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Ontario Global Adjustment Charge faces constitutional scrutiny as a regulatory charge vs tax; Court of Appeal revives case over electricity pricing, feed-in tariff contracts, IESO policy, and hydro rate impacts on consumers and industry.

Key Points

A provincial electricity fee funding generator contracts, now central to a court fight over tax versus regulatory charge.

✅ Funds gap between market price and contracted generator rates

✅ At issue: regulatory charge vs tax under constitutional law

✅ Linked to feed-in tariff, IESO policy, and hydro rate hikes

Ontario’s court of appeal has decided that a constitutional challenge of a steep provincial electricity charge should get its day in court, overturning a lower-court judgment that had dismissed the legal bid.

Hamilton, Ont.-based National Steel Car Ltd. launched the challenge in 2017, saying Ontario’s so-called global adjustment charge was unconstitutional because it is a tax — not a valid regulatory charge — that was not passed by the legislature.

The global adjustment funds the difference between the province’s hourly electricity price and the price guaranteed under contracts to power generators. It is “the component that covers the cost of building new electricity infrastructure in the province, maintaining existing resources, as well as providing conservation and demand management programs,” the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator says.

However, the global adjustment now makes up most of the commodity portion of a household electricity bill, and its costs have ballooned, as regulators elsewhere consider a proposed 14% rate hike in Nova Scotia.

Ontario’s auditor general said in 2015 that global adjustment fees had increased from $650 million in 2006 to more than $7 billion in 2014. She added that consumers would pay $133 billion in global adjustment fees from 2015 to 2032, after having already paid $37 billion from 2006 to 2014.

National Steel Car, which manufactures steel rail cars and faces high electricity rates that hurt Ontario factories, said its global adjustment costs went from $207,260 in 2008 to almost $3.4 million in 2016, according to an Ontario Court of Appeal decision released on Wednesday.

The company claimed the global adjustment was a tax because one of its components funds electricity procurement contracts under a “feed-in tariff” program, or FIT, which National Steel Car called “the main culprit behind the dramatic price increases for electricity,” the decision said.

Ontario’s auditor general said the FIT program “paid excessive prices to renewable energy generators.” The program has been ended, but contracts awarded under it remain in place.

National Steel Car claimed the FIT program “was actually designed to accomplish social goals unrelated to the generation of electricity,” such as helping rural and indigenous communities, and was therefore a tax trying to help with policy goals.

“The appellant submits that the Policy Goals can be achieved by Ontario in several ways, just not through the electricity pricing formula,” the decision said.

National Steel Car also argued the global adjustment violated a provincial law that requires the government to hold a referendum for new taxes.

“The appellant’s principal claim is that the Global Adjustment was a ‘colourable attempt to disguise a tax as a regulatory charge with the purpose of funding the costs of the Policy Goals,’” the decision said. “The appellant pressed this argument before the motion judge and before this court. The motion judge did not directly or adequately address it.”

The Ontario government applied to have the challenge thrown out for having “no reasonable cause of action,” and a Superior Court judge did so in 2018, saying the global adjustment is not a tax.

National Steel Car appealed the decision, and the decision published Wednesday allowed the appeal, set aside the lower-court judgment, and will send the case back to Superior Court, where it could get a full hearing.

“The appellant’s claim is sufficiently plausible on the evidentiary record it put forward that the applications should not have been dismissed on a pleadings motion before the development of a full record,” wrote Justice Peter D. Lauwers. “It is not plain, obvious and beyond doubt that the Global Adjustment, and particularly the challenged component, is properly characterized as a valid regulatory charge and not as an impermissible tax.”

Jerome Morse of Morse Shannon LLP, one of National Steel Car’s lawyers, said the Ontario government would now have 60 days to decide whether to seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

“What the court has basically said is, ‘this is a plausible argument, here are the reasons why it’s plausible, there was no answer to this,’” Morse told the Financial Post.

Ontario and the IESO had supported the lower-court decision, but there has been a change in government since the challenge was first launched, with Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford replacing the Liberals and Kathleen Wynne in power. The Liberals had launched a plan aimed at addressing hydro costs before losing in a 2018 election, the main thrust of which had been to refinance global adjustment costs.

