Nuclear power plans for Africa, Middle East

US Electricity Price Surge drives bills as BLS data show 15.8 percent jump; natural gas and coal costs escalate amid energy crisis, NYISO warns of wholesale prices and winter futures near $200 per MWh.

Key Points

A sharp rise in power bills driven by higher natural gas and coal costs and tighter wholesale markets.

✅ BLS reports electricity bills up 15.8% year over year

✅ Natural gas bills up 33% as fuel costs soar

✅ NYISO flags winter wholesale prices near $200/MWh

Electricity bills for US consumers jumped the most since 1981, gaining 15.8% from the same period a year ago, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and residential bills rose 5% in 2022 across the U.S.

Natural gas bills, which crept back up last month after dipping in July, surged 33% from the same month last year, labor data released Tuesday showed, as electricity and natural gas pricing dynamics continue to ripple through markets. Broader energy costs slipped for a second consecutive month because of lower gasoline and fuel oil prices. Even with that drop, total energy costs were still about 24% above August 2021 levels.

Electricity costs are relentlessly climbing because prices for the two biggest power-plant fuels -- natural gas and coal -- have surged in the last year as the US economy rebounds from the pandemic and as Russia’s war in Ukraine triggers an energy crisis in Europe, where German electricity prices nearly doubled over a year. Another factor is the hot and humid summer across most of the lower 48 states drove households and businesses to crank up air conditioners. Americans likely used a record amount of power in the third quarter, according to US Energy Information Administration projections, even as U.S. power demand is seen sliding 1% in 2023 on milder weather.

New York’s state grid operator warned of a “sharp rise in wholesale electric costs expected this winter” with spiking global demand for fossil fuels, lagging supply and instability from Russia’s war in Ukraine driving up oil and gas prices, with multiple energy-crisis impacts on U.S. electricity and gas still unfolding, according to a Tuesday report. Geopolitical factors are ultimately reflected in wholesale electricity prices and supply charges to consumer bills, the New York Independent System Operator said, and as utilities direct more spending to delivery rather than production.

Electricity price futures for this winter have increased fourfold from last year, and potential deep-freeze disruptions to the energy sector could add volatility, with prices averaging near $200 a megawatt-hour, the grid operator said. That has been driven by natural gas futures for the upcoming winter, which are more than double current prices to nearly $20 per million British thermal units.

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Hydro Quebec Power Consumption Record surges amid extreme cold, peak demand, and grid stress, as Hydro-Quebec urges energy conservation, load management, and reduced heating during morning and evening peaks across Montreal and southern Quebec.

Key Points

Quebec's grid hit 40,300 MW during an extreme cold snap, setting a new record and prompting conservation appeals.

✅ Lower thermostats 1-2 C in unused rooms during peak hours

✅ Delay dishwashers, dryers, and hot water use to off-peak

✅ Peak windows: 6-9 a.m. and 4-8 p.m.; import power if needed

Hydro Quebec says it has once again set a new record for power consumption, echoing record-breaking demand in B.C. in 2021 as extreme cold grips much of the province.

An extreme cold warning has been in effect across southern Quebec since Friday morning, straining the system, just as Calgary's electricity use soared during a frigid February, as Quebecers juggle staying warm and working from home.

Hydro Québec recorded consumption levels reaching 40,300 megawatts as of 8 a.m. Friday, breaking a previous record of 39,000 MW (with B.C. electricity demand hit an all-time high during a similar cold snap) that was broken during another cold snap on Jan 11. 

The publicly owned utility is now asking Quebecers to reduce their electricity consumption as much as possible today and tomorrow, a move consistent with clean electricity goals under federal climate pledges, predicting earlier in the morning the province would again reach an all-time high.

Reducing heating by just one or two degrees, especially in rooms that aren't being used, is one step that people can take to limit their consumption. They can also avoid using large appliances like the dishwasher and clothing dryer as often, and shortening the use of hot water. 

"They're small actions, but across millions of clients, it makes a difference," said Cendrix Bouchard, a spokesperson with Hydro Québec, while speaking with Tout un matin.

"We understand that asking this may pose challenges for some who are home throughout the day because they are working remotely, but if people are able to contribute, we appreciate it."

The best time to try and limit electricity usage is in the morning and evening, when electricity usage tends to peak, Bouchard said.

The province can import electricity from other regions if Quebec's system reaches its limits, even as the utility pursues selling to the United States as part of its long-term strategy, he added.

Temperatures dropped to –24 C in Montreal at 7 a.m., with a wind chill of –29 C. 

It will get colder across the south of the province through the evening and wind chills are expected to make it feel as cold as – 40 until Saturday morning, Environment Canada warned.

