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Hydro-Quebec hydropower exports deliver low-carbon electricity to New England, sparking debate on greenhouse gas accounting, grid attributes, and REC-style certificates as Quebec modernizes monitoring to verify emissions, integrate renewables, and meet ambitious climate targets.

Key Points

Low-carbon electricity to New England, with improved emissions tracking and verifiable grid attributes.

✅ Deep, narrow reservoirs cut lifecycle GHGs in cold boreal waters

✅ Attribute certificates trace source, type, and carbon intensity

✅ Contracts require facility-level tagging for compliance

For 40 years, through the most vicious interprovincial battles, even as proposals for bridging the Alberta-B.C. gap aimed to improve grid resilience, Canadians could agree on one way Quebec is undeniably superior to the rest of the country.

It’s hydropower, and specifically the mammoth dam system in Northern Quebec that has been paying dividends since it was first built in the 70s. “Quebec continues to boast North America’s lowest electricity prices,” was last year’s business-as-usual update in one trade publication, even as Newfoundland's rate strategy seeks relief for consumers.

With climate crisis looming, that long-ago decision earns even more envy and reflects Canada's electricity progress across the grid today. Not only do they pay less, but Quebeckers also emit the least carbon per capita of any province.

It may surprise most Canadians, then, to hear how most of New England has reacted to the idea of being able to buy permanently into Quebec’s power grid.

​​​​​​Hydro-Québec’s efforts to strike major export deals have been rebuffed in the U.S., by environmentalists more than anyone. They question everything about Quebec hydropower, including asking “is it really low-carbon?”

These doubts may sound nonsensical to regular Quebeckers. But airing them has, in fact, pushed Hydro-Québec to learn more about itself and adopt new technology.

We know far more about hydropower than we knew 40 years ago, including whether it’s really zero-emission (it’s not), how to make it as close to zero-emission as possible, and how to account for it as precisely as new clean energies like solar and wind, underscoring how cleaning up Canada's electricity is vital to meeting climate pledges.

The export deals haven’t gone through yet, but they’ve already helped drag Hydro-Québec—roughly the fourth-biggest hydropower system on the planet—into the climate era.

Fighting to export
One of the first signs of trouble for Quebec hydro was in New Hampshire, almost 10 years ago. People there began pasting protest signs on their barns and buildings. One citizens’ group accused Hydro of planning a “monstrous extension cord” across the state.

Similar accusations have since come from Maine, Massachusetts and New York.

The criticism isn’t coming from state governments, which mostly want a more permanent relationship with Hydro-Québec. They already rely on Quebec power, but in a piecemeal way, topping up their own power grid when needed (with the exception of Vermont, which has a small permanent contract for Quebec hydropower).

Last year, Quebec provided about 15 percent of New England’s total power, plus another substantial amount to New York, which is officially not considered to be part of New England, and has its own energy market separate from the New England grid.

Now, northeastern states need an energy lynch pin, rather than a top-up, with existing power plants nearing the end of their lifespans. In Massachusetts, for example, one major nuclear plant shut down this year and another will be retired in 2021. State authorities want a hydro-based energy plan that would send $10 billion to Hydro-Québec over 20 years.

New England has some of North America’s most ambitious climate goals, with every state in the region pledging to cut emissions by at least 80 percent over the next 30 years.

What’s the downside? Ask the citizens’ groups and nonprofits that have written countless op-eds, organized petitions and staged protests. They argue that hydropower isn’t as clean as cutting-edge clean energy such as solar and wind power, and that Hydro-Québec isn’t trying hard enough to integrate itself into the most innovative carbon-counting energy system. Right as these other energy sources finally become viable, they say, it’s a step backwards to commit to hydro.

As Hydro-Québec will point out, many of these critics are legitimate nonprofits, but others may have questionable connections. The Portland Press Herald in Maine reported in September 2018 that a supposedly grassroot citizens’ group called “Stand Up For Maine” was actually funded by the New England Power Generators Association, which is based in Boston and represents such power plant owners as Calpine Corp., Vistra Energy and NextEra Energy.

But in the end, that may not matter. Arguably the biggest motivator to strike these deals comes not from New England’s needs, but from within Quebec. The province has spent more than $10 billion in the last 15 years to expand its dam and reservoir system, and in order to stay financially healthy, it needs to double its revenue in the next 10 years—a plan that relies largely on exports.

