IEEE announces two smart grid standards

AI Energy Consumption strains corporate electricity bills as data centers and HPC workloads run nonstop, driving carbon emissions. Efficiency upgrades, renewable energy, and algorithm optimization help control costs and enhance sustainability across industries.

Key Points

AI Energy Consumption is the power used by AI compute and data centers, impacting costs and sustainability.

✅ Optimize cooling, hardware, and workloads to cut kWh per inference

✅ Integrate on-site solar, wind, or PPAs to offset data center power

✅ Tune models and algorithms to reduce compute and latency

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing industries with its promise of increased efficiency and productivity. However, as businesses integrate AI technologies into their operations, there's a significant and often overlooked impact: the strain on corporate electricity bills.

AI's Growing Energy Demand

The adoption of AI entails the deployment of high-performance computing systems, data centers, and sophisticated algorithms that require substantial energy consumption. These systems operate around the clock, processing massive amounts of data and performing complex computations, and, much like the impact on utilities seen with major EV rollouts, contributing to a notable increase in electricity usage for businesses.

Industries Affected

Various sectors, including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and technology, rely on AI-driven applications for tasks ranging from data analysis and predictive modeling to customer service automation and supply chain optimization, while manufacturing is influenced by ongoing electric motor market growth that increases electrified processes.

Cost Implications

The rise in electricity consumption due to AI deployments translates into higher operational costs for businesses. Corporate entities must budget accordingly for increased electricity bills, which can impact profit margins and financial planning, especially in regions experiencing electricity price volatility in Europe amid market reforms. Managing these costs effectively becomes crucial to maintaining competitiveness and sustainability in the marketplace.

Sustainability Challenges

The environmental impact of heightened electricity consumption cannot be overlooked. Increased energy demand from AI technologies contributes to carbon emissions and environmental footprints, alongside rising e-mobility demand forecasts that pressure grids, posing challenges for businesses striving to meet sustainability goals and regulatory requirements.

Mitigation Strategies

To address the escalating electricity bills associated with AI, businesses are exploring various mitigation strategies:

1. Energy Efficiency Measures: Implementing energy-efficient practices, such as optimizing data center cooling systems, upgrading to energy-efficient hardware, and adopting smart energy management solutions, can help reduce electricity consumption.

2. Renewable Energy Integration: Investing in renewable energy sources like solar or wind power and energy storage solutions to enhance flexibility can offset electricity costs and align with corporate sustainability initiatives.

3. Algorithm Optimization: Fine-tuning AI algorithms to improve computational efficiency and reduce processing times can lower energy demands without compromising performance.

4. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Conducting thorough cost-benefit analyses of AI deployments to assess energy consumption against operational benefits and potential rate impacts, informed by cases where EV adoption can benefit customers in broader electricity markets, helps businesses make informed decisions and prioritize energy-saving initiatives.

Future Outlook

As AI continues to evolve and permeate more aspects of business operations, the demand for electricity will likely intensify and may coincide with broader EV demand projections that increase grid loads. Balancing the benefits of AI-driven innovation with the challenges of increased energy consumption requires proactive energy management strategies and investments in sustainable technologies.

Conclusion

The integration of AI technologies presents significant opportunities for businesses to enhance productivity and competitiveness. However, the corresponding surge in electricity bills underscores the importance of proactive energy management and sustainability practices. By adopting energy-efficient measures, leveraging renewable energy sources, and optimizing AI deployments, businesses can mitigate cost impacts, reduce environmental footprints, and foster long-term operational resilience in an increasingly AI-driven economy.

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Ontario Electricity Bill Scams: beware phishing, spoofed calls, fake invoices, and disconnection threats demanding prepaid cards, gift cards, or Bitcoin; verify with Hydro One, Alectra, Toronto Hydro, Elexicon, or Hydro Ottawa customer service.

Key Points

Fraud schemes impersonating utilities via calls, texts, emails, or fake bills to coerce instant payment with threats.

✅ Never pay by gift cards, prepaid debit, or Bitcoin.

✅ Do not call numbers in messages; use your bill or utility website.

✅ Verify IDs; report threats or door-to-door demands to police.

Ontario’s five largest electricity utilities have teamed up to warn the public about ongoing scams concerning fake phone calls, texts and bills connected to the utility accounts.

“We always receive these reports of scams and it gets increasingly higher during the holidays when people are busy and enjoying the season," said Whitney Brhelle, spokesperson with Hydro One.

Hydro One joined with Alectra Utilities, Elexicon Energy, Hydro Ottawa and Toronto Hydro to get the message out that scammers are targeting customers and threatening to turn off their power.

