Chilean plant to use coal

Five Nations Energy Transmission Line connects remote First Nations to the Ontario power grid, delivering clean, reliable electricity to Western James Bay through Indigenous-owned transmission infrastructure, replacing diesel generators and enabling sustainable community growth.

Key Points

An Indigenous-owned grid link providing reliable power to Western James Bay First Nations, replacing polluting diesel.

✅ Built by five First Nations; fully Indigenous-owned utility

✅ 270 km line connecting remote James Bay communities

✅ Ended diesel dependence; enabled sustainable development

For the Indigenous communities along northern Ontario’s James Bay — the ones that have lived on and taken care of the lands as long as anyone can remember — the new millenium marked the start of a diesel-less future, even as Ontario’s electricity outlook raised concerns about getting dirtier in policy debates. 

While the southern part of the province took Ontario’s power grid for granted, despite lessons from Europe’s power crisis about reliability, the vast majority of these communities had never been plugged in. Their only source of power was a handful of very loud diesel-powered generators. Because of that, daily life in the Attawapiskat, Kashechewan and Fort Albany First Nations involved deliberating a series of tradeoffs. Could you listen to the radio while toasting a piece of bread? How many Christmas lights could you connect before nothing else was usable? Was there enough power to open a new school? 

The communities wanted a safe, reliable, clean alternative, with Manitoba’s clean energy illustrating regional potential, too. So did their chiefs, which is why they passed a resolution in 1996 to connect the area to Ontario’s grid, not just for basic necessities but to facilitate growth and development, and improve their communities’ quality of life. 

The idea was unthinkable at the time — scorned and dismissed by those who held the keys to Ontario’s (electrical) power, much like independent power projects can be in other jurisdictions. Even some in the community didn’t fully understand it. When the idea was first proposed at a gathering of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents 49 First Nations, one attendee said the only way he could picture the connection was as “a little extension cord running through the bush from Moosonee.” 

But the leadership of Attawapiskat, Kashechewan and Fort Albany First Nations had been dreaming and planning. In 1997, along with members of Taykwa Tagamou and Moose Cree First Nations, they created the first, and thus far only, fully Indigenous-owned energy company in Canada: Five Nations Energy Inc., as partnerships like an OPG First Nation hydro project would later show in action, too. 

Over the next five years, the organization built Omushkego Ishkotayo, the Cree name for the Western James Bay transmission line: “Omushkego” refers to the Swampy Cree people, and “Ishkotayo” to hydroelectric power, while other regions were commissioning new BC generating stations in parallel. The 270-kilometre-long transmission line is in one of the most isolated regions of Ontario, one that can only be accessed by plane, except for a few months in winter when ice roads are strong enough to drive on. The project went online in 2001, bringing reliable power to over 7,000 people who were previously underserved by the province’s energy providers. It also, somewhat controversially, enabled Ontario’s first diamond mine in Attawapiskat territory.

The future the First Nations created 25 years ago is blissfully quiet, now that the diesel generators are shut off. “When the power went on, you could hear the birds,” Patrick Chilton, the CEO of Five Nations Energy, said with a smile. “Our communities were glowing.”

Power, politics and money: Five Nations Energy needed government, banks and builders on board
Chilton took over in 2013 after the former CEO, his brother Ed, passed away. “This was all his idea,” Chilton told The Narwhal in a conversation over Zoom from his office in Timmins, Ont. The company’s story has never been told before in full, he said, because he felt “vulnerable” to the forces that fought against Omushkego Ishkotayo or didn’t understand it, a dynamic underscored by Canada’s looming power problem reporting in recent years. 

The success of Five Nations Energy is a tale of unwavering determination and imagination, Chilton said, and it started with his older brother. “Ed was the first person who believed a transmission line was possible,” he said.

In a Timmins Daily Press death notice published July 2, 2013, Ed Chilton is described as having “a quiet but profound impact on the establishment of agreements and enterprises benefitting First Nations peoples and their lands.” Chilton doesn’t describe him that way, exactly. 

“If you knew my brother, he was very stubborn,” he said. A certified engineering technologist, Ed was a visionary whose whole life was defined by the transmission line. He was the first to approach the chiefs with the idea, the first to reach out to energy companies and government officials and the one who persuaded thousands of people in remote, underserved communities that it was possible to bring power to their region.

After that 1996 meeting of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, there came a four-year-long effort to convince the rest of Ontario, and the country, the project was possible and financially viable. The chiefs of the five First Nations took their idea to the halls of power: Queen’s Park, Parliament Hill and the provincial power distributor Hydro One (then Ontario Hydro). 