With so much at stake, it has spent the last decade trying to prove it can be an energy of the future.

“Learning as you go”
American critics, justified or not, have been forcing advances at Hydro for a long time.

When the famously huge northern Quebec hydro dams were built at James Bay—construction began in the early 1970s—the logic was purely economic. The term “climate change” didn’t exist. The province didn’t even have an environment department.

The only reason Quebec scientists started trying to measure carbon emissions from hydro reservoirs was “basically because of the U.S.,” said Alain Tremblay, a senior environmental advisor at Hydro Quebec.

Alain Tremblay, senior environmental advisor at Hydro-Québec. Photograph courtesy of Hydro-Québec
In the early 1990s, Hydro began to export power to the U.S., and “because we were a good company in terms of cost and efficiency, some Americans didn't like that,” he said—mainly competitors, though he couldn’t say specifically who. “They said our reservoirs were emitting a lot of greenhouse gases.”

The detractors had no research to back up that claim, but Hydro-Québec had none to refute it, either, said Tremblay. “At that time we didn’t have any information, but from back-of-the envelope calculations, it was impossible to have the emissions the Americans were expecting we have.”

So research began, first to design methods to take the measurements, and then to carry them out. Hydro began a five-year project with a Quebec university.

It took about 10 years to develop a solid methodology, Tremblay said, with “a lot of error and learning-as-you-go.” There have been major strides since then.

“Twenty years ago we were taking a sample of water, bringing it back to the lab and analyzing that with what we call a gas chromatograph,” said Tremblay. “Now, we have an automated system that can measure directly in the water,” reading concentrations of CO2 and methane every three hours and sending its data to a processing centre.

The tools Hydro-Québec uses are built in California. Researchers around the world now follow the same standard methods.

At this point, it’s common knowledge that hydropower does emit greenhouse gases. Experts know these emissions are much higher than previously thought.

Workers on the Eastmain-1 project environmental monitoring program. Photography courtesy of Alain Tremblay.
​But Hydro-Québec now has the evidence, also, to rebut the original accusations from the early 1990s and many similar ones today.

“All our research from Université Laval [found] that it’s about a thousand years before trees decompose in cold Canadian waters,” said Tremblay.

Hydro reservoirs emit greenhouse gases because vegetation and sometimes other biological materials, like soil runoff, decay under the surface.

But that decay depends partly on the warmth of the water. In tropical regions, including the southern U.S., hydro dams can have very high emissions. But in boreal zones like northern Quebec (or Manitoba, Labrador and most other Canadian locations with massive hydro dams), the cold, well-oxygenated water vastly slows the process.

Hydro emissions have “a huge range,” said Laura Scherer, an industrial ecology professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands who led a study of almost 1,500 hydro dams around the world.

“It can be as low as other renewable energy sources, but it can also be as high as fossil fuel energy,” in rare cases, she said.

While her study found that climate was important, the single biggest factor was “sizing and design” of each dam, and specifically its shape, she said. Ideally, hydro dams should be deep and narrow to minimize surface area, perhaps using a natural valley.

Hydro-Québec’s first generation of dams, the ones around James Bay, were built the opposite way—they’re wide and shallow, infamously flooding giant tracts of land.

Alain Tremblay, senior environmental advisor at Hydro-Québec testing emission levels. Photography courtesy of Alain Tremblay
Newly built ones take that new information into account, said Tremblay. Its most recent project is the Romaine River complex, which will eventually include four reservoirs near Quebec’s northeastern border with Labrador. Construction began in 2016.

The site was picked partly for its topography, said Tremblay.

“It’s a valley-type reservoir, so large volume, small surface area, and because of that there’s a pretty limited amount of vegetation that’s going to be flooded,” he said.

There’s a dramatic emissions difference with the project built just before that, commissioned in 2006. Called Eastmain, it’s built near James Bay.

“The preliminary results indicate with the same amount of energy generated [by Romaine] as with Eastmain, you’re going to have about 10 times less emissions,” said Tremblay.

Tracing energy to its source
These signs of progress likely won’t satisfy the critics, who have publicly argued back and forth with Hydro about exactly how emissions should be tallied up.

But Hydro-Québec also faces a different kind of growing gap when it comes to accounting publicly for its product. In the New England energy market, a sophisticated system “tags” all the energy in order to delineate exactly how much comes from which source—nuclear, wind, solar, and others—and allows buyers to single out clean power, or at least the bragging rights to say they bought only clean power.

