ATC transmission upgrades shows savings

Transcranial electrical stimulation synchronizes brain waves to bolster working memory, aligning neural oscillations across the prefrontal and temporal cortex. This noninvasive brain stimulation may counter cognitive aging by restoring network coupling and improving short-term recall.

Key Points

Transcranial electrical stimulation applies scalp currents to synchronize brain waves, briefly enhancing working memory.

✅ Synchronizes prefrontal-temporal networks to restore coupling

✅ Noninvasive tES/tACS protocols show rapid, reversible gains

✅ Effects lasted under an hour; durability remains to be tested

To read this sentence, you hold the words in your mind for a few seconds until you reach the period. As you do, neurons in your brain fire in coordinated bursts, generating electrical waves that let you hold information for as long as it is needed, much as novel devices can generate electricity from falling snow under specific conditions. But as we age, these brain waves start to get out of sync, causing short-term memory to falter. A new study finds that jolting specific brain areas with a periodic burst of electricity might reverse the deficit—temporarily, at least.

The work makes “a strong case” for the idea that out-of-sync brain waves in specific regions can drive cognitive aging, says Vincent Clark, a neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who was not involved in the research. He adds that the brain stimulation approach in the study may result in a new electrical therapy for age-related deficits in working memory.

Working memory is “the sketchpad of the mind,” allowing us to hold information in our minds over a period of seconds. This short-term memory is critical to accomplishing everyday tasks such as planning and counting, says Robert Reinhart, a neuroscientist at Boston University who led the study. Scientists think that when we use this type of memory, millions of neurons in different brain areas communicate through coupled bursts of activity, a form of electrical conduction that coordinates timing across networks. “Cells that fire together, wire together,” Reinhart says.

But despite its critical role, working memory is a fragile cognitive resource that declines with age, Reinhart says. Previous studies had suggested that reduced working-memory performance in the elderly is linked to uncoupled activity in different brain areas. So Reinhart and his team set out to test whether recoupling brain waves in older adults could boost the brain’s ability to temporarily store information, a systems-level coordination challenge akin to efforts to use AI for energy savings on modern power grids.

To do so, the researchers used jolts of weak electrical current to synchronize waves in the prefrontal and temporal cortex—two brain areas critical for cognition, a targeted approach not unlike how grids use batteries to stabilize power during strain—and applied the current to the scalps of 42 healthy people in their 60s and 70s who showed no signs of decline in mental ability. Before their brains were zapped, participants looked at a series of images: an everyday object, followed briefly by a blank screen, and then either an identical or a modified version of the same object. The goal was to spot whether the two images were different.

Then the participants took the test again, while their brains were stimulated with a current. After about 25 minutes of applying electricity, participants were on average more accurate at identifying changes in the images than they were before the stimulation. Following stimulation, their performance in the test was indistinguishable from that of a group of 42 people in their 20s. And the waves in the prefrontal and temporal cortex, which had previously been out of sync in most of the participants, started to fire in sync, the researchers report today in Nature Neuroscience, a synchronization imperative reminiscent of safeguards that prevent power blackouts on threatened grids. No such effects occurred in a second group of older people who received jolts of current that didn’t synchronize waves in the prefrontal and temporal cortex.

By using bursts of current to knock brain waves out of sync, the researchers also modulated the brain chatter in healthy people in their 20s, making them slower and less accurate at spotting differences in the image test.

“This is a very nice and clear demonstration of how functional connections underlie memory in younger adults and how alterations … can lead to memory reductions in older adults,” says Cheryl Grady, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto, Canada. It’s also the first time that transcranial stimulation has been shown to restore working memory in older people, says Michael O’Sullivan, a neuroscientist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, though electricity in medicine extends far beyond neurostimulation.

But whether brain zapping could turbocharge the cognitive abilities of seniors or help improve the memories of people with diseases like Alzheimer’s is still unclear: In the study, the positive effects on working memory lasted for just under an hour—though Reinhart says that’s as far as they recorded in the experiment. The team didn’t see the improvements decline toward the end, so he suspects that the cognitive boost may last for longer. Still, researchers say much more work has to be done to better understand how the stimulation works.