“All of them said no,” Chilton said. “They saw it as near to impossible — the idea that you could build a transmission line in the ‘swamp,’ as they called it.” The Five Nations Energy team kept a document at the time tracking how many times they heard no; it topped out at 37. 

One of the worst times was in 1998, at a meeting on the 19th floor of the Ontario Hydro building in the heart of downtown Toronto. There, despite all their preparation and planning, a senior member of the Ontario Hydro team told Chilton, Martin and other chiefs “you’ll build that line over my dead body,” Chilton recalled. 

At the time, Chilton said, Ontario Hydro was refusing to cooperate: unwilling to let go of its monopoly over transmission lines, but also saying it was unable to connect new houses in the First Nations to diesel generators it said were at maximum capacity. (Ontario Hydro no longer exists; Hydro One declined to comment.)

“There’s always naysayers no matter what you’re doing,” Martin said. “What we were doing had never been done before. So of course people were telling us how we had never managed something of this size or a budget of this size.” 

“[Our people] basically told them to blow it up your ass. We can do it,” Chilton said.

So the chiefs of the five nations did something they’d never done before: they went to all of the big banks and many, many charitable foundations trying to get the money, a big ask for a project of this scale, in this location. Without outside support, their pitch was that they’d build it themselves.

This was the hardest part of the process, said Lawrence Martin, the former Grand Chief of Mushkegowuk Tribal Council and a member of the Five Nations Energy board. “We didn’t know how to finance something like this, to get loans,” he told The Narwhal. “That was the toughest task for all of us to achieve.”

Eventually, they got nearly $50 million in funding from a series of financial organizations including the Bank of Montreal, Pacific and Western Capital, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (an Ontario government agency) and the engineering and construction company SNC Lavalin, which did an assessment of the area and deemed the project viable. 

And in 1999, Ed Chilton, other members of the Chilton family and the chiefs were able to secure an agreement with Ontario Hydro that would allow them to buy electricity from the province and sell it to their communities. 

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North Carolina Utility Arrears Crisis strains households and municipal budgets as COVID-19 cuts jobs; unpaid utility bills mount, shutoffs loom, and emergency aid, unemployment benefits, and CARES Act relief lag behind rising arrears across cities.

Key Points

A COVID-19 driven spike in unpaid utility bills, threatening households and municipal budgets as federal aid lapses.

✅ 1 million families behind on power, water, sewage bills

✅ $218M arrears accrued April to June, double last year

✅ Municipal utilities face shutoffs, budget shortfalls

As many as 1 million families in North Carolina have fallen behind on their electric, water and sewage bills, a sign of energy insecurity threatening residents and their cities with severe financial hardship unless federal lawmakers act to approve more emergency aid.

The trouble stems from the widespread economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus, which has left millions of workers out of a job and struggling to cover their monthly costs as some states moved to suspend utility shut-offs to provide relief. Together, they’ve been late or missed a total of $218 million in utility payments between April 1 and the end of June, according to data released recently by the state, nearly double the amount in arrears at this time last year.

In some cases, cities that own or operate their own utilities have been forced to absorb these losses, as some utilities reconnected customers to prevent harm, creating a dire situation in which the government’s attempt to save people from the financial brink instead has pushed municipal coffers to their own breaking point.

In Elizabeth City, N.C., for example, about 2,500 residents haven’t paid their electric bills on time, according to Richard Olson, the city manager. The late payments at one point proved so problematic that Olson said he calculated Elizabeth City wouldn’t have enough money to pay for its expenses in July. In response, city leaders requested and obtained a waiver from a statewide order, similar to New York’s disconnection moratorium, issued in March, that protects people from being penalized for their past-due utility bills.

The predicament has presented unique budget challenges throughout North Carolina, while illustrating the consequences of a cash crunch plaguing the entire country, where proposals such as a Texas electricity market bailout surfaced following severe grid stress. State and federal leaders have extended a range of coronavirus relief programs since March to try to help people through the pandemic. But the money is limited and restricted — and it’s not clear whether more help from Congress is on the way — creating a crisis in which the nation’s economic woes are outpacing some of the aid programs adopted to combat them.

“We are entering a phase where the utilities [may] be able to shut off power, but what was propping up people’s economic lives, the unemployment benefits and Cares Act support, won’t be there,” said Paul Meyer, the executive director of the North Carolina League of Municipalities.