Really, of course, it’s all the same mix of energy—you can’t pick what you consume. But creating certificates prevents energy producers from, in worst-case scenarios, being able to launder regular power through their clean-power facilities. Wind farms, for example, can’t oversell what their own turbines have produced.

What started out as a fraud prevention tool has “evolved to make it possible to also track carbon emissions,” said Deborah Donovan, Massachusetts director at the Acadia Center, a climate-focused nonprofit.

But Hydro-Québec isn’t doing enough to integrate itself into this system, she says.

It’s “the tool that all of our regulators in New England rely on when we are confirming to ourselves that we’ve met our clean energy and our carbon goals. And…New York has a tool just like that,” said Donovan. “There isn’t a tracking system in Canada that’s comparable, though provinces like Nova Scotia are tapping the Western Climate Initiative for technical support.”

Hydro Quebec Chénier-Vignan transmission line crossing the Outaouais river. Photography courtesy of Hydro-Québec
Developing this system is more a question of Canadian climate policy than technology.

Energy companies have long had the same basic tracking device—a meter, said Tanya Bodell, a consultant and expert in New England’s energy market. But in New England, on top of measuring “every time there’s a physical flow of electricity” from a given source, said Bodell, a meter “generates an attribute or a GIS certificate,” which certifies exactly where it’s from. The certificate can show the owner, the location, type of power and its average emissions.

Since 2006, Hydro-Québec has had the ability to attach the same certificates to its exports, and it sometimes does.

“It could be wind farm generation, even large hydro these days—we can do it,” said Louis Guilbault, who works in regulatory affairs at Hydro-Québec. For Quebec-produced wind energy, for example, “I can trade those to whoever’s willing to buy it,” he said.

But, despite having the ability, he also has the choice not to attach a detailed code—which Hydro doesn’t do for most of its hydropower—and to have it counted instead under the generic term of “system mix.”

Once that hydropower hits the New England market, the administrators there have their own way of packaging it. The market perhaps “tries to determine emissions, GHG content,” Guilbault said. “They have their own rules; they do their own calculations.”

This is the crux of what bothers people like Donovan and Bodell. Hydro-Québec is fully meeting its contractual obligations, since it’s not required to attach a code to every export. But the critics wish it would, whether by future obligation or on its own volition.

Quebec wants it both ways, Donovan argued; it wants the benefits of selling low-emission energy without joining the New England system of checks and balances.

“We could just buy undifferentiated power and be done with it, but we want carbon-free power,” Donovan said. “We’re buying it because of its carbon content—that’s the reason.”

Still, the requirements are slowly increasing. Under Hydro-Québec’s future contract with Massachusetts (which still has several regulatory steps to go through before it’s approved) it’s asked to sell the power’s attributes, not just the power itself. That means that, at least on paper, Massachusetts wants to be able to trace the energy back to a single location in Quebec.

“It’s part of the contract we just signed with them,” said Guilbault. “We’re going to deliver those attributes. I’m going to select a specific hydro facility, put the number in...and transfer that to the buyers.”

Hydro-Québec says it’s voluntarily increasing its accounting in other ways. “Even though this is not strictly required,” said spokeswoman Lynn St. Laurent, Hydro is tracking its entire output with a continent-wide registry, the North American Renewables Registry.

That registry is separate from New England’s, so as far as Bodell is concerned, the measure doesn’t really help. But she and others also expect the entire tracking system to grow and mature, perhaps integrating into one. If it had been created today, in fact, rather than in the 1990s, maybe it would use blockchain technology rather than a varied set of administrators, she said.

Counting emissions through tracking still has a long way to go, as well, said Donovan, and it will increasingly matter in Canada's race to net-zero as standards tighten. For example, natural gas is assigned an emissions number that’s meant to reflect the emissions when it’s consumed. But “we do not take into account what the upstream carbon emissions are through the pipeline leakage, methane releases during fracking, any of that,” she said.

Now that the search for exactitude has begun, Hydro-Québec won’t be exempt, whether or not Quebeckers share that curiosity. “We don’t know what Hydro-Québec is doing on the other side of the border,” said Donovan.

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Europe's Nuclear Energy Policy shapes responses to the energy crisis, soaring gas prices, EU taxonomy rules, net-zero goals, renewables integration, baseload security, SMRs, and Russia-Ukraine geopolitics, exposing cultural, financial, and environmental divides.