Wednesday’s decision states that “Ontario’s counsel advised the court that the current Ontario government ‘does not agree with the former government’s electricity procurement policy (since-repealed).’

“The government’s view is that: ‘The solution does not lie with the courts, but instead in the political arena with political actors,’” it adds.

A spokesperson for Ontario Energy Minister Greg Rickford said in an email that they are reviewing the decision but “as this matter is in the appeal period, it would be inappropriate to comment.” 

Ontario had also requested to stay the matter so a regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, could weigh in, while the Nova Scotia regulator approved a 14% hike in a separate case.

“However, Ontario only sought this relief from the motion judge in the alternative, and given the motion judge’s ultimate decision, she did not rule on the stay,” Thursday’s decision said. “It would be premature for this court to rule on the issue, although it seems incongruous for Ontario to argue that the Superior Court is the convenient forum in which to seek to dismiss the applications as meritless, but that it is not the convenient forum for assessing the merits of the applications.”

National Steel Car’s challenge bears a resemblance to the constitutional challenges launched by Ontario and other provinces over the federal government’s carbon tax, but Justice Lauwers wrote “that the federal legislative scheme under consideration in those cases is distinctly different from the legislation at issue in this appeal.”

“Nothing in those decisions impacts this appeal,” the judge added.
 

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Electric Buses reduce urban emissions and noise, but require charging infrastructure, grid upgrades, and depot redesigns; they offer lower operating costs and simpler maintenance, with range limits influencing routes, schedules, and on-route fast charging.

Key Points

Battery-electric buses cut emissions and noise while lowering operating and maintenance costs for transit agencies.

✅ Lower emissions, noise; improved rider experience

✅ Requires charging, grid upgrades, depot redesigns

✅ Range limits affect routes; on-route fast charging helps

In lots of ways, the electric bus feels like a technology whose time has come. Transportation is responsible for about a quarter of global emissions, and those emissions are growing faster than in any other sector. While buses are just a small slice of the worldwide vehicle fleet, they have an outsize effect on the environment. That’s partly because they’re so dirty—one Bogotá bus fleet made up just 5 percent of the city’s total vehicles, but a quarter of its CO2, 40 percent of nitrogen oxide, and more than half of all its particulate matter vehicle emissions. And because buses operate exactly where the people are concentrated, we feel the effects that much more acutely.

Enter the electric bus. Depending on the “cleanliness” of the electric grid into which they’re plugged, e-buses are much better for the environment. They’re also just straight up nicer to be around: less vibration, less noise, zero exhaust. Plus, in the long term, e-buses have lower operating costs, and related efforts like US school bus electrification are gathering pace too.

So it makes sense that global e-bus sales increased by 32 percent last year, according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as the age of electric cars accelerates across markets worldwide. “You look across the electrification of cars, trucks—it’s buses that are leading this revolution,” says David Warren, the director of sustainable transportation at bus manufacturer New Flyer.

Today, about 17 percent of the world’s buses are electric—425,000 in total. But 99 percent of them are in China, where a national mandate promotes all sorts of electric vehicles. In North America, a few cities have bought a few electric buses, or at least run limited pilots, to test the concept out, and early deployments like Edmonton's first e-bus offer useful lessons as systems ramp up. California has even mandated that by 2029 all buses purchased by its mass transit agencies be zero-emission.

But given all the benefits of e-buses, why aren’t there more? And why aren’t they everywhere?

“We want to be responsive, we want to be innovative, we want to pilot new technologies and we’re committed to doing so as an agency,” says Becky Collins, the manager of corporate initiative at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which is currently on its second e-bus pilot program. “But if the diesel bus was a first-generation car phone, we’re verging on smartphone territory right now. It’s not as simple as just flipping a switch.”

One reason is trepidation about the actual electric vehicle. Some of the major bus manufacturers are still getting over their skis, production-wise. During early tests in places like Belo Horizonte, Brazil, e-buses had trouble getting over steep hills with full passenger loads. Albuquerque, New Mexico, canceled a 15-bus deal with the Chinese manufacturer BYD after finding equipment problems during testing. (The city also sued). Today’s buses get around 225 miles per charge, depending on topography and weather conditions, which means they have to re-up about once a day on a shorter route in a dense city. That’s an issue in a lot of places.