White House, GOP in disarray over coronavirus spending plan as deadline nears on expiring emergency aid

The future of that safety-net support — and other federal aid — hangs in the balance as lawmakers returned to work this week in their final sprint ahead of the August recess. The White House and congressional leaders are split over the contours of the next coronavirus relief package, including the need to extend more aid to cities and states as some utilities have waived fees to help customers, and reauthorize an extra $600 in weekly unemployment payments that were approved as part of the Cares Act in March.

Outside Washington, workers, businesses and government officials nationwide have pleaded with federal lawmakers to renew or expand those programs. Last week, Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, urged Congress to act swiftly and adopt a wide array of new federal spending, including proposals for DOE nuclear cleanup funding, stressing in a letter that the “actions you take in the next few weeks are vital to our ability to emerge from this crisis. ”

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BC Affordability & BC Hydro Bill Credits provide inflation relief and cost of living support, lowering electricity bills for families and small businesses through automatic utility credits and income-tested tax rebates across British Columbia.

Key Points

BC relief lowering electricity bills and offering rebates to help families and businesses facing inflation.

✅ $100 credit for residential BC Hydro users; applied automatically.

✅ Avg $500 bill credit for small and medium commercial customers.

✅ Income-based BC Affordability Credit via CRA in January.

The new B.C. premier announced on Friday morning families and small businesses in B.C. will get a one-time cost of living credit on their BC Hydro bill this fall, and a new B.C. Affordability Credit in January.

Eby focused on the issue of affordability in his speech following being sworn in as B.C.’s 37th premier, including electricity costs addressed by BC Hydro review recommendations that aim to keep power affordable.

A BC Hydro bill credit of $100 will be provided to all eligible residential and commercial electricity customers, including those who receive their electricity service indirectly from BC Hydro through FortisBC or a municipal utility.

“People and small businesses across B.C. are feeling the squeeze of global inflation,” Eby said.

“It’s a time when people need their government to continue to be there for them. That’s why we’re focused on helping people most impacted by the rising costs we’re seeing around the world – giving people a bit of extra credit, especially at a time of year when expenses can be quick to add up.”

Eby takes over as premier of the province with a growing number of concerns piling up on his plate, even as the province advances grid development and job creation projects to support long-term growth.

Economists in the province have warned of turbulent economic times ahead due to global economic pressures and power supply challenges tied to green energy ambitions.

The one-time $100 cost of living credit works out to approximately one month of electricity for a family living in a detached home or more than two months of electricity for a family living in an apartment.

Commercial ratepayers, including small and medium businesses like restaurants and tourism operators, will receive a one-time bill credit averaging $500 as B.C. expands EV charging infrastructure to accelerate electrification.

The amount will be based on their prior year’s electricity consumption.

British Columbians will have the credit automatically applied to their electricity accounts.

BC Hydro customers will have the credit applied in early December. Customers of FortisBC and municipal utilities will likely begin to see their bill credits applied early in the new year.

‘I proudly and unreservedly turn to the tallest guy in the room’: John Horgan on David Eby

The B.C. Affordability Credit is separate and will be based on income.

Eligible people and families will automatically receive the new credit through the Canada Revenue Agency, the same way the enhanced Climate Action Tax Credit was received in October.

An eligible person making an income of up to $36,901 will receive the maximum BC Affordability Credit with the credit fully phasing out at $79,376.

An eligible family of four with a household income of $43,051 will get the maximum amount, with the credit fully phasing out by $150,051.

This additional support means a family of four can receive up to an additional $410 in early January 2023 to help offset some of the added costs people are facing, while EV owners can access more rebates for home and workplace charging to reduce transportation expenses.

“Look for B.C.’s new Affordability Credit in your bank account in January 2023,” Eby said.

“We know it won’t cover all the bills, but we hope the little bit extra helps folks out this winter.”

Eby’s swearing-in marks a change at the premier’s office but not a shift in focus.

The premier expects to continue on with former premier John Horgan’s mandate with a focus on affordability issues and clean growth supported by green energy investments from both levels of government.

In a ceremony held in the Musqueam Community Centre, Eby made a commitment to make meaningful improvements in the lives of British Columbians and continue work with First Nations communities, with clean-tech growth underscored by the B.C. battery plant announcement made with the prime minister.

The ceremony was the first-ever swearing-in hosted by a First Nation in British Columbia.

“British Columbia is a wonderful place to call home,” Eby said.

“At the same time, people are feeling uncertain about the future and worried about their families. I’m proud of the work done by John Horgan and our government to put people first. And there’s so much more to do. I’m ready to get to work with my team to deliver results that people will be able to see and feel in their lives and in their communities.”

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Downed Power Line Vehicle Safety: Follow stay-in-the-car protocol, call 911, avoid live wires and utility poles, and use the bunny hop to escape only for fire. Electrical hazards demand emergency response caution.