Key Points

A policy guiding nuclear exits or expansion to balance energy security, net-zero goals, costs, and EU taxonomy.

✅ Divergent national stances: phase-outs vs. new builds

✅ Costs, delays, and waste challenge large reactors

✅ SMRs, renewables, and gas shape net-zero pathways

As the Fukushima disaster unfolded in Japan in 2011, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a dramatic decision that delighted her country’s anti-nuclear movement: all reactors would be ditched.

What couldn’t have been predicted was that Europe would find itself mired in one of the worst energy crises in its history. A decade later, the continent’s biggest economy has shut down almost all its capacity already. The rest will be switched off at the end of 2022 — at the worst possible time.

Wholesale power prices are more than four times what they were at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Governments are having to take emergency action to support domestic and industrial consumers faced with crippling bills, which could rise higher if the tension over Ukraine escalates. The crunch has not only exposed Europe’s supply vulnerabilities, but also the entrenched cultural and political divisions over the nuclear industry and a failure to forge a collective vision. 

Other regions meanwhile are cracking on, challenging the idea that nuclear power is in decline worldwide. China is moving fast on nuclear to try to clean up its air quality. Its suite of reactors is on track to surpass that of the U.S., the world’s largest, by as soon as the middle of this decade. Russia is moving forward with new stations at home and has more than 20 reactors confirmed or planned for export construction, according to the World Nuclear Association.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to see consensus across Europe with regards to the continued running of existing assets, let alone the construction of new ones,” said Peter Osbaldstone, research director for power and renewables at Wood Mackenzie Group Ltd. in the U.K. “It’s such a massive polarizer of opinions that national energy policy is required in strength over a sustained period to support new nuclear investment.” 

France, Europe’s most prolific nuclear energy producer, is promising an atomic renaissance as its output becomes less reliable. Britain plans to replace aging plants in the quest for cleaner, more reliable energy sources. The Netherlands wants to add more capacity, Poland also is seeking to join the nuclear club, and Finland is starting to produce electricity later this month from its first new plant in four decades. 

Belgium and Spain, meanwhile, are following Germany’s lead in abandoning nuclear, albeit on different timeframes. Austria rejected it in a referendum in 1978.

Nuclear power is seen by its proponents as vital to reaching net-zero targets worldwide. Once built, reactors supply low-carbon electricity all the time, unlike intermittent wind or solar.

Plants, though, take a decade or more to construct at best and the risk is high of running over time and over budget. Finland’s new Olkiluoto-3 unit is coming on line after a 12-year delay and billions of euros in financial overruns. 

Then there’s the waste, which stays hazardous for 100,000 years. For those reasons European Union members are still quarreling over whether nuclear even counts as sustainable.

Electorates are also split. Polling by YouGov Plc published in December found that Danes, Germans and Italians were far more nuclear-skeptic than the French, British or Spanish. 

“It comes down to politics,” said Vince Zabielski, partner at New York-based law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, who was a nuclear engineer for 15 years. “Everything political ebbs and flows, but when the lights start going off people have a completely different perspective.”

What’s Behind Europe’s Skyrocketing Energy Prices

Indeed, there’s a risk of rolling blackouts this winter. Supply concerns plaguing Europe have sent gas and electricity prices to record levels and inflation has ballooned. There’s also mounting tension with Russia over a possible invasion of Ukraine, which could lead to disrupted supplies of gas. All this is strengthening the argument that Europe needs to reduce its dependence on international sources of gas.

Europe will need to invest 500 billion euros ($568 billion) in nuclear over the next 30 years to meet growing demand for electricity and achieve its carbon reduction targets, according to Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner. His comments come after the bloc unveiled plans last month to allow certain natural gas and nuclear energy projects to be classified as sustainable investments. 

“Nuclear power is a very long-term investment and investors need some kind of guarantee that it will generate a payoff,” said Elina Brutschin at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. In order to survive in liberalized economies like the EU, the technology needs policy support to help protect investors, she said.

That already looks like a tall order. The European Commission has been told by a key expert group that the labeling risks raising greenhouse gas emissions and undermining the bloc’s reputation as a bastion for environmentally friendly finance.

