Coal-fired electricity exports criticized

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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COVID-19 Energy Burden drives higher electricity bills as income falls, intensifying energy poverty, utility shut-offs, and affordability risks for low-income households; policy moratoriums, bill relief, and efficiency upgrades are vital responses.

Key Points

The COVID-19 energy burden is the rising share of income spent on energy as bills increase and earnings decline.

✅ Rising home demand and lost wages increase energy cost share.

✅ Mandated shut-off moratoriums and reconnections protect health.

✅ Fund assistance, efficiency, and solar for LMI households.

I have asthma. It’s a private piece of medical information that I don’t normally share with people, but it makes the potential risks associated with exposure to the coronavirus all the more dangerous for me. But I’m not alone. 107 million people in the U.S. have pre-existing medical conditions like asthma and heart disease; the same pre-existing conditions that elevate their risk of facing a life-threatening situation were we to contract COVID-19. There are, however, tens of millions more house-bound Americans with a condition that is likely to be exacerbated by COVID-19: The energy burden.

The energy burden is a different kind of pre-existing condition:
In the last four weeks, 22 million people filed for unemployment. Millions of people will not have steady income (or the healthcare tied to it) to pay rent and utility bills for the foreseeable future which means that thousands, possibly millions of home-bound Americans will struggle to pay for energy.

Your energy burden is the amount of your monthly income that goes to paying for energy, like your monthly electric bill. So, when household energy use increases or income decreases, your energy burden rises. The energy burden is not a symptom of the pandemic and the economic downturn; it is more like a pre-existing condition for many Americans.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, I shared a few maps that showed how expensive electricity is for some. The energy burden in most pronounced in places already struggling economically, like in Appalachia, where residents in some counties must put more than 30 percent of their income toward their electric bills, and in the Midwest where states such as Michigan have some families spending more than 1/5 of their income on energy bills. The tragic facts are that US families living below the poverty line are far more likely to also be suffering from their energy burden.

But like other pre-existing conditions, the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic are exacerbating the underlying problems afflicting communities across the country.

Critical responses to minimize the spread of COVID-19 are social distancing, washing hands frequently, covering our faces with masks and staying at home. More time at home for most will drive up energy bills, and not by a little. Estimates on how much electricity demand during COVID-19 will increase vary but I’ve seen estimates as high as a 20% increase on average. For some families that’s a bag of groceries or a refill on prescription medication.

What happens when the power gets turned off?
Under normal conditions, if you cannot pay your electric bill your electricity can get turned off. This can have devastating consequences. Most states have protections for health and medical reasons and some states have protections during extreme heat or cold weather. But enforcement of those protections can vary by utility service area and place unnecessary burdens on the customer.

UCS
Only Florida has no protections of any kind against utility shut-offs when health or medical reasons would merit protection against it. However, when it comes to protection against extreme heat, only a few states have mandatory protections based on temperature thresholds.

The NAACP has also pointed out that utilities have unceremoniously disconnected the power of millions of people, disproportionally African-American and Latinx households.

April tends to be a mild month for most of the country, but the South already had its first heat wave at the end of March. If this pandemic lasts into the summer, utility disconnects could become deadly, and efforts to prevent summer power outages will be even more critical to public health. In the summer, during extreme summer heat families can’t turn off the A/C and go to the movies if we are following public health measures and sheltering in place. Lots of families that don’t have or can’t afford to run A/C would otherwise gather at local community pools, beaches, or in cooling centers, but with parks, pools and community groups closed to prevent the virus’s spread, what will happen to these families in July or August?

But we won’t have to wait till the summer to see how families will be hard hit by falling behind on bills and losing power. Here are a few ways electricity disconnection policies cause people harm during the pandemic:

Loss of electricity during the COVID-19 pandemic means families will lose their ability to refrigerate essential food supplies.
Child abuse guidance discusses how unsanitary household conditions are a contributing factor to child protective services involvement. Unsanitary household conditions can include, for example, rotting food (which might happen if electricity is cut off).

HUD’s handbook on federally subsidized housing includes a chapter on termination, which says that lease agreements can be terminated for repeated minor infractions including failing to pay utilities.
Airway machines used to treat respiratory ailments—pre-existing conditions in this pandemic—will not work. Our elderly neighbors in particular might rely on medicine that requires refrigeration or medical equipment that requires electricity. They too have fallen victim to utility shut-offs even during the pandemic.

