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BC Tidal Energy Micro-Grids harness predictable tidal currents to replace diesel in remote Indigenous coastal communities, integrating marine renewables, storage, and demand management for resilient off-grid power along Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii.

Key Points

Community-run tidal turbines and storage deliver reliable, diesel-free electricity to remote B.C. coastal communities.

✅ Predictable power from tidal currents reduces diesel dependence

✅ Integrates storage, demand management, and microgrid controls

✅ Local jobs via marine supply chains and community ownership

Many remote West Coast communities are reliant on diesel for electricity generation, which poses a number of negative economic and environmental effects.

But some sites along B.C.’s extensive coastline are ideal for tidal energy micro-grids that may well be the answer for off-grid communities to generate clean power, suggested experts at a COAST (Centre for Ocean Applied Sustainable Technologies) virtual event Wednesday.

There are 40 isolated coastal communities, many Indigenous communities, and 32 of them are primarily reliant on diesel for electricity generation, said Ben Whitby, program manager at PRIMED, a marine renewable energy research lab at the University of Victoria (UVic).

Besides being a costly and unreliable source of energy, there are environmental and community health considerations associated with shipping diesel to remote communities and running generators, Whitby said.

“It's not purely an economic question,” he said.

“You've got the emissions associated with diesel generation. There's also the risks of transporting diesel … and sometimes in a lot of remote communities on Vancouver Island, when deliveries of diesel don't come through, they end up with no power for three or four days at a time.”

The Heiltsuk First Nation, which suffered a 110,000-litre diesel spill in its territorial waters in 2016, is an unfortunate case study for the potential environmental, social, and cultural risks remote coastal communities face from the transport of fossil fuels along the rough shoreline.

A U.S. barge hauling fuel for coastal communities in Alaska ran aground in Gale Pass, fouling a sacred and primary Heiltsuk food-harvesting area.

There are a number of potential tidal energy sites near off-grid communities along the mainland, on both sides of Vancouver Island, and in the Haida Gwaii region, Whitby said.

Tidal energy exploits the natural ebb and flow of the coast’s tidal water using technologies like underwater kite turbines to capture currents, and is a highly predictable source of renewable energy, he said.

Micro-grids are self-reliant energy systems drawing on renewables from ocean, wave power resources, wind, solar, small hydro, and geothermal sources.

The community, rather than a public utility like BC Hydro, is responsible for demand management, storage, and generation with the power systems running independently or alongside backup fuel generators — offering the operators a measure of energy sovereignty.

Depending on proximity, cost, and renewable solutions, tidal energy isn’t necessarily the solution for every community, Whitby noted, adding that in comparison to hydro, tidal energy is still more expensive.

However, the best candidates for tidal energy are small, off-grid communities largely dependent on costly fossil fuels, Whitby said.

“That's really why the focus in B.C. is at a smaller scale,” he said.

“The time it would take (these communities) to recoup any capital investment is a lot shorter.

“And the cost is actually on a par because they're already paying a significant amount of money for that diesel-generated power.”

Lisa Kalynchuk, vice-president of research and innovation at UVic, said she was excited by the possibilities associated with tidal power, not only in B.C., but for all of Canada’s coasts.

“Canada has approximately 40,000 megawatts available on our three coastlines,” Kalynchuk said.

“Of course, not all this power can be realized, but it does exist, so that leads us to the hard part — tapping into this available energy and delivering it to those remote communities that need it.”

Challenges to establishing tidal power include the added cost and complexity of construction in remote communities, the storage of intermittent power for later use, the economic model, though B.C.’s streamlined regulatory process may ease approvals, the costs associated with tidal power installations, and financing for small communities, she said.

But smaller tidal energy projects can potentially set a track record for more nascent marine renewables, as groups like Marine Renewables Canada pivot to offshore wind development, at a lower cost and without facing the same social or regulatory resistance a large-scale project might face.

A successful tidal energy demo project was set up using a MAVI tidal turbine in Blind Channel to power a private resort on West Thurlow Island, part of the outer Discovery Islands chain wedged between Vancouver Island and the mainland, Whitby said.

The channel’s strong tidal currents, which routinely reach six knots and are close to the marina, proved a good site to test the small-scale turbine and associated micro-grid system that could be replicated to power remote communities, he said.

The mooring system, cable, and turbine were installed fairly rapidly and ran through the summer of 2017. The system is no longer active as provincial and federal funding for the project came to an end.

“But as a proof of concept, we think it was very successful,” Whitby said, adding micro-grid tidal power is still in the early stages of development.

Ideally, the project will be revived with new funding, so it can continue to act as a test site for marine renewable energy and to showcase the system to remote coastal communities that might want to consider tidal power, he said.

In addition to harnessing a local, renewable energy source and increasing energy independence, tidal energy micro-grids can fuel employment and new business opportunities, said Whitby.