Austria has threatened to sue the European Commission over attempts to label atomic energy as green. The nation previously attempted a legal challenge, when the U.K. was still an EU member, to stop the construction of Electricite de France SA’s Hinkley Point C plant, in the west of England. It has also commenced litigation against new Russia-backed projects in neighboring Hungary.

Germany, which has missed its carbon emissions targets for the past two years, has been criticized by some environmentalists and climate scientists for shutting down a supply of clean power at the worst time, despite arguments for a nuclear option for climate policy. Its final three reactors will be halted this year. Yet that was never going to be reversed with the Greens part of the new coalition government. 

The contribution of renewables in Germany has almost tripled since the year before Fukushima, and was 42% of supply last year. That’s a drop from 46% from the year before and means the country’s new government will have to install some 3 gigawatts of renewables — equivalent to the generating capacity of three nuclear reactors — every year this decade to hit the country's 80% goal.

“Other countries don’t have this strong political background that goes back to three decades of anti-nuclear protests,” said Manuel Koehler, managing director of Aurora Energy Research Ltd., a company analyzing power markets and founded by Oxford University academics. 

At the heart of the issue is that countries with a history of nuclear weapons will be more likely to use the fuel for power generation. They will also have built an industry and jobs in civil engineering around that.

Germany’s Greens grew out of anti-nuclear protest movements against the stationing of U.S. nuclear missiles in West Germany. The 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, which sent plumes of radioactive fallout wafting over parts of western Europe, helped galvanize the broader population. Nuclear phase-out plans were originally laid out in 2002, but were put on hold by the country's conservative governments. The 2011 Fukushima meltdowns reinvigorated public debate, ultimately prompting Merkel to implement them.

It’s not easy to undo that commitment, said Mark Hibbs, a Bonn, Germany-based nuclear analyst at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, or to envision any resurgence of nuclear in Germany soon: “These are strategic decisions, that have been taken long in advance.”

In France, President Emmanuel Macron is about to embark on a renewed embrace of nuclear power, even as a Franco-German nuclear dispute complicates the debate. The nation produces about two-thirds of its power from reactors and is the biggest exporter of electricity in Europe. Notably, that includes anti-nuclear Germany and Austria.

EDF, the world’s biggest nuclear plant operator, is urging the French government to support construction of six new large-scale reactors at an estimated cost of about 50 billion euros. The first of them would start generating in 2035.

But even France has faced setbacks. Development of new projects has been put on hold after years of technical issues at the Flamanville-3 project in Normandy. The plant is now scheduled to be completed next year. 

In the U.K., Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said that the global gas price crisis underscores the need for more home-generated clean power. By 2024, five of Britain’s eight plants will be shuttered because they are too old. Hinkley Point C is due to be finished in 2026 and the government will make a final decision on another station before an election due in 2024. 

One solution is to build small modular reactors, or SMRs, which are quicker to construct and cheaper. The U.S. is at the forefront of efforts to design smaller nuclear systems with plans also underway in the U.K. and France. Yet they too have faced delays. SMR designs have existed for decades though face the same challenging economic metrics and safety and security regulations of big plants.

The trouble, as ever, is time. “Any investment decisions you make now aren’t going to come to fruition until the 2030s,” said Osbaldstone, the research director at Wood Mackenzie. “Nuclear isn’t an answer to the current energy crisis.”

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India Industrial Output Slowdown deepens as power demand slumps, IIP contracts, and electricity, manufacturing, and mining weaken; capital goods plunge while RBI rate cuts struggle to lift GDP growth, infrastructure, and fuel demand.

Key Points

A downturn where IIP contracts as power demand, manufacturing, mining, and capital goods fall despite RBI rate cuts.

✅ IIP fell 4.3% in Sep, worst since Feb 2013.

✅ Power demand dropped for a third month, signaling weak industry.

✅ Capital goods output plunged 20.7%, highlighting weak investment.

India's power demand fell at the fastest pace in at least 12 years in October, signalling a continued decline in the industrial output, mirroring how China's power demand dropped when plants were shuttered, according to government data. Electricity has about 8% weighting in the country's index for industrial production.

India needs electricity to fuel its expanding economy and has at times rationed coal supplies when demand surged, but a third decline in power consumption in as many months points to tapering industrial activity in a nation that aims to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024.

India's industrial output fell at the fastest pace in over six years in September, adding to a series of weak indicators that suggests that the country’s economic slowdown is deep-rooted and interest rate cuts alone may not be enough to revive growth.

