South Carolina refuses to block nuclear plant

Twin States Clean Energy Link connects New England to Hydro-Quebec via a 1,200 MW transmission line, DOE-backed capacity, underground segments, existing corridors, boosting renewable energy reliability across Vermont and New Hampshire with cross-border grid flexibility.

Key Points

DOE-backed 1,200 MW line linking Hydro-Quebec to New England, adding clean capacity with underground routes.

✅ 1,200 MW cross-border capacity for the New England grid

✅ Uses existing corridors; underground in VT and northern NH

✅ DOE capacity contract lowers risk and spurs investment

A proposal to build a new transmission line to connect New England with Canadian hydropower is one step closer to reality.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced Monday that it has selected the Twin States Clean Energy Link as one of three transmission projects that will be part of its $1.3 billion cross-border transmission initiative to add capacity to the grid.

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Twin States is a proposal from National Grid, a utility company that serves Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, and also owns transmission in England and Wales as the region advances projects like the Scotland-to-England subsea link that expand renewable flows, and the non-profit Citizens Energy Corporation.

The transmission line would connect New England with power from Hydro-Quebec, moving into the United States from Canada in Northern Vermont and crossing into New Hampshire near Dalton. It would run through parts of Grafton, Merrimack, and Hillsborough counties, routing through a substation in Dunbarton and ending at a proposed new substation in Londonderry. (Here's a map of the Twin States proposal.)

The federal funding will allow the U.S. Department of Energy to purchase capacity on the planned transmission line, which officials say reduces the risk for other investors and can help encourage others to purchase capacity.

The project has gotten support from local officials in Vermont and New Hampshire, but there are still hurdles to cross. The contract negotiation process is beginning, National Grid said, and the proposal still needs approvals from regulators before construction could begin.

First Nations communities in Canada have opposed transmission lines connecting Hydro-Quebec with New England in the past, and the company has faced scrutiny from environmental groups.

What would Twin States look like?
Transmission projects, like the failed Northern Pass proposal, have been controversial in New England, though the Great Northern Transmission Line progressed in Minnesota.

But Reihaneh Irani-Famili, vice president of capital delivery, project management and construction at National Grid, said this one is different because the developers listened to community concerns before planning the project.

“They did not want new corridors of infrastructure, so we made sure that we're using existing right of way,” she said. “They did not want the visual impact and some of the newer corridors of infrastructure, we're making sure we're undergrounding portions of the line.”

In Vermont and northern New Hampshire, the transmission lines would be buried underground along state roads. South of Littleton, they would be located within existing transmission corridors.

The developers say the lines could provide 1,200 megawatts of transmission capacity. The project would have the ability to carry electricity from hydro facilities in Quebec to New England, and would also be able to bring electricity from New England into Quebec, a step toward broader macrogrid connectivity across regions.

“Those hydro dams become giant green batteries for the region, and they hold that water until we need the electrons,” Irani-Famili said. “So if you think about our energy system not as one that sees borders, but one that sees resources, this is connecting the Quebec resources to the New England resources and helping all of us get into that cleaner energy future with a lot less build than we otherwise would have.”

Irani-Famili says the transmission line could help facilitate more clean energy resources like offshore wind coming online. In a report released last week by New Hampshire’s Department of Energy, authors said importing Canadian hydropower could be one of the most cost-effective ways to move away from fossil fuels on the electric grid.

National Grid estimates the project will help save energy customers $8.3 billion in its first 12 years. The developers are constructing a $260 million “community benefits plan” that would take some profits from the transmission line and give that money back to communities that host the transmission lines and environmental justice communities in New England.

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Hydro Quebec transmission expansion aims to move surplus hydroelectric capacity from record reservoirs to the US grid via new interties, increasing exports to New England and New York amid rising winter peak demand.

Key Points

A plan to add capacity and intertie links to export surplus hydro power from Quebec's reservoirs to the US grid.

✅ 245 MW added in 2021; portfolio reaches 37,012 MW

✅ Reservoirs at unprecedented levels; export potential high

✅ Lacks US transmission; working on new interties

Hydro Quebec plans to add an incremental 245 MW of hydro-electric generation capacity in 2021 to its expansive portfolio in the north of the province, while Quebec authorized nearly 1,000 MW for industrial projects across the region, bringing the total capacity to 37,012 MW, an official said Friday

Quebec`s highest peak demand of 39,240 MW occurred on January 22, 2014.

