set off a wave of criticism, handwringing and debate about the way forward.

Germany risks “deindustrialization” as high energy costs and government inaction on other chronic problems threaten to send new factories and high-paying jobs elsewhere, said Christian Kullmann, CEO of major German chemical company Evonik Industries AG.

From his 21st-floor office in the west German town of Essen, Kullmann points out the symbols of earlier success across the historic Ruhr Valley industrial region: smokestacks from metal plants, giant heaps of waste from now-shuttered coal mines, a massive BP oil refinery and Evonik’s sprawling chemical production facility.

These days, the former mining region, where coal dust once blackened hanging laundry, is a symbol of the energy transition, as the power sector’s balancing act continues with wind turbines and green space.

The loss of cheap Russian natural gas needed to power factories “painfully damaged the business model of the German economy,” Kullmann told The Associated Press. “We’re in a situation where we’re being strongly affected — damaged — by external factors.”

After Russia cut off most of its gas to the European Union, spurring an energy crisis in the 27-nation bloc that had sourced 40% of the fuel from Moscow, the German government asked Evonik to turn to coal by keeping its 1960s coal-fired power plant running a few months longer.

The company is shifting away from the plant — whose 40-story smokestack fuels production of plastics and other goods — to two gas-fired generators that can later run on hydrogen amid plans to become carbon neutral by 2030 and following the nuclear phase-out of recent years.

One hotly debated solution: a government-funded cap on industrial electricity prices to get the economy through the renewable energy transition, amid an energy crisis that even saw a temporary nuclear extension to stabilize supply.

The proposal from Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens Party has faced resistance from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, and pro-business coalition partner the Free Democrats. Environmentalists say it would only prolong reliance on fossil fuels, while others advocate a nuclear option to meet climate goals.

Kullmann is for it: “It was mistaken political decisions that primarily developed and influenced these high energy costs. And it can’t now be that German industry, German workers should be stuck with the bill.”

The price of gas is roughly double what it was in 2021, with a senior official arguing nuclear would do little to solve that gas issue, hurting companies that need it to keep glass or metal red-hot and molten 24 hours a day to make glass, paper and metal coatings used in buildings and cars.

A second blow came as key trade partner China experiences a slowdown after several decades of strong economic growth.

These outside shocks have exposed cracks in Germany’s foundation that were ignored during years of success, including lagging use of digital technology in government and business and a lengthy process to get badly needed renewable energy projects approved.

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