Annual industrial output contracted 4.3% in September, government data showed on Monday. It was the worst performance since a 4.4% contraction in February 2013, according to Refinitiv data.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast industrial output to fall 2% for the month.

“A contraction of industrial production by 4.3% in September is serious and indicative of a significant slowdown as both investment and consumption demand have collapsed,” said Rupa Rege Nitsure, chief economist of L&T Finance Holdings.

The industrial output figure is the latest in a series of worrying economic data in Asia's third largest economy, which is also the world's third-largest electricity producer as well.

Economists say that weak series of data could mean economic growth for July-September period will remain near April-June quarter levels of 5%, which was a six-year low, and some analysts argue for rewiring India's electricity to bolster productivity. The Indian government is likely to release April-September economic growth figures by the end of this month.

Subdued inflation and an economic slowdown have prompted the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut interest rates by a total of 135 basis points this year, while coal and electricity shortages eased in recent months.

“These are tough times for the RBI, as it cannot do much about it but there will be pressures on it to act ...Blunt tools like monetary policy may not be effective anymore,” Nitsure said.

Data showed in September mining sector fell 8.5%, while manufacturing and electricity fell 3.9% and 2.6% respectively, even as imported coal volumes rose during April-October. Capital goods output during the month fell 20.7%, indicating sluggish demand.

“IIP (Index of Industrial Production) growth in October 2019 is also likely to be in negative territory and only since November 2019 one can expect mild IIP expansion, said Devendra Kumar Pant, Chief Economist and Senior Director, Public Finance, India Ratings & Research (Fitch Group).

Infrastructure output, which comprises eight main sectors, in September showed a contraction of 5.2%, the worst in 14 years, even as global daily electricity demand fell about 15% during pandemic lockdowns.

India's fuel demand fell to its lowest in more than two years in September, with consumption of diesel to its lowest levels since January 2017. Diesel and gasoline together make up over 7.4% of the IIP weightage.

In 2019/20 India's fuel demand — also seen as an indicator of economic and industrial activity — is expected to post the slowest growth in about six years.

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National Grid Cybersecurity Component Removal signals NCSC and GCHQ oversight of critical infrastructure, replacing NR Electric and Nari Technology grid control systems to mitigate supply chain risk, cyber threats, and blackout risk.

Key Points

A UK move to remove China-linked grid components after NCSC/GCHQ advice, reducing cyber and blackout risks.

✅ NCSC advice to remove NR Electric components

✅ GCHQ-linked review flags critical infrastructure risks

✅ Aims to cut blackout risk and supply chain exposure

Britain's National Grid has started removing components supplied by a unit of China-backed Nari Technology's from the electricity transmission network over cybersecurity fears, reflecting a wider push on protecting the power grid across critical sectors.

The decision came in April after the utility sought advice from the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), a branch of the nation's signals intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), amid campaigns like the Dragonfly campaign documented by Symantec, the newspaper quoted a Whitehall official as saying.

National Grid declined to comment citing "confidential contractual matters." "We take the security of our infrastructure very seriously and have effective controls in place to protect our employees and critical assets, while preparing for an independent operator transition in Great Britain, to ensure we can continue to reliably, safely and securely transmit electricity," it said in a statement.

The report said an employee at the Nari subsidiary, NR Electric Company-U.K., had said the company no longer had access to sites where the components were installed, at a time when utilities worldwide have faced control-room intrusions by state-linked hackers, and that National Grid did not disclose a reason for terminating the contracts.

It quoted another person it did not name as saying the decision was based on NR Electric Company-U.K.'s components that help control and balance the grid, respond to work-from-home demand shifts, and minimize the risk of blackouts.

It was unclear whether the components remained in the electricity transmission network, the report said, amid reports of U.S. power plant breaches that have heightened vigilance.

NR Electric Company-U.K., GCHQ and the Chinese Embassy in London did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside of business hours.

Britain's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said that it did not comment on the individual business decisions taken by private organizations. "As a government department we work closely with the private sector to safeguard our national security, and to support efforts to fast-track grid connections across the network," it said in a statement.
 

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Ontario SMR BWRX-300 leads Canada in next-gen nuclear energy at Darlington, with GE Vernova and Hitachi, delivering clean, reliable power via modular design, passive safety, scalability, and lower costs for grid integration.