The Blind Channel project was installed using the local supply chain out of nearby Campbell River, he said.

“Most of the vessels and support came from that area, so it was all really locally sourced.”

Funding from senior levels of government would likely need to be provided to set up a permanent tidal energy demonstration site, with recent tidal energy investments in Nova Scotia offering a model, or to help a community do case studies and finance a project, Whitby said.

Both the federal and provincial governments have established funding streams to transition remote communities away from relying on diesel.

But remote community projects funded federally or provincially to date have focused on more established renewables, such as hydro, solar, biomass, or wind.

The goal of B.C.’s Remote Community Energy Strategy, part of the CleanBC plan and aligned with zero-emissions electricity by 2035 targets across Canada, is to reduce diesel use for electricity 80 per cent by 2030 by targeting 22 of the largest diesel locations in the province, many of which fall along the coast.

The province has announced a number of significant investments to shift Indigenous coastal communities away from diesel-generated electricity, but they predominantly involve solar or hydro projects.

A situation that’s not likely to change, as the funding application guide in 2020 deemed tidal projects as ineligible for cash.

Yet, the potential for establishing tidal energy micro-grids in B.C. is good, Kalynchuk said, noting UVic is a hub for significant research expertise and several local companies, including ocean and river power innovators working in the region, are employing and developing related service technologies to install and maintain the systems.

“It also addresses our growing need to find alternative sources of energy in the face of the current climate crisis,” she said.

“The path forward is complex and layered, but one essential component in combating climate change is a move away from fossil fuels to other sources of energy that are renewable and environmentally friendly.”

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AI Energy Consumption strains corporate electricity bills as data centers and HPC workloads run nonstop, driving carbon emissions. Efficiency upgrades, renewable energy, and algorithm optimization help control costs and enhance sustainability across industries.

Key Points

AI Energy Consumption is the power used by AI compute and data centers, impacting costs and sustainability.

✅ Optimize cooling, hardware, and workloads to cut kWh per inference

✅ Integrate on-site solar, wind, or PPAs to offset data center power

✅ Tune models and algorithms to reduce compute and latency

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing industries with its promise of increased efficiency and productivity. However, as businesses integrate AI technologies into their operations, there's a significant and often overlooked impact: the strain on corporate electricity bills.

AI's Growing Energy Demand

The adoption of AI entails the deployment of high-performance computing systems, data centers, and sophisticated algorithms that require substantial energy consumption. These systems operate around the clock, processing massive amounts of data and performing complex computations, and, much like the impact on utilities seen with major EV rollouts, contributing to a notable increase in electricity usage for businesses.

Industries Affected

Various sectors, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and technology, rely on AI-driven applications for tasks ranging from data analysis and predictive modeling to customer service automation and supply chain optimization, while manufacturing is influenced by ongoing electric motor market growth that increases electrified processes.

Cost Implications

The rise in electricity consumption due to AI deployments translates into higher operational costs for businesses. Corporate entities must budget accordingly for increased electricity bills, which can impact profit margins and financial planning, especially in regions experiencing electricity price volatility in Europe amid market reforms. Managing these costs effectively becomes crucial to maintaining competitiveness and sustainability in the marketplace.

Sustainability Challenges

The environmental impact of heightened electricity consumption cannot be overlooked. Increased energy demand from AI technologies contributes to carbon emissions and environmental footprints, alongside rising e-mobility demand forecasts that pressure grids, posing challenges for businesses striving to meet sustainability goals and regulatory requirements.

Mitigation Strategies

To address the escalating electricity bills associated with AI, businesses are exploring various mitigation strategies:

1. Energy Efficiency Measures: Implementing energy-efficient practices, such as optimizing data center cooling systems, upgrading to energy-efficient hardware, and adopting smart energy management solutions, can help reduce electricity consumption.

2. Renewable Energy Integration: Investing in renewable energy sources like solar or wind power and energy storage solutions to enhance flexibility can offset electricity costs and align with corporate sustainability initiatives.

3. Algorithm Optimization: Fine-tuning AI algorithms to improve computational efficiency and reduce processing times can lower energy demands without compromising performance.

4. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Conducting thorough cost-benefit analyses of AI deployments to assess energy consumption against operational benefits and potential rate impacts, informed by cases where EV adoption can benefit customers in broader electricity markets, helps businesses make informed decisions and prioritize energy-saving initiatives.

Future Outlook

As AI continues to evolve and permeate more aspects of business operations, the demand for electricity will likely intensify and may coincide with broader EV demand projections that increase grid loads. Balancing the benefits of AI-driven innovation with the challenges of increased energy consumption requires proactive energy management strategies and investments in sustainable technologies.