Clark is optimistic. “No pill yet developed can produce these sorts of effects safely and reliably,” he says. “Helping people is the ultimate goal of all of our research, and it’s encouraging to see that progress is being made.”

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Grid Technologies News

CER Interactive Electricity Bill Tool compares provincial electricity prices, fees, taxes, and usage. Explore household appliance costs, hydroelectric generation, and consumption trends across Canada with interactive calculators and a province-by-province breakdown.

Key Points

An online CER report with calculators comparing electricity prices, fees, and usage to explain household energy costs.

✅ Province-by-province bill, price, and consumption comparison

✅ Calculator for appliance and electronics energy costs

✅ Explains fees, taxes, regulation, and generation sources

Canadians have a new way to assess their electricity bill in a new, interactive online report released by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER).

The report titled What is in a residential electricity bill? features a province-to-province comparison of electricity bills, generation and consumption. It also explains electricity prices across the country, including how Calgary electricity prices have changed, allowing people to understand why costs vary depending on location, fees, regulation and taxes.  

Learn how fees and usage impacts your electricity bill in new online CER tool
Interactive tools allow people to calculate the cost of household appliances and electronic use for each province and territory, and to understand how Ontario rate increases may affect monthly bills. For example, an individual can use the tools to find out that leaving a TV on for 24-hours in Quebec costs $5.25 per month, while that same TV on for a whole day would cost $12.29 per month in Saskatchewan, $20.49 per month in the Northwest Territories, and $15.30 per month in Nova Scotia.

How Canadians use energy varies as much as how provinces and territories produce it, especially in regions like Nunavut where unique conditions influence costs. Millions of Canadians rely on electricity to power their household appliances, charge their electronics, and heat their homes. Provinces with abundant hydro-electric resources like Quebec, B.C., Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador use electricity for home heating and tend to consume the most electricity.

By gathering data from various sources, this report is the first Canadian publication that features interactive tools to allow for a province-by-province comparison of electricity bills while highlighting different elements within an electricity bill, a helpful context as Canada faces a critical supply crunch in the years ahead.

The CER monitors energy markets and assesses Canadian energy requirements and trends, including clean electricity regulations developments that shape pricing. This report is part of a portfolio of publications on energy supply, demand and infrastructure that the CER publishes regularly as part of its ongoing market monitoring.

"No matter where you go in the country, Canadians want to know how much they pay for power and why, especially amid price spikes in Alberta this year," says lead author Colette Craig. "This innovative, interactive report really explains electricity bills to help everyone understand electricity pricing and consumption across Canada."

Quick Facts

• Quebec ranks first in electricity consumption per capita at 21.0 MW.h, followed by Saskatchewan at 20.0 MW.h, Newfoundland and Labrador at 19.3 MW.h.
• About 95% of Quebec's electricity is produced from hydroelectricity.
• Provinces that use electricity for home heating tend to consume the most electricity.
• Canada's largest consuming sector for electricity was industrial at 238 TW.h. The residential and commercial sectors consumed 168 TW.h and 126 TW.h, respectively.
• In 2018, Canada produced 647.7 terawatt hours (TW.h) of electricity. More than half of the electricity in Canada (61%) is generated from hydro sources. The remainder is produced from a variety of sources, such as fossil fuels (natural gas and petroleum), nuclear, wind, coal, biomass, solar.
• Canada is a net exporter of electricity. In 2019, net exports to the U.S. electricity market totaled 47.0 TW.h.
• The total value of Canada's electricity exports was $2.5 billion Canadian dollars and the value of imports was $0.6 billion Canadian dollars, resulting in 2019 net exports of $1.9 billion.
• All regions in Canada are reflected in this report but it does not include data that reflects the COVID-19 lockdown and its effects on residential electricity bills.
   

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

Frisco 100% Renewable Electricity Goal outlines decarbonization via Xcel Energy, wind, solar, and battery storage, enabling beneficial electrification and a smarter grid for 100% municipal power by 2025 and community-wide clean electricity by 2035.

