Storage system passes 5 million hours operation

Gander Curling Club Debt Forgiveness Agreement explained: town council tax relief, loan write-off conditions, community benefits, and economic impact, covering long-standing taxes and loans while protecting the facility with asset clauses and compliance terms.

Key Points

Town plan erasing 25 years of tax and loan debt, with conditions to keep the curling facility open for residents.

✅ Conditions: no borrowing against property without consent.

✅ Water and sewer taxes must be paid annually.

✅ If sold or use changes, debt due; transfer for $1.

Gander town council has agreed to forgive the local curling club's debt of over $250,000.

Gina Brown, chair of the town council's finance committee, says the agreement has been put in place to help the curling club survive, amid broader discussions on electricity affordability in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"When we took a look at this and realized there was a significant outstanding debt for Gander curling club … we have to mitigate," Brown told CBC Newfoundland Morning. "[Getting] what the taxpayers are owed, with also understanding and appreciating the role that that recreational facility plays in our community."

According to Brown, the debt comes from a combination of taxes and loans, going back about 25 years. She says the curling club understood there was debt, but didn't know the number was so high. The club has been in the black since 2007, but used their profits for other items like renovations.

"Like so many cases when you're dealing with an organization with a changing board, and the same for council … [people are] coming in and coming out," Brown said. "And as a result, my understanding from the curling club's perspective is they weren't aware of how much was outstanding."

Chris McLeod, president of the Gander Curling Club, told CBC the club had been trying to address the debt since he became president in 2014.

Terms of agreement
The town's agreement with the club comes with the following stipulations:

The club will not use the property as security for any form of borrowing without the town's consent.
 
The club will continue to pay water and sewer tax annually.
 
If the club sells the property, the town reserves the right to void the agreement and the debt will immediately become due in full.
 
If the club stops using the facility as a curling club, the property will be transferred to the town for $1.
McLeod says the club will not attempt to pay back the debt, as it is not part of the agreement. The only way the debt would be paid is if the building is sold, which McLeod says it won't be, and there are also no plans to use the building for anything other than a curling club.

"[The debt] is basically gone now," McLeod said.

McLeod says the move was made to help get the debt off the books, and make sure the curling club can be financially responsible in the future, similar to relief programs some utilities offered during the pandemic.

The curling club is something that encourages people. So we felt that this has to be maintained.
- Gina Brown

Brown says keeping the curling club in Gander is important for the town, and brings different benefits to the area, as regional power cooperation debates illustrate broader trends.

"They are servicing people from as young as Grade 1 to seniors," Brown said. "You need little to no equipment, you need no background. So for the town itself, for its social and health implications, as provinces advance emissions plans that can affect communities, is one. But the other thing is the economic benefit that comes from having this facility here."

The Gander Curling Club's debt forgiveness comes with several conditions. (Google Maps)
The curling club can help attract people into the community, as recreational facilities are often a key draw for families, she added, while other provinces are creating transition funds to support communities.

"When you're as a town, trying to attract people coming in … whether you're a doctor, nurse, anybody looking at the recreational facilities, the curling club is something that encourages people," Brown said. "So we felt that this has to be maintained."

Brown says the town understands they might be setting a precedent with other businesses in forgiving the debts of the curling club, as major infrastructure like B.C.'s Site C dam has faced budget overruns.

"That's another thing we had to consider, what kind of precedents are [we] establishing?" Brown said. "From our standpoint, I think one of the things about this agreement that we felt was beneficial to the town is that they have an asset, helping to avoid costly delays seen with large projects. And the asset is a great building. To us, the taxpayers are in a win-win situation."

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BC Fossil Fuel Phase-Out outlines a just transition to a green economy, meeting climate targets by mid-century through carbon budgets, ending subsidies for fracking, capping production, and investing in renewable energy, remediation, and resilient infrastructure.

Key Points

A strategic plan to wind down oil and gas, end subsidies, and achieve climate targets with a just transition in BC.

✅ End new leases, phase out subsidies, cap fossil production

✅ Carbon budgets and timelines to meet mid-century climate targets

✅ Just transition: income supports, retraining, site remediation jobs

Politicians in British Columbia aren't focused enough on phasing out fossil fuel industries, a new report says.