Those spending time outdoors are at a higher risk of frostbite and hypothermia.

"Frostbite can develop within minutes on exposed skin, especially with wind chill," Environment Canada said.

Conserving energy
Hydro-Québec has signed up 160,000 clients to a flexible billing plan similar to BC Hydro's winter payment plan that allows them to pay less for energy — as long as they use it during non-peak periods.

Quebec's energy regulator, the Régie de l'énergie, also forces crypto-currency mining operations to shut down for some hours  on peak-demand days, a topic where BC Hydro's approach to crypto mining has also drawn attention, Bouchard said.

Hydro-Québec says the highest consumption periods are usually between 6 a.m.-9 a.m. and 4 p.m.-8 p.m.

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UK Energy Switching Surge sees 600,000 customers change suppliers in October, driven by competition, the Energy Switch Guarantee, and better tariffs, with Electralink's DTN supporting customer switching and Ofgem oversight.

Key Points

A rise in UK customers switching electricity suppliers in October, driven by competition and the Energy Switch Guarantee.

✅ 600,000 switches recorded in October

✅ 32% moved to small and mid-tier suppliers

✅ Energy Switch Guarantee assures simple, safe transfers

More than 600,000 customers took steps to save on their energy bills this winter by switching electricity provider in October, as forecasts such as a 16% bill decrease in April offer further encouragement, the latest figures from Energy UK reveal.

A third (32 per cent) of those changing providers in October moved to small and mid-tier suppliers.

Regional markets have seen changes too, including Irish electricity price increases that highlight wider cost pressures.

With recent research showing that that nine in ten energy switchers were happy with the process of changing suppliers and with the reassurance provided by the Energy Switch Guarantee - a series of commitments ensuring switches are simple, speedy and safe - and amid MPs proposing price restrictions to protect consumers, more and more customers are now confident when looking to move.

Lawrence Slade, chief executive of Energy UK said: 'Switching continues to surge with over 600,000 customers changing supplier to find a better deal last month. Many more will have made savings by checking they are on the best deal with their current supplier. It only takes a few minutes to do this and with over 55 suppliers across the market, there's never been more competition or choice.'

Around 75 per cent of the market are signatories of the Guarantee. This includes: British Gas, Bulb Energy, E.ON, EDF Energy, First Utility, Flow Energy, npower, Octopus Energy, Pure Planet, Sainsbury's Energy, Scottish Power, So Energy and Tonik Energy.

The switching data is supplied by Electralink who provides a secure service to transfer data between the electricity market participants. The company operates the Data Transfer Network (DTN) which underpins customer switching, meter interoperability and other business processes critical to a competitive electricity market, where knowing where your electricity comes from can support informed choices.

The data referenced in these reports is since our collection of data only and is for electricity only.

These figures do not include internal electricity switching, and statistics on this from the larger suppliers and on Standard Variable Tariffs can be viewed on the Ofgem website, while ministers consider ending the gas-electricity price link to reduce bills.

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US power grid modernization addresses aging infrastructure, climate resilience, extreme weather, EV demand, and clean energy integration, using AI, transmission upgrades, and resilient substations to improve reliability, reduce outages, and enable rapid recovery.

Key Points

US power grid modernization strengthens infrastructure for resilience, reliability, and clean energy under rising demand.

✅ Hardening substations, lines, and transformers against extreme weather

✅ Integrating EV load, DERs, and renewables into transmission and distribution

✅ Using AI, sensors, and automation to cut outages and speed restoration

The power grid in the U.S. is aging and already struggling to meet current demand, with dangerous vulnerabilities documented across the system today. It faces a future with more people — people who drive more electric cars and heat homes with more electric furnaces.

Alice Hill says that's not even the biggest problem the country's electricity infrastructure faces.

"Everything that we've built, including the electric grid, assumed a stable climate," she says. "It looked to the extremes of the past — how high the seas got, how high the winds got, the heat."

Hill is an energy and environment expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. She served on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration, where she led the effort to develop climate resilience. She says past weather extremes can no longer safely guide future electricity planning.

"It's a little like we're building the plane as we're flying because the climate is changing right now, and it's picking up speed as it changes," Hill says.

The newly passed infrastructure package dedicates billions of dollars to updating the energy grid with smarter electricity infrastructure programs that aim to modernize operations. Hill says utility companies and public planners around the country are already having to adapt. She points to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

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"They thought the maximum would be 12 feet," she says. "That storm surge came in close to 14 feet. It overcame the barriers at the tip of Manhattan, and then the electric grid — a substation blew out. The city that never sleeps [was] plunged into darkness."