Key Points

Frisco targets 100% renewable electricity: municipal by 2025, community by 2035, via Xcel decarbonization.

✅ Municipal operations to reach 100% renewable electricity by 2025

✅ Community-wide electricity to be 100% carbon-free by 2035

✅ Partnerships: Xcel Energy, wind, solar, storage, grid markets

Frisco has now set a goal of 100-per-cent renewable energy, joining communities on the road to 100% renewables across the country. But unlike some other resolutions adopted in the last decade, this one isn't purely aspirational. It's swimming with a strong current.

With the resolution adopted last week by the town council, Frisco joins 10 other Colorado towns and cities, plus Pueblo and Summit counties, a trend reflected in tracking progress on clean energy targets reports nationwide, in adopting 100-per-cent goals.

The goal is to get the municipality's electricity to 100-per-cent by 2025 and the community altogether by 2035, a timeline aligned with scenarios showing zero-emissions electricity by 2035 is possible in North America.

Decarbonizing electricity will be far easier than transportation, and transportation far easier than buildings. Many see carbon-free electricity as being crucial to both, a concept called "beneficial electrification," and point to ways to meet decarbonization goals that leverage electrified end uses.

Electricity for Frisco comes from Xcel Energy, an investor-owned utility that is making giant steps toward decarbonizing its power supply.

Xcel first announced plans to close its work-horse power plants early to take advantage of now-cheap wind and solar resources plus what will be the largest battery storage project east of the Rocky Mountains. All this will be accomplished by 2026 and will put Xcel at 55 per cent renewable generation in Colorado.

In December, a week after Frisco launched the process that produced the resolution, Xcel announced further steps, an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 as compared to 2050 levels. By 2050, the company vows to be 100 per cent "carbon-free" energy by 2050.

Frisco's non-binding goals were triggered by Fran Long, who is retired and living in Frisco. For eight years, though, he worked for Xcel in helping shape its response to the declining prices of renewables. In his retirement, he has also helped put together the aspirational goal adopted by Breckenridge for 100-per-cent renewables.

A task force that Long led identified a three-pronged approach. First, the city government must lead by example. The resolution calls for the town to spend $25,000 to $50,000 annually during the next several years to improve energy efficiency in its municipal facilities. Then, through an Xcel program called Renewable Connect, it can pay an added cost to allow it to say it uses 100-per-cent electricity from renewable sources.

Beyond that, Frisco wants to work with high-end businesses to encourage buying output from solar gardens or other devices that will allow them to proclaim 100-per-cent renewable energy. The task force also recommends a marketing program directed to homes and smaller businesses.

Goals of 100-per-cent renewable electricity are problematic, given why the grid isn't 100% renewable today for technical and economic reasons. Aspen Electric, which provides electricity for about two-thirds of the town, by 2015 had secured enough wind and hydro, mostly from distant locations, to allow it to proclaim 100 per cent renewables.

In fact, some of those electrons in Aspen almost certainly originate in coal or gas plants. That doesn't make Aspen's claim wrong. But the fact remains that nobody has figured out how, at least at affordable cost, to deliver 100-per-cent clean energy on a broad basis.

Xcel Energy, which supplies more than 60 per cent of electricity in Colorado, one of six states in which it operates, has a taller challenge. But it is a very different utility than it was in 2004, when it spent heavily in advertising to oppose a mandate that it would have to achieve 10 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

Once it lost the election, though, Xcel set out to comply. Integrating renewables proved far more easily than was feared. It has more than doubled the original mandate for 2020. Wind delivers 82 per cent of that generation, with another 18 per cent coming from community, rooftop, and utility-scale solar.

The company has become steadily more proficient at juggling different intermittent power supplies while ensuring lights and computers remain on. This is partly the result of practice but also of relatively minor technological wrinkles, such as improved weather forecasting, according to an Energy News Network story published in March.

For example, a Boulder company, Global Weather corporation, projects wind—and hence electrical production—from turbines for 10 days ahead. It updates its forecasts every 15 minutes.