If you want to buy an electric bus, you need to buy into an entire electric bus system. The vehicle is just the start.

The number one thing people seem to forget about electric buses is that they need to get charged, and emerging projects such as a bus depot charging hub illustrate how infrastructure can scale. “We talk to many different organizations that get so fixated on the vehicles,” says Camron Gorguinpour, the global senior manager for the electric vehicles at the World Resources Institute, a research organization, which last month released twin reports on electric bus adoption. “The actual charging stations get lost in the mix.”

But charging stations are expensive—about $50,000 for your standard depot-based one. On-route charging stations, an appealing option for longer bus routes, can be two or three times that. And that’s not even counting construction costs. Or the cost of new land: In densely packed urban centers, movements inside bus depots can be tightly orchestrated to accommodate parking and fueling. New electric bus infrastructure means rethinking limited space, and operators can look to Toronto's TTC e-bus fleet for practical lessons on depot design. And it’s a particular pain when agencies are transitioning between diesel and electric buses. “The big issue is just maintaining two sets of fueling infrastructure,” says Hanjiro Ambrose, a doctoral student at UC Davis who studies transportation technology and policy.

“We talk to many different organizations that get so fixated on the vehicles. The actual charging stations get lost in the mix as the American EV boom gathers pace across sectors.”

Then agencies also have to get the actual electricity to their charging stations. This involves lengthy conversations with utilities about grid upgrades, rethinking how systems are wired, occasionally building new substations, and, sometimes, cutting deals on electric output, since electric truck fleets will also strain power systems in parallel. Because an entirely electrified bus fleet? It’s a lot to charge. Warren, the New Flyer executive, estimates it could take 150 megawatt-hours of electricity to keep a 300-bus depot charged up throughout the day. Your typical American household, by contrast, consumes 7 percent of that—per year. “That’s a lot of work by the utility company,” says Warren.

For cities outside of China—many of them still testing out electric buses and figuring out how they fit into their larger fleets—learning about what it takes to run one is part of the process. This, of course, takes money. It also takes time. Optimists say e-buses are more of a question of when than if. Bloomberg New Energy Finance projects that just under 60 percent of all fleet buses will be electric by 2040, compared to under 40 percent of commercial vans and 30 percent of passenger vehicles.

Which means, of course, that the work has just started. “With new technology, it always feels great when it shows up,” says Ambrose. “You really hope that first mile is beautiful, because the shine will come off. That’s always true.”

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Denmark 2019 electricity CO2 intensity shows record-low emissions as renewable energy surges, wind power dominates, offshore wind expands, and coal phase-out accelerates Denmark's energy transition and grid decarbonization, driven by higher CO2 prices and flexibility.

Key Points

It is 135 g CO2/kWh, a record low enabled by wind power growth, offshore wind, and a sharp coal decline.

✅ Average emissions fell to 135 g CO2/kWh, the lowest on record

✅ Wind and solar supplied 49.9% of national electricity use

✅ Coal consumption dropped 46% as CO2 allowance prices rose

Danish electricity producers set a new green record in 2019, when an average produced kilowatt-hour emitted 135 gr CO2 / kWh.

It is the lowest CO2 emission ever measured in Denmark and about one-seventh of what the electricity producers emitted in 1990.

Never has a kilowatt-hour produced emitted as little CO2 as it did in 2019. And that's according to Energinet's recently published annual Environmental Report on Danish electricity generation and cogeneration, two primary causes.

One reason is that more green power has been produced because the Horns Rev 3 offshore wind farm, which can produce electricity for 425,000 households, was commissioned in 2019. The other is that Danish coal consumption fell by 46 percent from 2018 to 2019, as coal phase-out plans gathered pace across the sector. the dramatic decline in coal consumption is partly due a significant increase in the price of CO2 quotas, and thus also the price of CO2 emissions.