Scams involve impersonation of a local utility or its employees, threatening phone calls, texts or emails and pressure for immediate payment that come with threats to disconnect service the same day.

Criminals may demand payment in prepaid debit cards, gift cards or Bitcoin. Utilities said they would never call a customer without notice and threaten disconnection over the phone.

In a separate case, authorities in Montreal arrested suspects in an electricity theft ring that highlights broader energy-related crime.

“People have been calling customers and saying you need to pay your bill immediately and they are threatened with disconnection, often citing supposed changes to peak hydro rates to add pressure, which is something that we would ever do," said Kimberly Brathwaite, spokesperson with Elexicon Energy.

Scammers are also creating fake bills that look like the real thing.

“Scammers will actually take our Alectra logo and send out various authentic looking documents to people’s homes, so people have to be aware and check their statements very carefully” said Ashley Trgachef spokesperson with Alectra Utilities.

Customers are advised to never make a payment not listed on their recent bill and to ignore texts or emails with links promising refunds, and to verify any official relief fund information only through their utility and not to provide personal information or details about their account.

If you are given a number to call don’t call the number provided, you are better off to go to your bill or the utility’s website to makes sure it is the correct number for customer service and to review information about customer flexibility there.

Some scammers have even gone door to door demanding payment, and the utilities are advising anyone who feels threatened to call police.

They are also asking that you share the information with family and friends to be careful if they are contacted by someone claiming to be with their electricity company.

If you fall for a scam and money is sent, it's very difficult to get it back.  

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Alberta Solar Energy Contracts secure low-cost photovoltaic PPAs for government operations, delivering renewable electricity at 4.8 cents/kWh, beating natural gas LCOE, enhancing summer grid efficiency across Hays, Tilley, and Jenner with Canadian Solar.

Key Points

Low-cost PV power agreements meeting 55% of Alberta government electricity demand via new Canadian Solar facilities.

✅ Price: 4.8 cents/kWh CAD, under gas-fired generation LCOE.

✅ Sites: Hays, Tilley, Jenner; 50% equity with Conklin Métis Local #193.

✅ Supplies 55% of provincial government electricity demand.

Three new solar electricity facilities to be built in south eastern Alberta (Canada) amid Alberta's solar growth have been selected through a competitive process to supply the Government of Alberta with 55 per cent of their annual electricity needs. The facilities will be built near Hays, Tilley, and Jenner, by Canadian Solar with Conklin Métis Local #193 as 50-percent equity owners.

The Government of Alberta's operations have been powered 100 per cent with wind power since 2007. Upon the expiration of some of these contracts, they have been renewed to switch from wind to solar energy. The average contract pricing will be $0.048 per kilowatt hour (3.6 cents/kWh USD), which is less than the average historical wholesale power pool price paid to natural gas-fired electricity in the province in years 2008 - 2018.

"The conversation about solar energy has long been fixated on its price competitiveness with fossil fuels," said John Gorman, CanSIA President & CEO. "Today's announcement demonstrates that low cost solar energy has arrived as a mainstream option in Alberta, even as demand for solar lags in Canada according to federal assessments. The conversation should next focus on how to optimize an all-of-the-above strategy for developing the province's renewable and non-renewable resources."

"This price discovery is monumental for the solar industry in Canada" said Patrick Bateman, CanSIA Director of Policy & Market Development. "At less than five cents per kilowatt hour, this solar electricity has a cost that is less than that of natural gas. Achieving Alberta's legislated 30 per cent by 2030 renewable electricity target just became a whole lot cheaper!".

Quick Facts:

• The contract price of 4.8 cents/kWh CAD to be paid by Alberta Infrastructure for this solar electricity represents a lower Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) than the average annual wholesale price paid by the power pool to combined-cycle and single-cycle natural gas-fired electricity generation which was 7.1 cents/kWh and 11.2 cents/kWh respectively from 2008 - 2018.

• Alberta receives more hours of sunshine than Miami, Florida in the summer months. Alberta's electricity supply is most strained in summer, highlighting challenges for solar expansion when high temperatures increase the resistance of the distribution and transmission systems, and reduce the efficiency of cooling thermal power plants. For this reason, solar facilities sited near to electricity demand improves overall grid efficiency. Supply shortages are atypical in Alberta in winter when solar energy is least available. When they do occur, imports are increased and large loads are decreased.

• In 2018, Alberta's solar electricity generation exceeded 50 MW. While representing much less than 1% of the province's electricity supply today, the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA) forecasts that solar energy could supply as much as 3 per cent of the province's electricity by 2030, supporting renewable energy job growth across Alberta. A recent supply chain study of the solar electricity sector in Alberta by Solas Energy Consulting Inc. found a potential of $4.1 billion in market value and a labour force rising to 10,000 in 2030.