Forecasts have become so good, said John T. Welch, director of power operations for Xcel in Colorado, that the utility uses 95 per cent to 98 per cent of the electricity generated by turbines. This has allowed the company to use its coal and natural gas plants less.M

Moreover, prices of wind and then solar declined slowly at first and then dramatically.

Xcel is now comfortable that existing technology will allow it to push from 55 per cent renewables in 2026 to an 80 per cent carbon reduction goal by 2030.

But when announcing their goal of emissions-free energy by mid-century in December, the company's Minneapolis-based chief executive, Ben Fowke, and Alice Jackson, the chief executive of the company's Colorado subsidiary, freely admitted they had no idea how they will achieve it. "I have a lot of confidence they will be developed," Fowke said of new technologies.

Everything is on the table, they said, including nuclear. But also including fossil fuels, if the carbon dioxide can be sequestered. So far, such technology has proven prohibitively expensive despite billions of dollars in federal support for research and deployment. They suggested it might involve new technology.

Xcel's Welch told Energy News Network that he believes solar must play a larger role, and he believes solar forecasting must improve.

Storage technology must also improve as batteries are transforming solar economics across markets. Batteries, such as produced by Tesla at its Gigafactory near Reno, can store electricity for hours, maybe even a few days. But batteries that can store large amounts of electricity for months will be needed in Colorado. Wind is plentiful in spring but not so much in summer, when air conditioners crank up.

Increased sharing of cheap renewable generation among utilities will also allow deeper penetration of carbon-free energy, a dynamic consistent with studies finding wind and solar could meet 80% of demand with improved transmission. Western US states and Canadian provinces are all on one grid, but the different parts are Balkanized. In other words, California is largely its own energy balancing authority, ensuring electricity supplies match electricity demands. Ditto for Colorado. The Pacific Northwest has its own balancing authority.

If they were all orchestrated as one in an expanded energy market across the West, however, electricity supplies and demands could more easily be matched. California's surplus of solar on summer afternoons, for example, might be moved to Colorado.

Colorado legislators in early May adopted a bill that requires the state's Public Utilities Commission to begin study by late this year of an energy imbalance market or regional transmission organization.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Renewable Energy News

DOE RMUC Cybersecurity Program supports rural, municipal, and small investor-owned utilities with grants, technical assistance, grid resilience, incident response, workforce training, and threat intelligence sharing to harden energy systems and protect critical infrastructure.

Key Points

A $250M DOE program providing grants to boost rural and municipal utilities' cybersecurity and incident response.

✅ Grants and technical assistance for grid security

✅ Enhances incident response and threat intel sharing

✅ Builds cybersecurity workforce in rural utilities

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public input on a new $250 million program to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of rural, municipal, and small investor-owned electric utilities.

Funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and broader clean energy funding initiatives, the Rural and Municipal Utility Advanced Cybersecurity Grant and Technical Assistance (RMUC) Program will help eligible utilities harden energy systems, processes, and assets; improve incident response capabilities; and increase cybersecurity skills in the utility workforce. Providing secure, reliable power to all Americans, with a focus on equity in electricity regulation across communities, will be a key focus on the pathway to achieving President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. 

“Rural and municipal utilities provide power for a large portion of low- and moderate-income families across the nation and play a critical role in ensuring the economic security of our nation’s energy supply,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “This new program reflects the Biden Administration's commitment to improving energy reliability and connecting our nation’s rural communities to resilient energy infrastructure and the transformative benefits that come with it.” 

Nearly one in six Americans live in a remote or rural community. Utilities in these communities face considerable obstacles, including difficulty recruiting top cybersecurity talent, inadequate infrastructure, as the aging U.S. power grid struggles to support new technologies, and lack of financial resources needed to modernize and harden their systems. 

The RMUC Program will provide financial and technical assistance to help rural, municipal, and small investor-owned electric utilities improve operational capabilities, increase access to cybersecurity services, deploy advanced cyber security technologies, and increase participation of eligible entities in cybersecurity threat information sharing programs and coordination with federal partners initiatives. Priority will be given to eligible utilities that have limited cybersecurity resources, are critical to the reliability of the bulk power system, or those that support our national defense infrastructure. 

The Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), which advances U.S. energy security objectives, will manage the RMUC Program, providing $250 million dollars in BIL funding over five years. To help inform Program implementation, DOE is seeking input from the cybersecurity community, including eligible utilities and representatives of third parties and organizations that support or interact with these utilities. The RFI seeks input on ways to improve cybersecurity incident preparedness, response, and threat information sharing; cybersecurity workforce challenges; risks associated with technologies deployed on the electric grid; national-scale initiatives to accelerate cybersecurity improvements in these utilities; opportunities to strengthen partnerships and energy security support efforts; the selection criteria and application process for funding awards; and more. 

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

Manitoba Hydro Phone Scam targets small businesses with disconnection threats, prepaid card payments, caller ID spoofing, phishing texts, and door-to-door fraud; hang up, verify your account directly, and never share banking information.

Key Points

A scam where callers threaten disconnection and demand prepaid cards; verify account status directly with Manitoba Hydro.

✅ Hang up and call Manitoba Hydro at 1-888-624-9376 to verify.

✅ Never pay by prepaid cards, gift cards, or crypto.

✅ Hydro will not cut power on one-hour notice.

Manitoba Hydro is warning customers, particularly small business owners, to be wary of high-pressure scammers, as Ontario utilities warn of scams in other provinces, threatening to shut off their electricity.

The callers demand the customer to make immediate payment by a prepaid card. Often, the calls are made in the middle of the day at a busy time, frightening the customer with aggressive threats about disconnection, as hydro disconnections have made headlines elsewhere, says hydro spokesman Bruce Owen.

"They tell them 'we have a truck on the way to cut off your power. If you don't pay in the next hour you're out of luck,'" he said.

"And because these folks have inventory in freezers and they have customers … they're willing to fork over several hundred or even several thousand dollars on a prepaid card to somebody they don't know to keep the lights on."

Maybe the business owners can't recall, with everything happening, including discussions about Hydro One peak rates in Ontario, if they've made their payments on time. They start second-guessing and believing the person on the other line, Owen says.

And they worry about losing thousands of dollars in business if they lose power. So they're more than willing to run out to a store, buy a prepaid debit card and provide the number to the caller.

"Their goal is to manipulate you into sending money before you figure out it's a scam," said Chris McColm, hydro's security and investigations supervisor. "These people are crooks and you should hang up on them."

For any customers that are in arrears, hydro will work with them to resolve the issue, Owen said.

"We do not have to take that extreme measure of cutting off or disconnecting anybody. That's not the business we're in — we don't strong arm people that way," he said.

"Anybody who's threatening to cut off your power with an hour or half-an-hour notice, well it's it's no better than someone waiting around the corner, waiting the club you over the head in the dark of night. That's what they are."

Fraud reports soar

The power utility has recorded a nearly-300 per cent jump in the number of fraud-related complaints this year over 2017. There have been 862 phone, text and e-mail scams and that could still go much higher.

The current statistics from 2018 have only calculated up to Oct. 31. In 2017, there were 221.

That jump in numbers doesn't necessarily mean there are more scammers out there.

It could simply mean people are finally getting wise to fraudsters and reporting it more, Owen says.

"At the same token, we don't hear of everybody who's been taking advantage of because once they've found out that they've been hoodwinked they don't want to tell anybody because they're so embarrassed," he said.

"These scammers can be very convincing and anyone can be victimized," McColm said.

If you are able to think clearly when some high-pressure caller gets you on the line, Owen suggests asking a few simple questions to challenge their legitimacy:

• What street am I on?
• What does my business look like? 
• What's the weather outside right now?

Phone scammers can falsify their caller ID information to make it appear they're calling from a local number, but what you'll find is most of them aren't in Winnipeg or Manitoba and likely not even this country or continent, Owen says.