Empowering solutions are available today

Decisionmakers seeking solutions can look to implement utility shut off moratoriums as a good start. Good news is that many utilities have voluntarily taken action to that effect, and New Jersey and New York have suspended shut-offs, one of the best trackers on who is taking what action has been assembled by Energy Policy Institute.

But voluntary actions do not always provide comprehensive protection, and they certainly have not been universally adopted across the country. Some utilities are waiving fees as relief measures, and some moratoriums only apply to customers directly affected by COVID-19, which will place additional onerous red tape on households that are stricken and perhaps unable to access testing. Others might only be an extension of standard medical shut off protections. Moratoriums put in place by voluntary action can also be revoked or lifted by voluntary action, which does not provide any sense of certainty to people struggling to make ends meet.

This is why the US needs mandatory moratoriums on all utility disconnections. These normally would be rendered at the state level, either by a regulatory commission, legislative act, or even an emergency executive order. But the inconsistent leadership among states in response to the COVID-19 crisis suggests that Congressional action is needed to ensure that all vulnerable utility customers are protected. That’s exactly what a coalition of organizations, including UCS, is calling for in future federal aid legislation. UCS has called for a national moratorium on utility shut-offs.

And let’s be clear, preventing new shut-offs isn’t enough. Cutting power off at residence during a pandemic is not good public policy. People who are without electricity should have it restored so residents can safely shelter in place and help flatten the curve. So far, only Colorado and Wisconsin’s leadership has taken this option.

Addressing the root causes of energy poverty
Preventing shut-offs is a good first step, but the increased bill charges will nevertheless place greater economic pressure on an incalculable number of families. Addressing the root of the problem (energy affordability) must be prioritized when we begin to recover from the health and economic ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One way policymakers can do that is to forgive outstanding balances on utility bills, perhaps with an eligibility cap based on income. Additional funds could be made available to those who are still struggling to pay their bills via capping bills, waiving late payment fees, automating payment plans or other protective measures that rightfully place consumers (particularly vulnerable consumers) at the center of any energy-related COVID-19 response. Low-and-moderate-income energy efficiency and solar programs should be funded as much as practically possible.

New infrastructure, particularly new construction that is slated for public housing, subsidized housing, or housing specifically marketed for low- and moderate-income families, should include smart thermostats, better insulation, and energy-efficient appliances.

Implementing these solutions may seem daunting, let us not forget that one of the best ways to ease people’s energy burden is to keep a utility’s overall energy costs low. That means state utility commissions must be vigilant in utility rate cases and fuel recovery cost dockets to protect people facing unfathomable economic pressures. Unscrupulous utilities have been known to hide unnecessary costs in our energy bills. Commissions and their staff are overwhelmed at this time, but they should be applying extra scrutiny during proceedings when utilities are recovering costs associated with delivering energy.

What might a utility try to get past the commission?
Well, residential demand is up, so for many people, bills will increase. However, wholesale electricity rates are low right now, in some cases at all-time lows. Why? Because industrial and commercial demand reductions (from social distancing at home) have more than offset residential demand increases. Overall US electricity demand is flat or declining, and supply/demand economics predicts that when demand decreases, prices decrease.

At the same time, natural gas prices have set record lows each month of this year and that’s a trend that is expected to hold true for a while.

Low demand plus low gas prices mean wholesale market prices are incredibly low. Utilities should be taking advantage of low market prices to ensure that they deliver electricity to customers at as low a cost as possible. Utilities must also NOT over-run coal plants uneconomically or lean on aging capacity despite disruptions in coal and nuclear that can invite brownouts because that will not only needlessly cost customers more, but it will also increase air pollution which will exacerbate respiratory issues and susceptibility to COVID-19, according to a recent study published by Harvard.

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Ontario-Quebec Energy Swap streamlines electricity exchange, balancing peak demand across clean grids with hydroelectric and nuclear power, enhancing reliability, capacity banking, and interprovincial load management for industry growth, EV adoption, and seasonal heating-cooling needs.

Key Points

10-year, no-cash power swap aligning peaks; hydro and nuclear enhance reliability and let Ontario bank capacity.