Conclusion

The integration of AI technologies presents significant opportunities for businesses to enhance productivity and competitiveness. However, the corresponding surge in electricity bills underscores the importance of proactive energy management and sustainability practices. By adopting energy-efficient measures, leveraging renewable energy sources, and optimizing AI deployments, businesses can mitigate cost impacts, reduce environmental footprints, and foster long-term operational resilience in an increasingly AI-driven economy.

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Hydro-Québec Unified Corporate Structure advances the energy transition through integrated planning, strategy, infrastructure delivery, and customer operations, aligning generation, transmission, and distribution while ensuring non-discriminatory grid access and agile governance across assets and behind-the-meter technologies.

Key Points

A cross-functional model aligning strategy, planning, and operations to accelerate Quebec's low-carbon transition.

✅ Four groups: strategy, planning, infrastructure, operations.

✅ Ensures non-discriminatory transmission access compliance.

✅ No staff reductions; staged implementation from Feb 28.

As Hydro-Que9bec prepares to play a key role in the transition to a low-carbon economy, the complexity of the work to be done in the coming decade requires that it develop a global vision of its operations and assets, from the drop of water entering its turbines to the behind-the-meter technologies marketed by its subsidiary Hilo. This has prompted the company to implement a new corporate structure that will maximize cooperation and agility, including employee-led pandemic support that builds community trust, making it possible to bring about the energy transition efficiently with a view to supporting the realization of Quebecers’ collective aspirations.

Toward a single, unified Hydro

Hydro-Québec’s core mission revolves around four major functions that make up the company’s value chain, alongside policy choices like peak-rate relief during emergencies. These functions consist of:

1. Developing corporate strategies based on current and future challenges and business opportunities
2. Planning energy needs and effectively allocating financial capital, factoring in pandemic-related revenue impacts on demand and investment timing
3. Designing and building the energy system’s multiple components
4. Operating assets in an integrated fashion and providing the best customer experience by addressing customer choice and flexibility expectations across segments.

Accordingly, Hydro-Québec will henceforth comprise four groups respectively in charge of strategy and development; integrated energy needs planning; infrastructure and the energy system; and operations and customer experience, including billing accuracy concerns that can influence satisfaction. To enable the company to carry out its mission, these groups will be able to count on the support of other groups responsible for corporate functions.

Across Canada, leadership changes at other utilities highlight the need to rebuild ties with governments and investors, as seen with Hydro One's new CEO in Ontario.

“For over 20 years, Hydro-Québec has been operating in a vertical structure based on its main activities, namely power generation, transmission and distribution. This approach must now give way to one that provides a cross-functional perspective allowing us to take informed decisions in light of all our needs, as well as those of our customers and the society we have the privilege to serve,” explained Hydro-Québec’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Sophie Brochu.

In terms of gender parity, the management team continues to include several men and women, thus ensuring a diversity of viewpoints.

Hydro-Québec’s new structure complies with the regulatory requirements of the North American power markets, in particular with regard to the need to provide third parties with non-discriminatory access to the company’s transmission system. The frameworks in place ensure that certain functions remain separate and help coordinate responses to operational events such as urban distribution outages that challenge continuity of service.

These changes, which will be implemented gradually as of Monday, February 28, do not aim to achieve any staff reductions.

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Baltimore Substation Attack Plot highlights alleged neo-Nazi plans targeting electrical substations and the power grid, as FBI and DHS warn of domestic extremism threats to critical infrastructure, with arrests in Maryland disrupting potential sniper attacks.

Key Points

An alleged extremist plot to disable Baltimore's power grid by shooting substations, thwarted by federal arrests.

✅ Two suspects charged in Maryland conspiracy

✅ Targets included five substations around Baltimore

✅ FBI cites domestic extremism threat to infrastructure

A neo-Nazi in Florida and a Maryland woman conspired to attack several electrical substations in the Baltimore area, federal officials say.

Sarah Beth Clendaniel and Brandon Clint Russell were arrested and charged in a conspiracy to disable the power grid by shooting out substations via "sniper attacks," according to a criminal complaint from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

Clendaniel allegedly said she wanted to "completely destroy this whole city" and was planning to target five substations situated in a "ring" around Baltimore, the complaint said. Russell is part of a violent extremist group that has cells in multiple states, and he previously planned to attack critical infrastructure in Florida, the complaint said.

"This planned attack threatened lives and would have left thousands of Marylanders in the cold and dark," Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron said in a press release. "We are united and committed to using every legal means necessary to disrupt violence, including hate-fueled attacks."

The news comes as concerns grow about an increase in targeted substation attacks on U.S. substations tied to domestic extremism.

What to know about substation attacks

Federal data shows vandalism and suspicious activities at electrical facilities soared nationwide last year, and cyber actors have accessed utilities' control rooms as well.

At the end of the year, attacks or potential attacks were reported on more than a dozen substations and one power plant across five states, and Symantec documented Russia-linked Dragonfly activity targeting the energy sector earlier. Several involved firearms.