To learn more about solar energy and the best way for consumers to go solar, please visit the Canadian Solar Industries Association at www.CanSIA.ca.

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Canada Power Grid Climate Resilience integrates extreme weather planning, microgrids, battery storage, renewable energy, vegetation management, and undergrounding to reduce outages, harden infrastructure, modernize utilities, and safeguard reliability during storms, ice events, and wildfires.

Key Points

Canada's grid resilience hardens utilities against extreme weather using microgrids, storage, renewables, and upgrades.

✅ Grid hardening: microgrids, storage, renewable integration

✅ Vegetation management reduces storm-related line contact

✅ Selective undergrounding where risk and cost justify

The increasing intensity of storms that lead to massive power outages highlights the need for Canada’s electrical utilities to be more robust and innovative, climate change scientists say.

“We need to plan to be more resilient in the face of the increasing chances of these events occurring,” University of New Brunswick climate change scientist Louise Comeau said in a recent interview.

The East Coast was walloped this week by the third storm in as many days, with high winds toppling trees and even part of a Halifax church steeple, underscoring the value of storm-season electrical safety tips for residents.

Significant weather events have consistently increased over the last five years, according to the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA), which has tracked such events since 2003.

#google#

Nearly a quarter of total outage hours nationally in 2016 – 22 per cent – were caused by two ice storms, a lightning storm, and the Fort McMurray fires, which the CEA said may or may not be classified as a climate event.

“It (climate change) is putting quite a lot of pressure on electricity companies coast to coast to coast to improve their processes and look for ways to strengthen their systems in the face of this evolving threat,” said Devin McCarthy, vice president of public affairs and U.S. policy for the CEA, which represents 40 utilities serving 14 million customers.

The 2016 figures – the most recent available – indicate the average Canadian customer experienced 3.1 outages and 5.66 hours of outage time.

McCarthy said electricity companies can’t just build their systems to withstand the worst storm they’d dealt with over the previous 30 years. They must prepare for worse, and address risks highlighted by Site C dam stability concerns as part of long-term planning.

“There needs to be a more forward looking approach, climate science led, that looks at what do we expect our system to be up against in the next 20, 30 or 50 years,” he said.

Toronto Hydro is either looking at or installing equipment with extreme weather in mind, Elias Lyberogiannis, the utility’s general manager of engineering, said in an email.

That includes stainless steel transformers that are more resistant to corrosion, and breakaway links for overhead service connections, which allow service wires to safely disconnect from poles and prevents damage to service masts.

Comeau said smaller grids, tied to electrical systems operated by larger utilities, often utilize renewable energy sources such as solar and wind as well as battery storage technology to power collections of buildings, homes, schools and hospitals.

“Capacity to do that means we are less vulnerable when the central systems break down,” Comeau said.

Nova Scotia Power recently announced an “intelligent feeder” pilot project, which involves the installation of Tesla Powerwall storage batteries in 10 homes in Elmsdale, N.S., and a large grid-sized battery at the local substation. The batteries are connected to an electrical line powered in part by nearby wind turbines.

The idea is to test the capability of providing customers with back-up power, while collecting data that will be useful for planning future energy needs.

Tony O’Hara, NB Power’s vice-president of engineering, said the utility, which recently sounded an alarm on copper theft, was in the late planning stages of a micro-grid for the western part of the province, and is also studying the use of large battery storage banks.

“Those things are coming, that will be an evolution over time for sure,” said O’Hara.

Some solutions may be simpler. Smaller utilities, like Nova Scotia Power, are focusing on strengthening overhead systems, mainly through vegetation management, while in Ontario, Hydro One and Alectra are making major investments to strengthen infrastructure in the Hamilton area.

“The number one cause of outages during storms, particularly those with high winds and heavy snow, is trees making contact with power lines,” said N.S. Power’s Tiffany Chase.

The company has an annual budget of $20 million for tree trimming and removal.

“But the reality is with overhead infrastructure, trees are going to cause damage no matter how robust the infrastructure is,” said Matt Drover, the utility’s director for regional operations.

“We are looking at things like battery storage and a variety of other reliability programs to help with that.”

NB Power also has an increased emphasis on tree trimming and removal, and now spends $14 million a year on it, up from $6 million prior to 2014.

O’Hara said the vegetation program has helped drive the average duration of power outages down since 2014 from about three hours to two hours and 45 minutes.