A little over 75% of Quebec`s population heat their homes with electricity, Sutherland said, aligning with Hydro Quebec's strategy to wean the province off fossil fuels over time.

The province-owned company produced 205.1 TWh of power in 2017 and its net exports were 34.4 TWh that year, while Ontario chose not to renew a power deal in a separate development.

Sutherland said Hydro Quebec`s reservoirs are currently at "unprecedented levels" and the company could export more of its electricity to New England and New York, but faces transmission constraints that limit its ability to do so.

Hydro Quebec is working with US transmission developers, electric distribution companies, independent system operators and state government agencies to expand that transmission capacity in order to delivery more power from its hydro system to the US, Sutherland said.

Separately, NB Power signed three deals to bring more Quebec electricity into the province, reflecting growing regional demand.

The last major intertie connection between Quebec and the US was completed close to 30 years ago. The roughly 2,000 MW capacity transmission line that connects into the Boston area was completed in the late 1990s, according to Hydro Quebec spokeswoman Lynn St-Laurent.

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Germany's Coal Reliance reflects an energy crisis, soaring natural gas prices, and a nuclear phase-out, as Destatis data show higher coal-fired electricity despite growing wind and solar generation, impacting grid stability and emissions.

Key Points

Germany's coal reliance is more coal power due to gas spikes and a nuclear phase-out, despite wind and solar growth.

✅ Coal share near one-third of electricity, per Destatis

✅ Gas-fired output falls as prices soar after Russia's invasion

✅ Wind and solar rise; grid stability and recession risks persist

Germany is relying on highly-polluting coal for almost a third of its electricity, as the impact of government policies, reflecting an energy balancing act for the power sector, and the war in Ukraine leads producers in Europe’s largest economy to use less gas and nuclear energy.

In the first six months of the year, Germany generated 82.6 kWh of electricity from coal, up 17 per cent from the same period last year, according to data from Destatis, the national statistics office, published on Wednesday. The leap means almost one-third of German electricity generation now comes from coal-fired plants, up from 27 per cent last year. Production from natural gas, which has tripled in price to €235 per megawatt hour since Russia’s invasion in late February, fell 18 per cent to only 11.7 per cent of total generation.

Destatis said that the shift from gas to coal was sharper in the second quarter. Coal-fired electricity increased by an annual rate of 23 per cent in the three months to June, while electricity generation from natural gas fell 19 per cent.

The figures highlight the challenge facing European governments in meeting clean energy goals after the Kremlin announced this week that the Nordstream 1 pipeline that takes Russian gas to Germany would remain closed until Europe removed sanctions on the country’s oil.

Germany has been trying to reduce its reliance on coal, which releases almost twice as many emissions as gas and more than 60 times those of nuclear energy, according to estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, though grid expansion challenges have slowed renewable build-out in recent years.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the opposition CDU bore “complete responsibility” for the exit from coal and nuclear power that formed part of his predecessor Angela Merkel’s Energiewende policies, amid a continuing nuclear option debate in climate policy, which in turn raised reliance on Russian gas. At the beginning of this year, more than 50 per cent of Germany’s gas imports came from Russia, a figure that fell slightly over the opening half of 2022.

But CDU leader Friedrich Merz accused the government of “madness” over its decision to idle the country’s three remaining nuclear power stations from the end of this year, though officials have argued that nuclear would do little to solve the gas issue in the short term.

Electricity generation from nuclear energy has already halved after three of the six nuclear power plants that were still in operation at the end of 2021 were closed during the first half of this year. Berlin said on Monday it would keep on standby two of its remaining three nuclear power stations, a move to extend nuclear power during the energy crisis, which were all due to close at the end of the year.

The German government has warned of the risk of electricity shortages this winter. “We cannot be sure that, in the event of grid bottlenecks in neighbouring countries, there will be enough power plants available to help stabilise our electricity grid in the short term,” said German economy minister Robert Habeck on Monday.

However Scholz said that, after raising gas storage levels to 86 per cent of capacity, Germany would “probably get through this winter, despite all the tension”.

One bright spot from the data was the increase in use of renewable energy, highlighting a recent renewables milestone in Germany. The proportion of electricity generated from wind power generation rose by 18 per cent to 25 per cent of all electricity generation, while solar energy production increased 20 per cent.