In December, targeted attacks on substations in North Carolina left tens of thousands without power amid freezing temperatures, spurring renewed focus on protecting the U.S. power grid among officials. The FBI is investigating.

Vandalism at facilities in Washington left more than 21,000 without electricity on Christmas Day, even as hackers breached power-plant systems in other states. Two men were arrested, and one told police he planned to disrupt power to commit a burglary.

The Department of Homeland Security last year said domestic extremists had been developing "credible, specific plans" since at least 2020 and would continue to "encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure," and the U.S. government has condemned Russia for power grid hacking as well.

Last February, three neo-Nazis pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to a scheme to attack the grid with rifles, with each targeting a substation in a different region of the U.S., even as reports that Russians hacked into US electric utilities drew widespread attention.

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Scotland Wind Energy delivered record renewable power as wind turbines and farms generated 9,831,320 MWh in H1 2019, supplying clean electricity for every home twice and supporting northern England, according to WWF data.

Key Points

Term for Scotland's wind power output, highlighting 2019 records, clean electricity, and progress on decarbonization.

✅ 9,831,320 MWh generated Jan-Jun 2019 by wind farms

✅ Enough to power 4.47 million homes twice in that period

✅ Advances decarbonization and 2030 renewables, 2050 net-zero goals

Wind turbines in Scotland produced enough electricity in the first half of 2019, reflecting periods when wind led the power mix across the UK, to power every home in the country twice over, according to new data by the analytics group WeatherEnergy. The wind farms generated 9,831,320 megawatt-hours between January and June, as the UK set a wind generation record in comparable periods, equal to the total electricity consumption of 4.47 million homes during that same period.

The electricity generated by wind in early 2019 is enough to power all of Scotland’s homes, as well as a large portion of northern England’s, highlighting how wind and solar exceeded nuclear in the UK in recent milestones as well, and events such as record UK output during Storm Malik underscore this capacity.

“These are amazing figures,” Robin Parker, climate and energy policy manager at WWF, which highlighted the new data, said in a statement. “Scotland’s wind energy revolution is clearly continuing to power ahead, as wind became the UK’s main electricity source in a recent first. Up and down the country, we are all benefitting from cleaner energy and so is the climate.”

Scotland currently has a target of generating half its electricity from renewables by 2030, a goal buoyed by milestones like more UK electricity from wind than coal in 2016, and decarbonizing its energy system almost entirely by 2050. Experts say the latest wind energy data shows the country could reach its goal far sooner than originally anticipated, especially with complementary technologies such as tidal power in Scottish waters gaining traction.

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BC Hydro Holiday Electricity Usage is set to rise as energy demand increases during peak 4-10 pm on Christmas and Boxing Day, driven by larger gatherings, more cooking, and eased COVID-19 restrictions province-wide.

Key Points

Expected rise in power demand on Christmas and Boxing Day evenings versus 2020, driven by larger gatherings and cooking.

✅ Peak hours 4-10 pm expected to rise in provincial load.

✅ 2020 saw 4% and 7% drops vs 2019 on Christmas and Boxing Day.

✅ Holiday lighting adds ~3% to use; switching to LED can save ~$40.

BC Hydro data showed residential electricity load in the Cariboo and throughout the province, even as drought affects generation dynamics heading into winter, dropped on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in 2020.

Northern Community Relations Manager, Bob Gammer, said the decrease was due in part to more people following the COVID-19 restrictions and not getting together for big meals, even though 2018 Earth Hour usage increased elsewhere illustrates how behavior can sometimes raise demand.

However, this year Gammer said between 4 and 10 pm on those two days, BC Hydro does expect to see a change in overall usage, aligning with all-time high demand trends reported recently in B.C.

“On Christmas Day and Boxing Day, we expect to see increases through those hours and a little bit more so between 4 and 10 pm we should see the amount of power being consumed across the province, as record-breaking 2021 demand indicated earlier, going up compared to what it was on those two days last year.”

In 2020 on Christmas Day evening hydro usage dropped by over 4 percent and Boxing Day evening decreased by 7 percent compared to 2019, whereas regions like Calgary's winter demand have seen spikes during extreme cold.

Gammer added after BC Hydro surveyed their customers and introduced a winter payment plan, they expect to see a lot more cooking happening on Christmas Day and Boxing Day this year as people are intending to have larger gatherings and visit friends.

We asked Gammer about hydro usage when it comes to homes decked out for the holidays, and how that compares to newer loads like crypto mining activity in B.C.

“The Christmas lighting displays people have, not just indoors but outdoors as well, what we’re seeing is about a 3 percent increase in electricity consumption overall through the Christmas season. If people switch, if you still have older lights that are incandescent, switch those over to LED, and through the season it could wind up saving you $40 in electricity just switching over about 8 strings of lights to LED.”

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