Hill noted that Con Edison, the utility company providing New York City with energy, responded with upgrades to its grid: It buried power lines, introduced artificial intelligence, upgraded software to detect failures. But upgrading the way humans assess risk, she says, is harder.

"What happens is that some people tend to think, well, that last storm that we just had, that'll be the worst, right?" Hill says. "No, there is a worse storm ahead. And then, probably, that will be exceeded."

In 2021, the U.S. saw electricity outages for millions of people as a result of historic winter storms in Texas, a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest and Hurricane Ida along the Gulf Coast. Climate change will only make extreme weather more likely and more intense, driving longer, more frequent outages for utilities and customers.

In the West, California's grid reliability remains under scrutiny as the state navigates an ambitious clean energy shift.

And that has forced utility companies and other entities to grapple with the question: How can we prepare for blackouts and broader system stress we've never experienced before?

A modern power station in Maryland is built for the future
In the town of Edgemere, Md., the Fitzell substation of Baltimore Gas and Electric delivers electricity to homes and businesses. The facility is only a year or so old, and Laura Wright, the director of transmission and substation engineering, says it's been built with the future in mind.

She says the four transformers on site are plenty for now. And to counter the anticipated demand of population growth and a future reliance on electric cars, she says the substation has been designed for an easy upgrade.

"They're not projecting to need that additional capacity for a while, but we designed this station to be able to take that transformer out and put in a larger one," Wright says.

Slopes were designed to insulate the substation from sea level rise. And should the substation experience something like a catastrophic flooding event or deadly tornado, there's a plan for that too.

"If we were to have a failure of a transformer," Wright says, "we can bring one of those mobile transformers into the substation, park it in the substation, connect it up in place of that transformer. And we can do that in two to three days."

The Fitzell substation is a new, modern complex. Older sites can be knocked down for weeks.

That raises the question: Can the amount of money dedicated to the power grid in the new infrastructure legislation actually make meaningful changes to the energy system across the country, where studies find more blackouts than other developed nations persist?

"The infrastructure bill, unfortunately, only scratches the surface," says Daniel Cohan, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.

Though the White House says $65 billion of the infrastructure legislation is dedicated to power infrastructure, a World Resources Institute analysis noted that only $27 billion would go to the electric grid — a figure that Cohan also used.

"If you drill down into how much is there for the power grid, it's only about $27 billion or so, and mainly for research and demonstration projects and some ways to get started," he says.

Cohan, who is also author of the forthcoming book Confronting Climate Gridlock, says federal taxpayer dollars can be significant but that most of the needed investment will eventually come from the private sector — from utility companies and other businesses spending "many hundreds of billions of dollars per decade," even as grid modernization affordability remains a concern. He also says the infrastructure package "misses some opportunities" to initiate that private-sector action through mandates.

"It's better than nothing, but, you know, with such momentous challenges that we face, this isn't really up to the magnitude of that challenge," Cohan says.

Cohan argues that thinking big, and not incrementally, can pay off. He believes a complete transition from fossil fuels to clean energy by 2035 is realistic and attainable — a goal the Biden administration holds — and could lead to more than just environmental benefit.

"It also can lead to more affordable electricity, more reliable electricity, a power supply that bounces back more quickly when these extreme events come through," he says. "So we're not just doing it to be green or to protect our air and climate, but we can actually have a much better, more reliable energy supply in the future."

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UK 2-GW Substation strengthens National Grid power transmission in Kent, enabling offshore wind integration, voltage regulation, and grid modernization to meet rising electricity demand and support the UK energy transition with resilient, reliable infrastructure.

Key Points

National Grid facility in Kent that steps voltage, regulates power, and connects offshore wind to strengthen UK grid.

✅ Adds 2 GW capacity to meet rising electricity demand

✅ Integrates offshore wind farms into transmission network

✅ Improves reliability, voltage control, and grid resilience

The United Kingdom has strengthened its national power grid with the commissioning of a major new 2-gigawatt capacity substation in Kent. This massive project, a key part of the National Grid's ongoing efforts to modernize and expand power transmission infrastructure, including plans to fast-track grid connections across critical projects, will play a critical role in supporting the UK's energy transition and growing electricity demands.

What is a Substation?

Substations are vital components of electricity grids. They serve as connection points, transforming high voltage electricity from power plants to lower voltages suitable for homes and businesses. They also help to regulate voltage levels, and, where appropriate, interface with expanding HVDC technology initiatives, ensuring stable electricity delivery.  Modern substations often act as hubs, supporting the integration of renewable power sources with the main electricity network.