✅ Up to 600 MW exchanged yearly; reviews adjust volumes

✅ Peaks differ: summer A/C in Ontario, winter heating in Quebec

✅ Capacity banking enables future-year withdrawals

Ontario and Quebec have agreed to swap energy to build on an electricity deal to help each other out when electricity demands peak.

The provinces' electricity operators, the Independent Electricity System Operator holds capacity auctions and Hydro-Quebec, will trade up to 600 megawatts of energy each year, said Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith.

“The deal just makes a lot of sense from both sides,” Smith said in an interview.

“The beauty as well is that Quebec and Ontario are amongst the cleanest grids around.”

The majority of Ontario's power comes from nuclear energy while the majority of Quebec's energy comes from hydroelectric power, including Labrador power in regional transmission networks.

The deal works because Ontario and Quebec's energy peaks come at different times, Smith said.

Ontario's energy demands spike in the summer, largely driven by air conditioning on hot days, and the province has occasionally set off-peak electricity prices to provide temporary relief, he said.

Quebec's energy needs peak in the winter, mostly due to electric heating on cold days.

The deal will last 10 years, with reviews along the way to adjust energy amounts based on usage.

“With the increase in energy demand, we must adopt more energy efficiency programs like Peak Perks and intelligent measures in order to better manage peak electricity consumption,” Quebec's Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon wrote in a statement.

Smith said the energy deal is a straight swap, with no payments on either side, and won't reduce hydro bills as the transfer could begin as early as this winter.

Ontario will also be able to bank unused energy to save capacity until it is needed in future years, Smith said.

Both provinces are preparing for future energy needs, as electricity demands are expected to grow dramatically in the coming years with increased demand from industry and the rise of electric vehicles, and Ontario has tabled legislation to lower electricity rates to support consumers.

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Site C Dam Court Ruling could halt hydroelectric project near Fort St. John, as First Nations cite Treaty 8 rights in B.C. Supreme Court against BC Hydro, reservoir flooding, and Peace River Valley impacts.

Key Points

Potential B.C. Supreme Court stop to Site C, grounded in Treaty 8 rights claims by First Nations against BC Hydro.

✅ Trial expected in 2022 before planned 2023 reservoir flooding

✅ Treaty 8 rights and Peace River Valley impacts at issue

✅ Talks ongoing among B.C., BC Hydro, West Moberly, Prophet River

The Site C dam could still be stopped by an "eleventh hour" court ruling, according to the lawyer representing B.C. First Nations opposed to the massive hydroelectric project near Fort St. John.

The B.C. government, BC Hydro and West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations were in B.C. Supreme Court Feb. 28 to set a 120-day trial, expected to begin in March 2022.

That date means a ruling would come prior to the scheduled flooding of the dam's reservoir area in 2023 said Tim Thielmann, legal counsel for the West Moberly First Nation.

"The court has left itself the opportunity for an eleventh hour cancellation of the project," he said.

Construction continues

At the core of the case is First Nations arguments the multi-billion dollar BC Hydro dam will cause irreparable harm to its territory and way of life — even as drought strains hydro production elsewhere — rights protected under Treaty 8.

The West Moberly have previously warned it believes Site C constitutes a $1 billion treaty violation.

​In 2018, the First Nations lost a bid for an injunction order, meaning construction of the dam is continuing despite warnings that delays could cost $600 million to the project.

First Nations 'deeply frustrated' after B.C. Supreme Court dismisses Site C injunction

The judge in the case said the ruling was made because if the First Nations lost the challenge, the project would be needlessly put into disarray.

Province, Nations enter talks to avoid litigation

Also this week the B.C. government announced it has entered into talks with BC Hydro and the two First Nations in an attempt to avoid the court process altogether, amid broader energy debates such as bridging the Alberta-B.C. electricity gap for climate goals.

Thielmann said the details of the talk are confidential, but his clients are willing to pursue all avenues in order to stop the dam from moving forward.

"They are trying to save what little is left [of the Peace River Valley]", he said.

Tim Thielmann of Sage Legal is representing the West Moberly First Nation in its lawsuit aimed at stopping Site C. (Sage Legal)

In the meantime, the parties will continue to prepare for the 2022 court dates.

The latest figure on the cost of the dam is $10.7 billion, in a billions-over-budget project that the premier says will proceed. When complete, it would power the equivalent of 450,000 homes a year, though use of Site C's electricity remains a point of debate.