'Historically, 135 gr CO2 / kWh is a really, really low figure, showing the impressive green travel that the Danish electricity system has been on. In 1990, a kilowatt-hour produced emitted over 1000 grams of CO2, ie about seven times as much as today, 'says Hanne Storm Edlefsen, area manager in Energinet Power Systems Responsibility.

Wind energy is the dominant form of electricity generation in Denmark, a pattern the UK wind beat coal in 2016 when shifting away from fossil fuels.

17.1 TWh. Danish wind turbines and solar cells generated so much electricity in 2019, corresponding to 49.9 per cent. of Danish electricity consumption, reflecting broader EU wind and solar growth trends as well. An increase of 15 per cent. The wind turbines alone produced 16 TWh, which is not only a new green record, but also puts a thick line that wind energy is by far the most dominant form of electricity generation in Denmark.

'Thanks to our large wind resources, turbines are by far the largest supplier of renewable energy in Denmark, and this will be for many years to come. The large price drop in new wind energy in recent years - for both onshore and offshore winds - will ensure that wind energy will drive a large part of the growth in renewable energy in the coming years, as new wind generation records are set in markets like the UK, 'says Soren Klinge, electricity market manager at Wind Denmark.

Conversely, total electricity generation from fossil and bio-based fuels decreased by 26 PJ (petajoule ed.), Corresponding to 34 per cent. from 2018 to 2019, mirroring renewables overtaking coal in Germany. Nevertheless, net electricity generation was just under 30 TWh both years.

'It is worth noting that while fossil fuels are being phased out, Denmark maintains its annual net production of electricity. The green, so to speak, replaces the black. It once again underpins that green conversion, high security of supply and an affordable electricity price can go hand in hand, 'says Hanne Storm Edlefsen.

Danish power system is ready for a green future

Including trade in electricity with neighboring countries, 1 kWh in a Danish outlet generates 145 gr CO2 / kWh.

'There has been a very significant development in the Danish electricity system in recent years, where the electricity system can now be operated solely on the renewable energy. It is a remarkable development, also from an international perspective where low-carbon progress stalled in the UK in 2019, that one would not have thought possible for just a few years ago, 'he says.

More than expected have phased out coal

The electricity from the Danish sockets will be greener , predicts Energinet's environmental report , which expects CO2 intensity in the coming years. This is explained by an expectation of increased electrification of energy consumption, together with a continued expansion with wind and solar.

'Wind energy is the cornerstone of the green transition. With the commissioning of the Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm and several major onshore wind turbine projects within the next few years, we can well expect that only the wind's share of electricity consumption will exceed 50 per cent hopefully as early as 2021,' concludes Soren Klinge.

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Toronto Hydro Scam Warning urges customers to spot phishing emails, fraudulent texts, fake bills, and door-to-door threats demanding bitcoin or prepaid cards, with disconnection threats; report scams to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

Key Points

Advisory on phishing, fake bills, and payment scams posing as Toronto Hydro, with steps to avoid fraud and report.

✅ Hang up suspicious calls; never pay via bitcoin or prepaid cards.

✅ Do not click links in emails or texts; compare bills and account numbers.

✅ Report fraud to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre: 1-888-495-8501.

Toronto Hydro has sent out a notice that criminals posing as Toronto Hydro are sending out fraudulent texts, letters and emails, similar to a recent BC Hydro scam reported in British Columbia.

The warning comes in a tweet, along with suggestions on how to protect yourself from fraud, especially as policy debates like an NDP public hydro plan can generate confusing messages.

According to Toronto Hydro, fraudsters are contacting people by phone, text, email, fake electricity bills, and even travelling door-to-door.

They threaten to disconnect the power unless an immediate payment is made, even though legitimate utilities must follow proper disconnection notices processes. The website states that in some cases, criminals request payment via pre-paid credit card or bitcoin.

It’s written on the website that Toronto Hydro does not accept these methods of payment, and they do not threaten to immediately disconnect power, a reminder that stories about power theft abroad are not a model for local billing.

If you suspect you are being targeted, you should immediately hang up any suspicious phone calls. Don’t click on any links in emails or texts asking you to accept electronic transfers, as scammers may impersonate well-known utilities during high-profile news such as Hydro One profit changes to appear credible.