Ángel Talavera, head of Europe economics at the consultancy Oxford Economics, said that the success in moving away from gas towards other energy sources “means that the risks of hard energy rationing over the winter are less severe now, even with little to no Russian gas flows”.

However, economists still expect a recession in the eurozone’s largest economy, amid a deteriorating German economy outlook over the near term, as a large part of the impact comes via higher prices and because industries and households still rely on gas for heating.

Separate official data also published on Wednesday showed that German industrial production slid 0.3 per cent between June and July. Production at Germany’s most energy intensive industries fell almost 7 per cent in the five months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The demand destruction caused by the surge in prices will still send the German economy into recession over the winter,” said Talavera.

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Near-Field Thermophotovoltaics captures radiated energy across a nanoscale gap, using thin-film photovoltaic cells and indium gallium arsenide to boost power density and efficiency, enabling compact Army portable power from emitters via radiative heat transfer.

Key Points

A nanoscale TPV method capturing near-field photons for higher power density at lower emitter temperatures.

✅ Nanoscale gap boosts radiative transfer and usable photon flux

✅ Thin-film InGaAs cells recycle sub-band-gap photons via reflector

✅ Achieved ~5 kW/m2 power density with higher efficiency

With the addition of sensors and enhanced communication tools, providing lightweight, portable power has become even more challenging, with concepts such as power from falling snow illustrating how diverse new energy-harvesting approaches are. Army-funded research demonstrated a new approach to turning thermal energy into electricity that could provide compact and efficient power for Soldiers on future battlefields.

Hot objects radiate light in the form of photons into their surroundings. The emitted photons can be captured by a photovoltaic cell and converted to useful electric energy. This approach to energy conversion is called far-field thermophotovoltaics, or FF-TPVs, and has been under development for many years; however, it suffers from low power density and therefore requires high operating temperatures of the emitter.

The research, conducted at the University of Michigan and published in Nature Communications, demonstrates a new approach, where the separation between the emitter and the photovoltaic cell is reduced to the nanoscale, enabling much greater power output than what is possible with FF-TPVs for the same emitter temperature.

This approach, which enables capture of energy that is otherwise trapped in the near-field of the emitter is called near-field thermophotovoltaics or NF-TPV and uses custom-built photovoltaic cells and emitter designs ideal for near-field operating conditions, alongside emerging smart solar inverters that help manage conversion and delivery.

This technique exhibited a power density almost an order of magnitude higher than that for the best-reported near-field-TPV systems, while also operating at six-times higher efficiency, paving the way for future near-field-TPV applications, including remote microgrid deployments in extreme environments, according to Dr. Edgar Meyhofer, professor of mechanical engineering, University of Michigan.

"The Army uses large amounts of power during deployments and battlefield operations and must be carried by the Soldier or a weight constrained system," said Dr. Mike Waits, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "If successful, in the future near-field-TPVs could serve as more compact and higher efficiency power sources for Soldiers as these devices can function at lower operating temperatures than conventional TPVs."

The efficiency of a TPV device is characterized by how much of the total energy transfer between the emitter and the photovoltaic cell is used to excite the electron-hole pairs in the photovoltaic cell, where insights from near-light-speed conduction research help contextualize performance limits in semiconductors. While increasing the temperature of the emitter increases the number of photons above the band-gap of the cell, the number of sub band-gap photons that can heat up the photovoltaic cell need to be minimized.

"This was achieved by fabricating thin-film TPV cells with ultra-flat surfaces, and with a metal back reflector," said Dr. Stephen Forrest, professor of electrical and computer engineering, University of Michigan. "The photons above the band-gap of the cell are efficiently absorbed in the micron-thick semiconductor, while those below the band-gap are reflected back to the silicon emitter and recycled."

The team grew thin-film indium gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells on thick semiconductor substrates, and then peeled off the very thin semiconductor active region of the cell and transferred it to a silicon substrate, informing potential interfaces with home battery systems for distributed use.

All these innovations in device design and experimental approach resulted in a novel near-field TPV system that could complement distributed resources in virtual power plants for resilient operations.

"The team has achieved a record ~5 kW/m2 power output, which is an order of magnitude larger than systems previously reported in the literature," said Dr. Pramod Reddy, professor of mechanical engineering, University of Michigan.

Researchers also performed state-of-the-art theoretical calculations to estimate the performance of the photovoltaic cell at each temperature and gap size, informing hybrid designs with backup fuel cell solutions that extend battery life, and showed good agreement between the experiments and computational predictions.