Some power cables are buried in both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, mostly in urban areas. But both utilities maintain it’s too expensive to bury entire systems – estimated at $1 million per kilometre by Nova Scotia Power.

The issue of burying more lines was top of mind in Toronto following a 2013 ice storm, but that’s city’s utility also rejected the idea of a large-scale underground system as too expensive – estimating the cost at around $15 billion, while Ontario customers have seen Hydro One delivery rates rise in recent adjustments.

“Having said that, it is prudent to do so for some installations depending on site specific conditions and the risks that exist,” Lyberogiannis said.

Comeau said lowering risks will both save money and disruption to people’s lives.

“We can’t just do what we used to do,” said Xuebin Zhang, a senior climate change scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

“We have to build in management risk … this has to be a new norm.”

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EV Firefighter Cancer Risks: lithium-ion battery fires, toxic metals like nickel and chromium, hazardous smoke plumes, and prolonged exposure threaten first responders; SCBA use, decontamination, and evidence-based protocols help reduce occupational health impacts.

Key Points

Health hazards from EV battery fires exposing responders to toxic metals and smoke, elevating long-term cancer risk.

✅ Nickel and chromium in EV smoke linked to lung and sinus cancers

✅ Use SCBA, on-scene decon, and post-incident cleaning to cut exposure

✅ Adopt EV fire SOPs: cooling, monitoring, isolation, air monitoring

As electric vehicles (EVs) become more popular, the EV fire risks to firefighters are becoming an increasing concern. These fires, fueled by the high-capacity lithium-ion batteries in EVs, produce dangerous chemical exposures that could have serious long-term health implications for first responders.

Claudine Buzzo, a firefighter and cancer survivor, knows firsthand the dangers that come with the profession. She’s faced personal health battles, including rare pancreatic cancer and breast cancer, both of which she attributes to the hazards of firefighting. Now, as EV adoption increases and some research links adoption to fewer asthma-related ER visits in local communities, Buzzo and her colleagues are concerned about how EV fires might add to their already heavy exposure to harmful chemicals.

The fire risks associated with EVs are different from those of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. Dr. Alberto Caban-Martinez, who is leading a study at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains that the high concentrations of metals released in the smoke from an EV fire are linked to various cancers. For instance, nickel, a key component in EV batteries, is associated with lung, nasal, and laryngeal cancers, while chromium, another metal found in some EV batteries, is linked to lung and sinus cancers.

Research from the Firefighter Cancer Initiative indicates that the plume of smoke from an EV fire contains significantly higher concentrations of these metals than fires from traditional vehicles. This raises the risk of long-term health problems for firefighters who respond to such incidents.

While the Electric Vehicle Association acknowledges the risks associated with various types of vehicle fires, they maintain that the lithium-ion batteries in EVs may not present a significantly higher risk than other common fire hazards, even as broader assessments suggest EVs are not a silver bullet for climate goals. Nonetheless, the growing body of research is causing concern among health experts, urging for further studies into how these new types of fires could affect firefighter health and how upstream electricity generation, where 18% of electricity in 2019 came from fossil fuels in Canada, factors into overall risk perceptions.

Fire departments and health researchers are working to understand the full scope of these risks and are emphasizing the importance of protective gear, such as self-contained breathing apparatuses, to minimize exposure during EV fire responses, while also considering questions like grid impacts during charging operations and EV sustainability improvements in different regions.

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Ecofiscal Commission EV Policy Shift examines carbon pricing limits, endorsing signal boosters like subsidies, EV incentives, and coal bans, amid advisory changes and public pushback, to accelerate emissions cuts beyond market-based taxes and regulations.

Key Points

An updated stance recognizing carbon pricing limits and backing EV incentives, subsidies, and rules to reduce emissions.

✅ Carbon pricing plus subsidies, EV incentives

✅ Advisory shift; Jack Mintz departs

✅ Focus on emissions cuts, coal power bans

Something strange happened at the Ecofiscal Commission recently. Earlier this month, the carbon-tax advocacy group featured on its website as one of its advisers the renowned Canadian economist (and FP Comment columnist) Jack M. Mintz. The other day, suddenly and without fanfare, Mintz was gone from the website, and the commission’s advisory board.

Advisers come and advisers go, of course, but it turns out there was an impetus for Mintz’s departure. The Ecofiscal Commission in its latest report, dropped just before Canada Day, seemingly shifted from its position that carbon prices were so excellent at mimicking market forces that the tax could repeal and replace virtually the entire vast expensive gallimaufry of subsidies, caps, rules and regulations that are costing Canada a fortune in business and bureaucrats. As some Ecofiscal commissioners wrote just a few months ago, policies that “dictate specific technologies or methods for reducing emissions constrain private choice and increase costs” and were a bad idea.