Key Points

Ontario SMR BWRX-300 is a 300 MW modular boiling water reactor at Darlington with passive safety and clean power.

✅ 300 MW BWR supplies power for about 300,000 homes

✅ Passive safety enables safe shutdown without external power

✅ Modular design reduces costs and speeds grid integration

Ontario has initiated the construction of Canada's first small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), supported by OPG's SMR commitment to deployment, marking a significant milestone in the province's energy strategy. This development positions Ontario at the forefront of next-generation nuclear technology within the G7 nations.

The project, known as the Darlington New Nuclear Project, is being led by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in collaboration with GE Vernova and Hitachi Nuclear Energy, and through its OPG-TVA partnership on new nuclear technology development. The chosen design is the BWRX-300, a 300-megawatt boiling water reactor that is approximately one-tenth the size and complexity of traditional nuclear reactors. The first unit is expected to be operational by 2029, with plans for additional units to follow.

Each BWRX-300 reactor is projected to supply electricity to about 300,000 homes, contributing to Ontario's efforts, which include the decision to refurbish Pickering B for additional baseload capacity, to meet the anticipated 75% increase in electricity demand by 2050. The compact design of the SMR allows for easier integration into existing infrastructure, reducing the need for extensive new transmission lines.

The economic impact of the project is substantial. The construction of four such reactors is expected to create up to 18,000 jobs and contribute approximately $38.5 billion CAD to the Canadian economy, reflecting the economic benefits of nuclear projects over 65 years. The modular nature of SMRs also allows for scalability, with each additional unit potentially reducing costs through economies of scale.

Safety is a paramount consideration in the design of the BWRX-300. The reactor employs passive safety features, meaning it can safely shut down without the need for external power or operator intervention. This design enhances the reactor's resilience to potential emergencies, aligning with stringent regulatory standards.

Ontario's commitment to nuclear energy is further demonstrated by its plans for four SMRs at the Darlington site. This initiative reflects a broader strategy to diversify the province's energy mix, incorporating clean and reliable power sources to complement renewable energy efforts.

While the development of SMRs in Ontario is a significant step forward, it also aligns with the Canadian nuclear initiative positioning Canada as a leader in the global nuclear energy landscape. The successful implementation of the BWRX-300 could serve as a model for other nations exploring advanced nuclear technologies.

Ontario's groundbreaking work on small modular nuclear reactors represents a forward-thinking approach to energy generation. By embracing innovative technologies, the province is not only addressing future energy demands but also, through the Pickering NGS life extension, contributing to the global transition towards sustainable and secure energy solutions.

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BC Hydro pandemic electricity trends reveal weekend-like energy consumption patterns: later morning demand, earlier evenings, more cooking, streaming on smart TVs, and work-from-home routines, with tips to conserve using laptops and small appliances.

Key Points

Weekend-like shifts in power demand from work-from-home routines: later mornings, earlier evenings, and more streaming.

✅ Later morning electricity demand; earlier evening peaks

✅ More cooking and baking; increased streaming after dinner

✅ Conservation tips: laptops, small appliances, smart TVs

The latest report on electricity usage in British Columbia reveals the COVID-19 pandemic has created an atmosphere where every day feels like a Saturday, a pattern also reflected in BC electricity demand during peak seasons.

BC Hydro says overall power usage hasn't changed much, but similar Ontario electricity demand shifts suggest regional differences, while Manitoba demand fell more noticeably, and a survey of 500 people shows daily routines have shifted dramatically since mid-March when pandemic-related closures began.

The hydro report says, with nearly 40 per cent of B.C. residents working from home, trends in residential electricity use confirm almost half are sleeping in and eating breakfast later, while about a quarter say they are showering less.

Those patterns more closely resemble what hydro says is typical weekend power consumption, and could influence time-of-use rates as electricity demand occurs later in the morning and earlier in the evening.

The report also finds many people are cooking and baking more than before the pandemic, preparing the evening meal earlier, streaming or viewing more television after dinner even as Ottawa's electricity consumption dipped earlier in the pandemic, and 80 per cent are going to bed later.

Although electricity use is normal for this time of year, hydro says homebound residents can conserve by using laptops instead of desktops, small appliances such as Instant Pots instead of ovens, and streaming movies or TV shows on a smart televisions instead of game consoles, even as Hydro One peak rates continue to shape consumption patterns elsewhere.

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