The report, authored by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the province must move away from fossil fuel industries by mid-century in order to meet its climate targets, with B.C. projected to fall short of 2050 targets according to recent analysis, but adds that the B.C. government is ill prepared to transition to a green economy.

"We are totally moving in the wrong direction," said economist Marc Lee, one of the authors of the report, on The Early Edition Wednesday. 

He said most of the emphasis of B.C. government policy has been on slowing reductions in emissions from transportation or emissions from buildings, even though Canada will need more electricity to hit net-zero according to the IEA, while still subsidizing fossil fuel extraction, such as fracking projects, that Lee said should be phased out.

"What we are putting on the table is politically unthinkable right now," said Lee, adding that last month's provincial budget called for a 26 per cent increased gas production over the next three years, even though electrified LNG facilities could boost demand for clean power.

B.C.'s $830M in fossil fuel subsidies undermines efforts to fight climate crisis, report says
He said B.C. needs to start thinking instead about how its going to wind down its dependence on fossil fuel industries.

'Greener' job transition needed
The report said the provincial government's continued interest in expanding production and exporting fossil fuels, even as Canada's race to net-zero intensifies across the energy sector, suggests little political will to think about a plan to move away from them.

It suggests the threat of major job losses in those industries is contributing to the political inaction, but cited several examples of ways governments can help move workers into greener jobs, as many fossil-fuel workers are ready to support the transition according to recent commentary. 

Lee said early retirement provisions or income replacement for transitioning workers are options to consider.

"We actually have seen a lot of real-world policy around transition starting to happen, including in Alberta, which brought in a whole transition package for coal workers producing coal for electricity generation, and regional cooperation like bridging the electricity gap between Alberta and B.C. could further support reliability," Lee said.

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Lee also said well-paying jobs could be created by, for example, remediating old coal mines and gas wells and building green infrastructure and renewable electricity projects in affected areas.

The report also calls for a moratorium on new fossil fuel leases and ending fossil fuel subsidies, as well as creating carbon budgets and fossil fuel production limits.

"Change is coming," said Lee. "We need to get out ahead of it."

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ABO Wind Tunisia 10MW Solar Project will build a photovoltaic park in Gabes with a STEG PPA, fixed tariff, 2,500 m grid connection, producing 18 million kWh annually, targeted for 2020 commissioning with local partners.

Key Points

A 10MW photovoltaic park in Gabes with a 20-year STEG PPA and fixed tariff, slated for 2020 commissioning.

✅ 18 million kWh/year; 2,500 m grid tie, 20-year fixed tariff

✅ Electricity supplied to STEG under PPA; 2020 commissioning

✅ Located in Gabes; built with local partners, 10MW capacity

ABO Wind has received a permit and a tariff for a 10MW photovoltaic project in Tunisia, amid global activity such as Spain's 90MW wind project now underway, which it plans to build and commission in 2020.

The solar park, in the governorate of Gabes, is 400km south of the country’s capital Tunis and aligns with renewable funding initiatives seen across developing markets.

The developer said it plans to build the project next year in close cooperation with local partners, as regional markets from North Africa to the Gulf expand, with Saudi Arabia boosting wind capacity as well.

ABO Wind department head Nicolas Konig said: “The solar park will produce more than 18 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year and will feed it into the grid at a distance of 2500 metres.”

The developer will conclude an electricity supply contract with the state-owned energy supplier (Societe tunisienne de l’electricite et du gaz (STEG), which will provide a fixed remuneration over 20 years, a model echoed by Germany's wind-solar tender for the electricity fed into the grid.

Earlier this year, ABO Wind had already secured a tariff for a wind farm with a capacity of 30MW in a tender, 35km south-east of Tunis, underscoring Tunisia's wind investments under its long-term plan.

The company is working on half a dozen Tunisian wind and solar projects, as institutions like the World Bank support wind growth in developing countries.

“We are making good progress on our way to assemble a portfolio of several ready-to-build wind and solar projects attractive to investors, as Saudi clean energy targets continue to expand globally,” said ABO Wind general manager responsible for international business development Patrik Fischer.

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Virtual Power Plants orchestrate distributed energy resources like rooftop solar, home batteries, and EVs to deliver grid services, demand response, peak shaving, and resilience, lowering costs while enhancing reliability across wholesale markets and local networks.