Avoid sharing any personal information over the phone or in-person, and do not make any payments related to Smart Meter Deposits, as this fee does not exist and rate-setting is overseen by the Ontario Energy Board in Ontario.

And remember to always compare bills to previous ones, including the amount and account number, since major accounting decisions like a BC Hydro deferral report can fuel confusing narratives.

To report fraudulent activity, please contact:
Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501; quote file number 844396

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US January power generation climbed to 373.2 TWh, EIA data shows, with coal edging natural gas, record wind output, record nuclear generation, rising hydro, and stable utility-scale solar amid higher Henry Hub prices.

Key Points

US January power generation hit 373.2 TWh; coal led gas, wind and nuclear set records, with solar edging higher.

✅ Coal 31.8% share; gas 29.4%; coal output 118.7 TWh, gas 109.6 TWh.

✅ Wind hit record 26.8 TWh; nuclear record 74.6 TWh.

✅ Total generation 373.2 TWh, highest January since 2014.

The US generated 373.2 TWh of power in January, up 7.9% from 345.9 TWh in December and 9.3% higher than the same month in 2017, Energy Information Administration data shows.

The monthly total was the highest amount in January since 377.3 TWh was generated in January 2014.

Coal generation totaled 118.7 TWh in January, up 11.4% from 106.58 TWh in December and up 2.8% from the year-ago month, consistent with projections of a coal-fired generation increase for the first time since 2014. It was also the highest amount generated in January since 132.4 TWh in 2015.

For the second straight month, more power was generated from coal than natural gas, as 109.6 TWh came from gas, up 3.3% from 106.14 TWh in December and up 19.9% on the year.

However, the 118.7 TWh generated from coal was down 9.6% from the five-year average for the month, due to the higher usage of gas and renewables and a rising share of non-fossil generation in the overall mix.

#google#

Coal made up 31.8% of the total US power generation in January, up from 30.8% in December but down from 33.8% in January 2017.

Gas` generation share was at 29.4% in the latest month, with momentum from record gas-fired electricity earlier in the period, down from 30.7% in December but up from 26.8% in the year-ago month.

In January, the NYMEX Henry Hub gas futures price averaged $3.16/MMBtu, up 13.9% from $2.78/MMBtu averaged in December but down 4% from $3.29/MMBtu averaged in the year-ago month.

WIND, NUCLEAR GENERATION AT RECORD HIGHS

Wind generation was at a record-high 26.8 TWh in January, up 29.3% from 22.8 TWh in December and the highest amount on record, according to EIA data going back to January 2001. Wind generated 7.2% of the nation`s power in January, as an EIA summer outlook anticipates larger wind and solar contributions, up from 6.6% in December and 6.1% in the year-ago month.

Utility-scale solar generated 3.3 TWh in January, up 1.3% from 3.1 TWh in December and up 51.6% on the year. In January, utility-scale solar generation made up 0.9% of US power generation, during a period when solar and wind supplied 10% of US electricity in early 2018, flat from December but up from 0.6% in January 2017.

Nuclear generation was also at a record-high 74.6 TWh in January, up 1.3% month on month and the highest monthly total since the EIA started tracking it in January 2001, eclipsing the previous record of 74.3 TWh set in July 2008. Nuclear generation made up 20% of the US power in January, down from 21.3% in December and 21.4% in the year-ago month.

Hydro power totaled 25.4 TWh in January, making up 6.8% of US power generation during the month, up from 6.5% in December but down from 8.2% in January 2017.

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Lebanon Power Barge Controversy spotlights Karadeniz Energy's Esra Sultan, Lebanon's electricity crisis, prolonged blackouts, and sectarian politics as Amal and Hezbollah clash over Zahrani vs Jiyeh docking and allocation across regions.

Key Points

A political dispute over the Esra Sultan power ship, its docking, and power allocation amid Lebanon's chronic blackouts.

✅ Karadeniz Energy lent a third barge at below-market rates.

✅ Docking disputes: Zahrani refused; Jiyeh limited; Zouq connected.