Why This Substation Is Important

The new 2-gigawatt capacity substation is significant for several reasons:

• Expanding Capacity: It adds significant capacity to the UK's grid, enabling the transmission of large amounts of electricity to where it's needed. This capacity boost is crucial for supporting growing electricity demand as the UK shifts its energy mix towards renewable sources.
• Integrating Renewables: The substation will aid in integrating substantial amounts of offshore wind power, as projects like the Scotland-England subsea link illustrate, helping the UK achieve its ambitious clean energy goals. Offshore wind farms are a booming source of renewable energy in the UK, and ensuring reliable connections to the grid is essential in maximizing their potential.
• Future-Proofing the Grid: The newly commissioned substation helps bolster the reliability and resilience of the UK's power transmission network, where reducing losses with superconducting cables could further enhance efficiency. It will play a key role in securing electricity supplies as older power plants are decommissioned and renewable energy sources become more dominant.

A Landmark Project

The commissioning of this substation is a major achievement for the National Grid, amid an independent operator transition underway in the sector, and UK energy infrastructure upgrades. The sheer scale of the project required extensive planning and collaboration with various stakeholders, underscoring the complexity of upgrading the nation's power grid to meet future needs.

The Path Towards a Cleaner Grid

The new substation is not an isolated project. It is part of a broader, multi-year effort by the National Grid to modernize and expand the country's power grid.  This entails building new transmission lines and urban conduits such as London's newest electricity tunnel now in service, investing in storage technologies, and adapting infrastructure to accommodate the shift towards distributed energy generation, where power is generated closer to the point of use.

Beyond Substations

While projects like the new 2-gigawatt substation are crucial, ensuring a successful energy transition requires more than just infrastructure upgrades. Continued support for renewable energy development, highlighted by recent offshore wind power milestones that demonstrate grid-readiness, investment in emerging energy storage solutions, and smart grid technology that leverages data for effective grid management are all important components of building a cleaner and more resilient energy future for the UK.

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US Summer Electricity Outlook 2022 projects rising renewable energy generation as utility-scale solar and wind capacity additions surge, while coal declines and natural gas shifts amid higher fuel prices and regional supply constraints.

Key Points

An EIA forecast of summer 2022 power: more solar and wind, less coal, and shifting gas use amid higher fuel prices.

✅ Solar +10 million MWh; wind +8 million MWh vs last summer

✅ Coal generation -20 million MWh amid supply constraints, retirements

✅ Gas prices near $9/MMBtu; slight national gen decline

In our Summer Electricity Outlook, a supplement to our May 2022 Short-Term Energy Outlook, we expect the largest increases in U.S. electric power sector generation this summer will come from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar generation. These increases are the result of new capacity additions. We forecast utility-scale solar generation between June and August 2022 will grow by 10 million megawatthours (MWh) compared with the same period last summer, and wind generation will grow by 8 million MWh. Forecast generation from coal and natural gas declines by 26 million MWh this summer, although natural gas generation could increase in some electricity markets where coal supplies are constrained.

For recent context, overall U.S. power generation in January rose 9.3% year over year, the EIA reports.

Wind and solar power electric-generating capacity has been growing steadily in recent years. By the start of June, we estimate the U.S. electric power sector will have 65 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar-generating capacity, a 31% increase in solar capacity since June 2021. Almost one-third of this new solar capacity will be built in the Texas electricity market. The electric power sector will also have an estimated 138 GW of wind capacity online this June, which is a 12% increase from last June.

Along with growth in renewables capacity, we expect that an additional 6 GW of new natural gas combined-cycle generating capacity will come online by June 2022, an increase of 2% from last summer. Despite this increase in capacity, we expect natural gas-fired electricity generation at the national level will be slightly (1.3%) lower than last summer.

We forecast the price of natural gas delivered to electric generators will average nearly $9 per million British thermal units between June and August 2022, which would be more than double the average price last summer. The higher expected natural gas prices and growth in renewable generation will likely lead to less natural gas-fired generation in some regions of the country.

In contrast to renewables and natural gas, the electricity industry has been steadily retiring coal-fired power plants over the past decade. Between June 2021 and June 2022, the electric power sector will have retired 6 GW (2%) of U.S. coal-fired generating capacity.

In previous years, higher natural gas prices would have resulted in more coal-fired electricity generation across the fleet. However, coal-fired power plants have been limited in their ability to replenish their historically low inventories in recent months as a result of mine closures, rail capacity constraints, and labor market tightness. These coal supply constraints, along with continued retirement of generating capacity, contribute to our forecast that U.S. coal-fired generation will decline by 20 million MWh (7%) this summer. In some regions of the country, these coal supply constraints may lead to increased natural gas-fired electricity generation despite higher natural gas prices.
 

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