"This current demonstration meets theoretical predictions of radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale, and directly shows the potential for developing future near-field TPV devices for Army applications in power and energy, communication and sensors," said Dr. Pani Varanasi, program manager, DEVCOM ARL that funded this work.

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Coinmint Plattsburgh Dispute spotlights cryptocurrency mining, hydropower electricity rates, a $1M security deposit, Public Service Commission rulings, municipal utility policies, and seasonal migration to Massena data centers as Bitcoin price volatility pressures operations.

Key Points

Legal and energy-cost dispute over crypto mining, a $1,019,503 deposit, and operations in Plattsburgh and Massena.

✅ PSC allows higher rates and requires large security deposits.

✅ Winter electricity spikes drove a $1M deposit calculation.

✅ Coinmint shifted capacity to Massena data centers.

A few years ago, there was a lot of buzz about the North Country becoming the next Silicon Valley of cryptocurrency, even as Maine debated a 145-mile line that could reshape regional power flows. One of the companies to flock here was Coinmint. The cryptomining company set up shop in Plattsburgh in 2017 and declared its intentions to be a good citizen.

Today, Coinmint is fighting a legal battle to avoid paying the city’s electric utility more than $1 million owed for a security deposit. In addition to that dispute, a local property manager says the firm was evicted from one of its Plattsburgh locations.

Companies like Coinmint chose to come to the North Country because of the relatively low electricity prices here, thanks in large part to the hydropower dam on the St. Lawrence River in Massena, and regionally, projects such as the disputed electricity corridor have drawn attention to transmission costs and access. Coinmint operates its North Country Data Center facilities in Plattsburgh and Massena. In both locations, racks of computer servers perform complex calculations to generate cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin.

When cryptomining began to take off in Plattsburgh, the cost of one bitcoin was skyrocketing. That brought hype around the possibility of big business and job creation in the North Country. But cryptomininers like Coinmint were using massive amounts of energy in the winter of 2017-2018, and that season, electric bills of everyday Plattsburgh residents spiked.

Many cryptomining firms operate in a state of flux, beholden to the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, even as the end to the 'war on coal' declaration did little to change utilities' choices. When the price of one bitcoin hit $20,000 in 2017, it fell by 30% just days later. That’s one reason why the price of electricity is so critical for companies like Coinmint to turn a profit. 

Plattsburgh puts the brakes on “cryptocurrency mining”
In early 2018, Plattsburgh passed a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations, after residents complained of higher-than-usual electric bills.

“Your electric bill’s $100, then it’s at $130. Why? It’s because these guys that are mining the bitcoins are riding into town, taking advantage of a situation,” said resident Andrew Golt during a 2018 public hearing.

Coinmint aimed to assuage the worries of residents and other businesses. “At the end of the day we want to be a good citizen in whatever communities we’re in,” Coinmint spokesman Kyle Carlton told NCPR at that 2018 meeting.

“We’re open to working with those communities to figure out whatever solutions are going to work.”

The ban was lifted in Feb. 2019. However, since it didn’t apply to companies that were already mining cryptocurrency in Plattsburgh, Coinmint has operated in the city all along.

Coinmint challenges attempt to protect ratepayers
New rules passed by the New York Public Service Commission in March 2018 allow municipal power authorities including Plattsburgh’s to charge big energy users such as Coinmint higher electricity rates, amid customer backlash in other utility deals. The new rules also require them to put down a security deposit to ensure their bills get paid.

But Coinmint disputes that deposit charge. The company has been embroiled in a legal fight for nearly a year against Plattsburgh Municipal Lighting Department (PMLD) in an attempt to avoid paying the electric utility’s security deposit bill of $1,019,503. That bill is based on an estimate of what would cover two months of electricity use if a company were to leave town without paying its electric bills.

Coinmint would not discuss the dispute on the record with NCPR. Legal documents show the firm argues the deposit charge is inflated, based on a flawed calculation resulting in a charge hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than what it should be.

“Essentially they’re arguing that they should only have to put up some average of their monthly bills without accounting for the fact that winter bills are significantly higher than the average,” said Ken Podolny, an attorney representing the Plattsburgh utility.

The company took legal action in February 2019 against PMLD in the hopes New York’s energy regulator, the Public Service Commission, would agree with Coinmint that the deposit charge was too high. An informal commission hearing officer disagreed, and ruled in October the charge was calculated correctly.