✅ Amal vs Hezbollah split exposes sectarian energy politics.

It was supposed to be a goodwill gesture from an energy company in Turkey.

This summer, the Karadeniz Energy Group lent Lebanon a floating power station to generate electricity at below-market rates to help ease the strain on the country's woefully undermaintained power sector.

Instead, the barge's arrival opened a Pandora's box of partisan mudslinging in a country hobbled by political sectarianism and dysfunction.

There have been rows over where it should dock, how to allocate its 235 megawatts of power, and even what to call the barge, echoing controversies like the Maine electric line debate that pit local politics against energy needs.

It has even driven a wedge between Lebanon's two dominant parties among Shiite Muslims: Amal and the militant group Hezbollah.

Amal, which has held the parliament speaker's seat since 1992, revealed sensationally last week it had refused to allow the boat to dock in a port in the predominantly Shiite south, even though it is one of the most underserved regions of Lebanon.

Power outages in the south can stretch on for more than 12 hours a day, much like the Gaza electricity crisis, according to regional observers.

Hezbollah, which normally stands pat with Amal in political matters, issued an exceptional statement that it had nothing to do with the matter of the barge at Zahrani port. A Hezbollah lawmaker went further to say his party disagreed on the issue with Amal.

Ali Hassan Khalil, Lebanon's Finance Minister and a leading Amal party member, said southerners wanted a permanent power station, not a stop-gap solution, in an implied dig at the rival Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party that runs the Energy Ministry.

But critics seized on the statement as confirmation that Amal's leaders were in bed with the operators of private generators, who have been making fortunes selling electricity during blackouts at many times the state price.

"For decades there's been nothing stopping them from building a power plant," said Mohammad Obeid, a former Amal party official, in an interview with Lebanon's Al Jadeed TV station.

"Now there's a barge that's coming for three months to provide a few more hours of electricity -- and that's the issue?"

Hassan Khalil, reached by phone, refused to comment.

Nabih Berri, Amal's chief and Lebanon's parliament speaker, who has long been the subject of critical coverage from Al Jadeed's, sued the TV channel for libel on Wednesday for its reporting.

Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil, a Christian, lashed out at Amal, saying the ministry even changed the barge's name from Ayse, Turkish for Aisha, a name associated in Lebanon with Sunnis, to Esra Sultan, which does not carry any Shiite or Sunni connotations, to try to get it to dock in Zahrani.

Karadeniz said the barge was renamed "out of courtesy and respect to local customs and sensitivities."

"Ayse is a very common Turkish name, where such preferences are not as sensitive as in Lebanon," it said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Finally, on July 18, the barge docked in Jiyeh, a harbour south of Beirut but north of Zahrani, and in a religiously mixed Muslim area.

But two weeks later it was unmoored again, after Abi Khalil, the energy minister, said the infrastructure at Jiyeh could only handle 30 megawatts of the Esra Sultan's 235 capacity, and upgrades such as burying subsea cables are expensive.

With Zahrani closed to the Esra Sultan, it could only go to Zouq Mikhael, a port in the Christian-dominated Kesrouan region in the north, where it was plugged to the grid Tuesday night, giving the region almost 24 hours of electricity a day.

Lebanon has been contending with rolling blackouts since the days of its 1975-1990 civil war. Successive governments have failed to agree on a permanent solution for the chronic electricity failures, largely because of profiteering, endemic corruption and lack of political will, despite periodic pushes for electricity sector reform in Lebanon over the years.

In 2013, the Energy Ministry contracted with Karadeniz to buy electricity from a pair of its barges, which are still docked in Jiyeh and Zouq Mikhael.

This summer, Abi Khalil signed a new contract with Karadeniz to keep the barges for another three years. As part of the deal, Karadeniz agreed to lend Lebanon the third barge, the Esra Sultan, to produce electricity for three months at no cost - Lebanon would just have to pay for the fuel.

The company said Lebanon's internal squabbles do not affect how long the Esra Sultan would stay in Lebanon, even amid wider sector volatility and the pandemic's impact highlighted in a recent financial update. It arrived on July 18 and it will leave on Oct. 18, it said.

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