Key Points

Stay in the car, call 911, and use a bunny hop escape only if fire threatens during downed power line incidents.

✅ Stay in vehicle; tell bystanders to keep back and call 911.

✅ Exit only for fire; jump clear and bunny hop away.

✅ Treat all downed lines as live; avoid paths to ground.

Ameren Illinois and Safe Electricity are urging the public to stay in their cars and call 911 in the event of an accident involving a power pole that brings down power lines on or around the car.

In a media simulation Tuesday at the Ameren facility on West Lafayette Avenue, Ameren Illinois employees demonstrated the proper way to react if a power line has fallen on or around a vehicle, as some utilities consider on-site staffing measures during outbreaks. Although the situation might seem rare, Illinois motorists alone hit 3,000 power poles each year, said Krista Lisser, communications director for Safe Energy.

“We want to get the word out that, if you hit a utility pole and a live wire falls on your vehicle, stay in your car,” Lisser said. “Our first reaction is we panic and think we need to get out, a sign of the electrical knowledge gap many people have. That’s not the case, you need to stay in because, when that live wire comes down, electricity is all around you. You may not see it, it may not arc, it may not flash, you may not know if there’s electricity there.”

Should someoneinvolved in such an accident see a good Samaritan attempting to help, he should try to tell the would-be rescuer to stay back to prevent injury to the Samaritan, Ameren Illinois Communications Executive Brian Bretsch said.

“We have seen instances where someone comes up and wants to help you,” Bretsch said. “You want to yell, ‘Please stay away from the vehicle. Everyone is OK. Please stay away.’ You’ll see … instances every now and then where the Samaritan will come up, create that path to ground and get injured, and there are also climbers seeking social media glory who put themselves at risk.”

The only instance in which one should exit a car in the vicinity of a downed wire is if the vehicle is on fire and there is no choice but to exit. In that situation, those in the car should “bunny hop” out of the car by jumping from the car without touching the car and the ground at the same time, Bretsch and Lisser said.

After the initial jump, those escaping the vehicle should continue jumping with both feet together and hands tucked in and away from danger until they are safely clear of the downed wire.

It’s important for everyone to be informed, because an encounter with a live wire could easily result in serious injury, as in the Hydro One worker injury case, or death, Lisser said.

“They’re so close to our roads, especially in our rural communities, that it’s quite a common occurrence,” Lisser said. “Just stay away from (downed lines), especially after storms and amid grid oversight warnings that highlight reliability risks … Always treat a downed line as a live wire. Never assume the line is dead.”

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Saskatchewan Solar Net Metering Program lets rooftop solar users offset at retail rate while earning 7.5 cents/kWh credits for excess energy; rebates are removed, SaskPower balances grid costs with a 100 kW cap.

Key Points

An updated SaskPower plan crediting rooftop solar at 7.5 cents/kWh, offsetting usage at retail rate, without rebates.

✅ Excess energy credited at 7.5 cents/kWh

✅ Offsets on-site use at retail electricity rates

✅ Up to 100 kW generation; no program capacity cap

Saskatchewan has unveiled a new program that credits electricity customers for generating their own solar power, but it won’t pay as much as an older program did or reimburse them with rebates for their costs to buy and install equipment.

The new net metering program takes effect Nov. 1, and customers will be able to use solar to offset their own power use at the retail rate, similar to UK households' right to sell power in comparable schemes, though program details differ.

But they will only get 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour credit on their bills for excess energy they put back into the grid, as seen in Duke Energy payment changes in other jurisdictions, rather than the 14 cents in the previous program.

Dustin Duncan, the minister responsible for Crown-owned SaskPower, says the utility had to consider the interests of people wanting to use rooftop solar and everyone else who doesn’t have or can’t afford the panels, who he says would have to make up for the lost revenue.

Duncan says the idea is to create a green energy option, with wind power gains highlighting broader competitiveness, while also avoiding passing on more of the cost of the system to people who just cannot afford solar panels of their own.

Customers with solar panels will be allowed to generate up to 100 kilowatts of power against their bills.

“It’s certainly my hope that this is going to provide sustainability for the industry, as illustrated by Alberta's renewable surge creating jobs, that they have a program that they can take forward to their potential customers, while at the same time ensuring that we’re not passing onto customers that don’t have solar panels more cost to upkeep the grid,” Duncan said Tuesday.

Saskatchewan NDP leader Ryan Meili said he believes eliminating the rebate and cutting the excess power credit will kill the province’s solar energy, a concern consistent with lagging solar demand in Canada in recent national reports, he said.