Key Points

Virtual Power Plants aggregate solar and batteries to provide grid services, cut peak costs, and boost reliability.

✅ Aggregates DERs via cloud to bid into wholesale markets

✅ Reduces peak demand, defers costly grid upgrades

✅ Enhances resilience vs outages, cyber risks, and wildfires

If “virtual” meetings can allow companies to gather without anyone being in the office, then remotely distributed solar panels and batteries can harness energy and act as “virtual power plants.” It is simply the orchestration of millions of dispersed assets within a smarter electricity infrastructure to manage the supply of electricity — power that can be redirected back to the grid and distributed to homes and businesses. 

The ultimate goal is to revamp the energy landscape, making it cleaner and more reliable. By using onsite generation such as rooftop solar and smart solar inverters in combination with battery storage, those services can reduce the network’s overall cost by deferring expensive infrastructure upgrades and by reducing the need to purchase cost-prohibitive peak power. 

“We expect virtual power plants, including aggregated home solar and batteries, to become more common and more impactful for energy consumers throughout the country in the coming years,” says Michael Sachdev, chief product officer for Sunrun Inc., a rooftop solar company, in an interview. “The growth of home solar and batteries will be most apparent in places where households have an immediate need for backup power, as they do in California, where grid reliability pressures have led utilities to turn off the electricity to reduce wildfire risk.”

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Home battery adoption, such as Tesla Powerwall systems, is becoming commonplace in Hawaii and in New England, he adds, because those distributed assets are improving the efficiency of the electrical network. It is a trend that is reshaping the country’s energy generation and delivery system by relying more on clean onsite generation and less on fossil fuels.

Sunrun has recently formed a business partnership with AutoGrid, which will manage Sunrun’s fleet of rechargeable batteries. It is a cloud-based system that allows Sunrun to work with utilities to dispatch its “storage fleet” to optimize the economic results. AutoGrid compiles the data and makes AI-driven forecasts that enable it to pinpoint potential trouble spots. 

But a distributed energy system, or a virtual power plant, would have 200,000 subsystems. Or, 200,000 5 kilowatt batteries would be the equivalent of one power plant that has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. 

“A virtual power plant acts as a generator,” says Amit Narayan, chief executive officer of AutoGrid, in an interview. “It is one of the top five innovations of the decade. If you look at Sunrun, 60% of every solar system it sells in the Bay Area is getting attached to a battery. The value proposition comes when you can aggregate these batteries and market them as a generation unit. The pool of individual assets may improve over time. But when you add these up, it is better than a large-scale plant. It is like going from mainframe computers to laptops.”

The AutoGrid executive goes on to say that centralized systems are less reliable than distributed resources. While one battery could falter, 200,000 of them that operate from remote locations will prove to be more durable — able to withstand cyber attacks and wildfires. Sunrun’s Sachdev adds that the ability to store energy in batteries, as seen in California’s expanding grid-scale battery use supporting reliability, and to move it to the grid on demand creates value not just for homes and businesses but also for the network as a whole.

The good news is that the trend worldwide is to make it easier for smaller distributed assets, including energy storage for microgrids that support local resilience, to get the same regulatory treatment as power plants. System operators have been obligated to call up those power supplies that are the most cost-effective and that can be easily dispatched. But now regulators are giving virtual power plants comprised of solar and batteries the same treatment. 

In the United States, for example, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order in 2018 that allows storage resources to participate in wholesale markets — where electricity is bought directly from generators before selling that power to homes and businesses. Under the ruling, virtual power plants are paid the same as traditional power suppliers. A federal appeals court this month upheld the commission’s order, saying that it had the right to ensure “technological advances in energy storage are fully realized in the marketplace.” 

“In the past, we have used back-up generators,” notes AutoGrid’s Narayan. “As we move toward more automation, we are opening up the market to small assets such as battery storage and electric vehicles. As we deploy more of these assets, there will be increasing opportunities for virtual power plants.” 

Virtual power plants have the potential to change the energy horizon by harnessing locally-produced solar power and redistributing that to where it is most needed — all facilitated by cloud-based software that has a full panoramic view. At the same time, those smaller distributed assets can add more reliability and give consumers greater peace-of-mind — a dynamic that does, indeed, beef-up America’s generation and delivery network.