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Utility Renewable Investment Gap highlights Oxford study in Nature Energy: most electric utilities favor fossil fuels over clean energy transition, expanding coal and gas, risking stranded assets and missing climate targets despite global decarbonization commitments.

Key Points

Most utilities grow fossil capacity over renewables, slowing decarbonization and jeopardizing climate goals.

✅ Only 10% expand renewables faster than coal and gas growth

✅ 60% still add fossil plants; 15% actively cut coal and gas

✅ Risks: stranded assets, missed climate targets, policy backlash

Only one in 10 of the world’s electric utility companies are prioritising clean energy investment over growing their capacity of fossil fuel power plants, according to research from the University of Oxford.

The study of more than 3,000 utilities found most remain heavily invested in fossil fuels despite international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and barriers to 100% renewables in the US that persist, and some are actively expanding their portfolio of polluting power plants.

The majority of the utility companies, many of which are state owned, have made little change to their generation portfolio in recent years.

Only 10% of the companies in the study, published in the research journal Nature Energy, are expanding their renewable energy capacity, mirroring global wind and solar growth patterns, at a faster rate than their gas- or coal-fired capacity.

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Of the companies prioritising renewable energy growth, 60% have not stopped concurrently expanding their fossil fuel portfolio and only 15% of these companies are actively reducing their gas and coal capacity.

Galina Alova, the author of the report, said the research highlighted “a worrying gap between what is needed” to tackle the climate crisis, with calls for a fossil fuel lockdown gaining attention, and “what actions are being taken by the utility sector”.

The report found 10% of utilities were favouring growth in gas-fired power plants. This cluster is dominated by US utilities, even as renewables surpass coal in US generation in the broader market, eager to take advantage of the country’s shale gas reserves, followed by Russia and Germany.

Only 2% of utilities are actively growing their coal-fired power capacity ahead of renewables or gas. This cluster is dominated by Chinese utilities – which alone contributed more than 60% of coal-focused companies – followed by India and Vietnam.

The report found the majority of companies prioritising renewable energy were clustered in Europe. Many of the industry’s biggest players are investing in low-carbon energy and green technologies, even as clean energy's dirty secret prompts debate, to replace their ageing fossil fuel power plants.

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In the UK, amid UK renewables backlog that has stalled billions, coal plants are shutting at pace ahead of the government’s 2025 ban on coal-fired power in part because the UK’s domestic carbon tax on power plants make them uneconomic to run.

“Although there have been a few high-profile examples of individual electric utilities investing in renewables, this study shows that overall, the sector is making the transition to clean energy slowly or not at all,” Alova said.

“Utilities’ continued investment in fossil fuels leaves them at risk of stranded assets – where power plants will need to be retired early – and undermines global efforts to tackle climate change.”
 

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Britain Electricity Demand During Lockdown is around 10 percent lower, as industrial consumers scale back. National Grid reports later morning peaks and continues balancing system frequency and voltage to maintain grid stability.

Key Points

Measured drop in UK power use, later morning peaks, and grid actions to keep frequency and voltage within safe limits.

✅ Daily demand about 10 percent lower since lockdown.

✅ Morning peak down nearly 18 percent and occurs later.

✅ National Grid balances frequency and voltage using flexible resources.

Daily electricity demand in Britain is around 10% lower than before the country went into lockdown last week due to the coronavirus outbreak, data from grid operator National Grid showed on Tuesday.

The fall is largely due to big industrial consumers using less power across sectors, the operator said.

Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered Britons to stay at home to halt the spread of the virus, imposing curbs on everyday life without precedent in peacetime.

Morning peak demand has fallen by nearly 18% compared to before the lockdown was introduced and the normal morning peak is later than usual because the times people are getting up are later and more spread out with fewer travelling to work and school, a pattern also seen in Ottawa during closures, National Grid said.

Even though less power is needed overall, the operator still has to manage lower demand for electricity, as well as peaks, amid occasional short supply warnings from National Grid, and keep the frequency and voltage of the system at safe levels.

Last August, a blackout cut power to one million customers and caused transport chaos as almost simultaneous loss of output from two generators caused by a lightning strike caused the frequency of the system to drop below normal levels, highlighting concerns after the emergency energy plan stalled.

National Grid said it can use a number of tools to manage the frequency, such as working with flexible generators to reduce output or draw on storage providers to increase demand, and market conditions mean peak power prices have spiked at times.

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