The key to being safe is simply to never give out banking information, Owen says. It's a message that has been stressed for years and 80-90 per cent of people understand it, but it's that other 10-20 per cent that are still being victimized.And it's not just phone calls. Many other fraud-related complaints to Manitoba Hydro this year concerned unsolicited text messages to customers saying they had been overbilled, or faced retroactive charges elsewhere, and were eligible for a refund.

This scam is also aimed at getting a customer's personal banking information, under the guise of having money put back into their account.

Also, many people, especially seniors living alone, continue to be targeted by aggressive door-to-door fraudsters, and cases like the electricity theft ring in Montreal underscore the risks, McColm says. However, he adds, hydro employees always display photo ID and will never demand to come into a home. 

If you're unsure whether a phone call, text or email is real or a scam, contact Manitoba Hydro at 1-888-624-9376.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Utility Operations News

Ontario Gas Plant Expansion aims to boost grid reliability as nuclear refurbishments proceed, using natural gas to meet electricity demand, despite critics urging renewables, energy storage, and efficiency to reduce carbon emissions, protecting investment growth.

Key Points

Ontario plan to expand gas plants for reliability during nuclear outages, sparking debate on emissions and clean options.

✅ IESO data: gas share rose from 4% (2017) to 10.4% (2022).

✅ Government cites nuclear refurbishments and demand growth.

✅ Critics propose storage, wind, solar, and efficiency.

The Ontario government is preparing to expand gas-fired power plants in Ontario; a move critics say will make the province's electricity system dirtier and could eventually leave taxpayers on the hook.

The province is currently soliciting bids for additional gas-fired electricity generation, which means new gas plants get built, or existing gas plants get expanded. 

It's poised to be Ontario's biggest increase in the gas-fired power supply in more than a decade since the previous Liberal government scrapped two gas plants, in Mississauga and Oakville, at a cost the auditor general pegged at around $1 billion. 

Doug Ford's energy minister, Todd Smith, says Ontario needs gas plants now to help meet an expected surge in demand for electricity as the province faces a supply shortfall in the coming years and to provide power while some units of the province's nuclear stations are down for refurbishment. 

"It's really important to have natural gas as an insurance policy to keep the lights on and provide the reliability that we need," Smith said in an interview. 

"We need natural gas for the short term, especially to get us through these refurbishments."

The portion of Ontario's electricity supply that comes from natural gas matters for the environment and the province's economy. Manufacturing companies increasingly seek clean power that emits as little carbon dioxide as possible. 

The portion of Ontario's electricity supply that comes from natural gas matters for the environment and the province's economy. Manufacturing companies increasingly seek a power supply that emits as little carbon dioxide as possible. 

Increasing the amount of gas-fired generation in the electricity system puts Ontario's ability to attract such investments at risk as it complicates balancing demand and emissions across the grid, says Evan Pivnick, program manager with Clean Energy Canada, a think tank. 

"Building new natural gas (power plants) in Ontario today should be seen as an absolute last resort for meeting our energy needs," said Pivnick in an interview. 

Ontario's electricity system has among the lowest rates of CO2 emissions in North America, with roughly half of the annual supply provided by nuclear power, one-quarter from hydro dams, and one-tenth from wind turbines. 

However, Ontario's gas plants have produced a growing amount of electricity in recent years, despite an early report exploring a gas halt by the minister, and that trend will continue if new gas plants are built. 

In 2017, gas- and oil-fired generation provided just four percent of Ontario's electricity supply, according to figures from the provincial agency that manages the grid, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). 

By 2022, that figure reached 10.4 percent. 

Ontario doesn't need new gas plants to meet the electricity demand, says Bryan Purcell, vice president of policy and programs at The Atmospheric Fund. This agency invests in low-carbon projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. 

"We're quite concerned about where Ontario's electric grid is going," said Purcell. "Thankfully, there's still time to adjust course and look at other options." 

According to Purcell and Pivnick, those options to avoid gas could include power storage (in which excess generated energy is stored for later use when electricity demand rises), wind and solar projects, or energy efficiency and conservation programs.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Power Generation News