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Australia-PNG Infrastructure Rollout delivers electricity and broadband expansion across PNG, backed by New Zealand, the US, Japan, and South Korea, enhancing telecom capacity, digital connectivity, and regional development ahead of the APEC summit.

Key Points

A multi-billion-dollar plan to expand power and broadband in PNG, covering 70% of users with allied support.

✅ Delivers internet to 70% of PNG households and communities

✅ Expands electricity grid, boosting reliability and access

✅ Backed by NZ, US, Japan, and S. Korea; complements APEC investments

Australia will lead a new multi-billion-dollar electricity and internet rollout in Papua New Guinea, with the PM rules out taxpayer-funded power plants stance underscoring its approach to energy policy.

The Australian newspaper reported New Zealand, the US, Japan, whose utilities' offshore wind deal in the UK signaled expanding energy interests, and South Korea are supporting the project, which will be PNG's largest ever development investment.

The project will deliver internet to 70 percent of PNG and improve access to power, even as clean energy investment in developing nations has slipped sharply, according to a recent report.

Both China and the US are also expected to announce new investments in the region at the APEC summit this week, and recent China-Cambodia nuclear energy cooperation underscores those energy ties.

Beijing will announce new mining and energy investments in PNG, echoing projects such as the Chinese-built electricity poles plant in South Sudan, and two Confucius Insitutes to be housed at PNG universities.

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UK Coal-Free Grid Streak highlights record hours without coal, as renewable energy, wind and solar boost electricity generation, cutting CO2 emissions, reducing fossil fuel reliance, and accelerating grid decarbonization amid volatile gas markets.

Key Points

It is the UKs longest coal-free power run, driven by renewables, signaling decarbonization and reduced gas reliance.

✅ Record-breaking hours of electricity with zero coal generation

✅ Enabled by wind, solar, and growing offshore wind capacity

✅ Highlights need to cut gas use and expand renewable investment

Today is the fourth the UK has entered with not a watt of electricity generated by coal.

It’s the longest such streak since the 1880s and comes only days after the last modern era coal-free power record of 55 hours was set.

That represents good news for those of us who have children and would rather like there to be a planet for them to live on when we’re gone.

Coal generated power is dirty power, and not just through the carbon that gets pumped into the atmosphere when it burns.

The fact that the UK is increasingly able to call upon cleaner alternatives for its requirements, to the extent that records are being regularly broken and coal's share has fallen to record lows, is a welcome development.

The trouble is one of those alternatives is gas, and while it is better than coal it still throws off CO2, among other pollutants. The UK’s use of it, for electricity generation and most of its heating, comes with the added disadvantage of leaving it in hock to volatile international markets and producers that aren’t always friendly.

It was only last month, with the country in the middle of a cold snap, that the Grid was issuing a deficit warning (its first in eight years).

As I wrote at the time, we need to burn less of the stuff as low-carbon progress stalled in 2019 shows, too.

As such, Greenpeace’s call for more investment in renewable energy technology and generation, including solar, onshore wind and offshore wind, which is making an increasing contribution as wind beat coal in 2016 demonstrated, was well made.

Those who complain about onshore wind farms, particularly when they are built in windy places that are pretty, seem willfully blind to the pollution caused by gas.

The need to be listened to less. So do those, like British Gas owner Centrica, that bellyache about green taxes.

It bears repeating that fossil fuels are subsidised still more. It’s just that the subsidies are typically hidden.

A report issued last year by a coalition of environmental organisations found the UK provided $972m (£695m) of annual financing for fossil fuels on average between 2013 and 2015, compared with $172m for renewable energy.

But while they come up with wildly varying amounts as a result of wildly varying approaches, the OECD, the IMF and the International Energy Agency have all quantified substantial subsidies for fossils fuels. Their annual estimates have ranged from $160bn to $5.3tn (yes you read that rate and the number was the IMF’s) globally.

So by all means celebrate coal free days, and a full week without coal power as milestones. But we need more of them more quickly and we need more renewable energy to pick up the slack. As such, the philosophy and approach of government needs to change.

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