“(Duncan) essentially made it so that any homeowner who wants to put up panels would take up to twice as long to pay it back, which effectively prices everybody in the small part of the solar production industry — the homeowners, the farms, the small businesses, the small towns — out of the market,” Meili said.

The province’s old net metering program hit its 16 megawatt capacity ahead of schedule, forcing the program to shut down, while disputes like the Manitoba Hydro solar lawsuit have raised questions about program management elsewhere. It also had a rebate of 20 per cent of the cost of the system, but that rebate has been discontinued.

The new net metering program won’t have any limit on program capacity, or an end date.

According to Duncan, the old program would have had a net negative impact to SaskPower of about $54 million by 2025, but this program will be much less — between $4 million and $5 million.

Duncan said other provinces either have already or are in the process of moving away from rebates for solar equipment, including Nova Scotia's proposed solar charge and similar reforms, and away from the one-to-one credits for power generation.

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Australia Energy Policy Debate highlights IPCC warnings, Paris Agreement goals, coal phase-out, emissions reduction, renewables, gas, pumped hydro, storage, reliability, and investment certainty amid NEG uncertainty and federal-state tensions over targets.

Key Points

Debate over coal, emissions targets, and grid reliability, guided by IPCC science, Paris goals, and market reforms.

✅ IPCC urges rapid cuts and coal phase-out by 2050

✅ NEG's emissions pillar stalled; reliability obligation alive

✅ States, market operators push investment certainty and storage

The United Nation’s climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, on Monday said radical emissions reduction across the world’s economies, including a phase-out of coal by 2050, was required to avoid the most devastating climate change impacts.

The Morrison government dismissed the findings. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg insisted this week that “coal is an important part of the energy mix”.

“If we were to take coal out of the system the lights would go out on the east coast of Australia overnight. It provides more than 60 per cent of our power," he said.

Ms Zibelman, whose organisation operates the nation’s largest gas and electricity markets, said if Australia was to make an orderly transition to low-emissions electricity generation, aligning with the sustainable electric planet vision, “then certainly we would keep the lights on”.

Ms Zibelman said coal assets should be maintained “as long as they are economically viable and we should have a plan to replace them with resources that are lowest cost”.

Those options comprised gas, renewables, pumped hydro and other energy storage, she told ABC radio, as New Zealand weighs electrification to replace fossil fuels.

Under the Paris treaty the government has pledged to lower emissions by 26 per cent by 2030, based on 2005 levels, even as national emissions rose 2% recently according to industry reports.

Labor would increase the goal to a 45 per cent cut - a policy Prime Minister Scott Morrison said last month would " shut down every coal-fired power station in the country and ... increase people’s power bill by about $1,400 on average for every single household”.

The federal government has scrapped its proposed National Energy Guarantee, which would have cut emissions in the electricity sector, but the reliability component of the plan may continue in some form.

The policy was being developed by the Energy Security Board. The group’s chairwoman Kerry Schott has expressed anger at its demise but on Thursday revealed the board was still working on the policy because “nobody told us to stop”.

Speaking at the Melbourne Institute's Outlook conference, she urged the government to revive the emissions reduction component of the plan to provide investment certainty, noting the IEA net-zero report on Canada shows electricity demand rises in decarbonisation.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor, an energy consultant before entering Parliament, on Thursday said the electricity sector would reduce emissions in line with the Paris deal without a mandated target.

Mr Taylor said only a “very brave state” would not support the policy’s reliability obligation.

The federal government has called a COAG energy council meeting for October 26 in Sydney to discuss electricity reliability.

It is understood Mr Taylor has not contacted Victoria, Queensland or the ACT since taking the portfolio, despite needing unanimous support from the states to progress the issue.

The Victorian government goes into caretaker mode on October 30 ahead of that state's election.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the federal government was “a rabble when it comes to energy policy, and we won’t be signing anything until after the election".

Speaking at the Melbourne Institute conference, prominent business leaders on Thursday bemoaned a lack of political leadership on energy policy and climate change, saying the only way forward appeared to be for companies to take action themselves, with some pointing to Canada's race to net-zero as a case study in the role of renewables.

Jayne Hrdlicka, chief executive of ASX-listed dairy and infant-formula company a2 Milk, said "we all have an obligation to do the very best job we can in managing our carbon footprint".

"We just need to get on doing what we can .. and then hope that policy will catch up. But we can’t wait," she said.

Ms Hrdlicka said the recent federal political turmoil had been frustrating "because if you invest in building relationships as most of us do in Canberra and then overnight they are all changed, you’re starting from scratch".

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