Coinmint appealed the ruling in November and a hearing on the appeal could come as soon as February.

Less than a week after Coinmint lost its initial challenge of the deposit charge, the company made a splashy announcement trumpeting its plans to “migrate its Plattsburgh, New York infrastructure to its Massena, New York location for the 2019-2020 winter season.”

The announcement made no mention of the appeal or the recent ruling against Coinmint. The company attributed its new plan to “exceptionally-high” electricity rates in Plattsburgh, as hydropower transmission projects elsewhere in New England faced their own controversies. 

"We recognize some in the Plattsburgh community have blamed our operation for pushing rates higher for everyone so, while we disagree with that assessment, we hope this seasonal migration will have a positive impact on rates for all our neighbors,” said Coinmint cofounder Prieur Leary in the press statement.

“In the event that doesn't happen, we trust the community will look for the real answers for these high costs." Prieur Leary has since been removed from the corporate team page on the company’s website.

The company still operates in Plattsburgh at one of its locations in the city. As for staff, while at least two Coinmint employees have moved from Plattsburgh to Massena, where the company operates a data center inside a former Alcoa aluminum plant, it is unclear how many people in total have made the move.

Coinmint left its second Plattsburgh location in 2019. The company would not discuss that move on the record, yet the circumstances of the departure are murky.

The local property manager of the industrial park site told NCPR, “I have no comment on our evicted tenant Coinmint.” The property owner, California’s Karex Property Management Services, also would not comment regarding the situation, noting that “all staff have been told to not discuss anything regarding our past tenant Coinmint.”

Today, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are worth a fraction of what they were back in 2017 when Coinmint came to the North Country, and now, amid a debate over Bitcoin's electricity use shaping market sentiment, the future of the entire industry here remains uncertain.

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Spain Electricity Prices surge to record highs as the wholesale market hits €339.84/MWh, driven by gas costs and CO2 permits, impacting PVPC regulated tariffs, free-market contracts, and household energy bills, OMIE data show.

Key Points

Rates in Spain's wholesale market that shape PVPC tariffs and free-market bills, moving with gas prices and CO2 costs.

✅ Record €339.84/MWh; peak 20:00-21:00; low 04:00-05:00 (OMIE).

✅ PVPC users and free-market contracts face higher bills.

✅ Drivers: high gas prices and rising CO2 emission rights.

Electricity in Spain's wholesale market will rise in price once more as European electricity prices continue to surge. Once again, it will set a historical record in Spain, reaching €339.84/MWh. With this figure, it is already the fifth time that the threshold of €300 has been exceeded.

This new high is a 6.32 per cent increase on today’s average price of €319.63/MWh, which is also a historic record, while Germany's power prices nearly doubled over the past year. Monday’s energy price will make it 682.65 per cent higher than the corresponding date in 2020, when the average was €43.42.

According to data published by the Iberian Energy Market Operator (OMIE), Monday’s maximum will be between the hours of 8pm and 9pm, reaching €375/MWh, a pattern echoed by markets where Electric Ireland price hikes reflect wholesale volatility. The cheapest will be from 4am to 5am, at €267.99.

The prices of the ‘pool’ have a direct effect on the regulated tariff  – PVPC – to which almost 11 million consumers in the country are connected, and serve as a reference for the other 17 million who have contracted their supply in the free market, where rolling back prices is proving difficult across Europe.

These spiraling prices in recent months, which have fueled EU energy inflation, are being blamed on high gas prices in the markets, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rights, both of which reached record highs this year.

According to an analysis by Facua-Consumidores en Acción, if the same rates were maintained for the rest of the month, the last invoice of the year would reach €134.45 for the average user. That would be 94.1 per cent above the €69.28 for December 2020, while U.S. residential electricity bills rose about 5% in 2022 after inflation adjustments.

The average user’s bill so far this year has increased by 15.1 per cent compared to 2018, as US electricity prices posted their largest jump in 41 years. Thus, compared to the €77.18 of three years ago, the average monthly bill now reaches €90.87 euros. However, the Government continues to insist that this year households will end up paying the same as in 2018.

As Ruben Sanchez, the general secretary of Facua commented, “The electricity bill for December would have to be negative for President Sanchez, and Minister Ribera, to fulfill their promise that this year consumers will pay the same as in 2018 once the CPI has been discounted”.

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