But, in this latest report, the commission is now musing about the benefits of carbon-tax “signal boosters”: that is, EV subsidies and rules to, for instance, get people to start buying electric vehicles (EVs), as well as bans on coal-fired power. “Even well designed carbon pricing can have limitations,” rationalized the commission. Mintz said he had “misgivings” about the change of tack. He decided it best if he focus his advisory energies elsewhere.

It’s hard to blame the commission for falling like everyone else for the electric-car mania that’s sweeping the nation and the world. Electric cars offer a sexiness that dreary old carbon taxes can never hope to match — especially in light of a new Angus Reid poll last week that showed the majority of Canadians now want governments to shelve any plans for carbon taxes.

So far, because nobody’s really driving these miracle machines, said mania has been limited to breathless news reports about how the electric-vehicle revolution is about to rock our world. EVs comprise just two-tenths of a per cent of all passenger vehicles in North America, despite the media’s endless hype and efforts of green-obsessed governments to cover much of the price tag, like Ontario’s $14,000 rebate for Tesla buyers. In Europe, where virtue-signalling urban environmentalism is the coolest, they’re not feeling the vehicular electricity much more: EVs account for barely one per cent of personal vehicles in France, the U.K. and Germany. When Hong Kong cancelled Tesla rebates in April, sales fell to zero.

Going by the ballyhoo, you’d think EVs were at an inflection point and an unstoppable juggernaut. But it’s one that has yet to even get started. In his 2011 State of the Union address, then president Barack Obama predicted one million electric cars on the road by 2015. Four years later, there wasn’t even a third that many. California offered so many different subsidies for electric vehicles that low-income families could get rebates of up to US$13,500, but it still isn’t even close to reaching its target of having zero-emission vehicles make up 15 per cent of California auto sales by 2025, being stuck at three per cent since 2014. Ontario’s Liberal government last year announced to much laughter its plan to ensure that every family would have at least one zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) by 2024, and Quebec made a plan to make ZEVs worth 15.5 per cent of sales by 2020, while Ottawa’s 2035 EV mandate attracts criticism too. Let’s see how that’s going: Currently, ZEVs make up 0.16 per cent of new vehicle sales in Ontario and 0.38 per cent in Quebec.

The latest sensational but bogus EV news out last week was France’s government announcing the “end of the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2040,” and Volvo apparently announcing that as of 2019, all its models would be “electric.” Both announcements made international headlines. Both are baloney. France provided no actual details about this plan (will it literally become a crime to sell a gasoline car? Will hybrids, run partly on gasoline, be allowed?), but more importantly, as automotive writer Ed Wiseman pointed out in The Guardian, a lot will happen in technology and automotive use over the next 23 years that France has no way to predict, with changes in self-driving cars, public car-sharing and fuel technologies. Imagine making rules for today’s internet back in 1994.

Volvo, meanwhile, looked to be recycling and repackaging years-old news to seize on today’s infatuation with electric vehicles to burnish its now Chinese-owned brand. Since 2010, Volvo’s plan has been to focus on engines that were partly electric, with electric turbochargers, but still based on gasoline. Volvo doesn’t actually have an all-electric model, but the gasoline-swigging engine of its popular XC90 SUV is, partly, electrical. When Volvo said all its models would in two years be “electric,” it meant this kind of engine, not that it was phasing out the internal-combustion gasoline engine. But that is what it wanted reporters to think, and judging by all the massive and inaccurate coverage, it worked.

The real story being missed is just how pathetic things look right now for electric cars. Gasoline prices in the U.S. turned historically cheap in 2015 and stayed cheap, icing demand for gasless cars. Tesla, whose founder’s self-promotion had made the niche carmaker magically more valuable than powerhouses like Ford and GM, haemorrhaged US$12 billion in market value last week after tepid sales figures brought some investors back to Earth, even as the company’s new Model 3 began rolling off the line.

Not helping is that environmental claims about environmental cars are falling apart. In June, Tesla was rocked by a controversial Swedish study that found that making one of its car batteries released as much CO2 as eight years of gasoline-powered driving. And Bloomberg reported last week on a study by Chinese engineers that found that electric vehicles, because of battery manufacturing and charging by fossil-fuel-powered electricity sources, emit 50-per-cent more carbon than do internal-combustion engines. Still, the electric-vehicle hype not only continues unabated, it gets bigger and louder every day. If some car company figures out how to harness it, we’d finally have a real automotive revolution on our hands.

Kevin Libin, Financial Post

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