PSE&G solar programs receive industry award

Hedonistic Sustainability turns Copenhagen's ARC waste-to-energy plant into a public playground, blending ski slope, climbing wall, and trails with carbon-neutral heating, renewables, circular economy design, and green growth for climate action and liveability.

Key Points

A design approach fusing public recreation with clean-energy infrastructure to drive carbon-neutral, livable urban growth.

✅ Waste-to-energy plant doubles as recreation hub

✅ Supports carbon-neutral heating and renewables

✅ Stakeholder-driven, scalable urban climate model

“We call it hedonistic sustainability,” says Jacob Simonsen of the decision to put an artificial ski slope on the roof of the £485m Amager Resource Centre (Arc), Copenhagen’s cutting-edge new waste-to-energy power plant that feeds the city’s district heating network as well. “It’s not just good for the environment, it’s good for life.”

Skiing is just one of the activities that Simonsen, Arc’s chief executive, and Bjarke Ingels, its lead architect, hope will enhance the latest jewel in Copenhagen’s sustainability crown. The incinerator building also incorporates hiking and running trails, a street fitness gym and the world’s highest outdoor climbing wall, an 85-metre “natural mountain” complete with overhangs that rises the full height of the main structure.

In Copenhagen, green transformation goes hand-in-hand with job creation, a growing economy and a better quality of life

Frank Jensen, lord mayor

It’s all part of Copenhagen’s plan to be net carbon-neutral by 2025. Even now, after a summer that saw wildfires ravagethe Arctic Circle and ice sheets in Greenland suffer near-record levels of melt, the goal seems ambitious. In 2009, when the project was formulated, it was positively revolutionary.

“A green, smart, carbon-neutral city,” declared the cover of the climate action plan, aligning with a broader electric planet vision, before detailing the scale of the challenge: 100 new wind turbines; a 20% reduction in both heat and commercial electricity consumption; 75% of all journeys to be by bike, on foot, or by public transport; the biogas-ification of all organic waste; 60,000 sq metres of new solar panels; and 100% of the city’s heating requirements to be met by renewables.

Radical and far-reaching, the scheme dared to rethink the very infrastructure underpinning the city. There’s still not a climate project anywhere else in the world that comes close, even as leaders elsewhere champion a fully renewable grid by 2030.

And, so far, it’s working. CO2 emissions have been reduced by 42% since 2005, and while challenges around mobility and energy consumption remain (new technologies such as better batteries and carbon capture are being implemented, and global calls for clean electricity investment grow), the city says it is on track to achieve its ultimate goal.

More significant still is that Copenhagen has achieved this while continuing to grow in traditional economic terms. Even as some commentators insist that nothing short of a total rethink of free-market economics and corporate structures is required to stave off global catastrophe, the Danish capital’s carbon transformation has happened alongside a 25% growth in its economy over two decades. Copenhagen’s experience will be a model for other world cities as the global energy transition unfolds.

The sentiment that lies behind Arc’s conception as a multi-use public good – “hedonistic sustainability” – is echoed by Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, former mayor of Copenhagen for the environment and the man originally tasked, back in 2010, with making the plan a reality.

“We combined life quality with sustainability and called it ‘liveability’,” says Kjeldgaard, now CEO of his own climate adaptation company, Greenovation. “We succeeded in building a good narrative around this, one that everybody could believe in.”

The idea was first floated in the late 1990s, when the newly elected Kjeldgaard had a vision of Copenhagen as the environmental capital of Europe. His enthusiasm ran into political intransigence, however, and despite some success, a lack of budget meant most of his work became “just another branding exercise – it was greenwashing”.

We’re such a rich country – change should be easy for us

Claus Nielsen, furniture maker and designer

But after stints as mayor of family and the labour market, and children and young people, he ended up back at environment in 2010 with renewed determination and, crucially, a broader mandate from the city council. “I said: ‘This time, we have to do it right,’” he recalls, “so we made detailed, concrete plans for every area, set the carbon target, and demanded the money and the manpower to make it a reality.”

He brought on board more than 200 stakeholders, from businesses to academia to citizen representatives, and helped them develop 22 specific business plans and 65 separate projects. So far the plan appears on track: there has been a 15% reduction in heat consumption, 66% of all trips in the city are now by bike, on foot or public transport, and 51% of heat and power comes from renewable electricity sources.

The onus placed on ordinary Copenhageners to walk and cycle more, pay higher taxes (especially on cars) and put up with the inconvenience of infrastructure construction has generally been met with understanding and good grace. And while some people remain critical of the fact that Copenhagen airport is not factored into the CO2 calculations – it lies beyond the city’s boundaries – and grumble about precise definitions and formulae, dissent has been rare.

This relative lack of nimbyism and carping about change can, says Frank Jensen, the city’s lord mayor, be traced to longstanding political traditions.

“Caring for the environment and taking responsibility for society in general has been an integral part of the upbringing of many Danes,” he says. “Moreover, there is a general awareness that climate change now calls for immediate, ambitious and collective action.” A 2018 survey by Concito, a thinktank, found that such action was a top priority for voters.

Jensen is keen to stress the cooperative nature of the plan and says “our visions have to be grounded in the everyday lives of people to be politically feasible”. Indeed, involving so many stakeholders, and allowing them to actively help shape both the ends and the means, has been key to the plan’s success so far and the continued goodwill it enjoys. “It’s so important to note that we [the authorities] cannot do this alone,” says Jørgen Abildgaard, Copenhagen’s executive climate programme director.

Many businesses around the world have typically been reluctant to embrace sustainability when a dip in profits or inconvenience might be the result, but not in Copenhagen. Martin Manthorpe, director of strategy, business development and public affairs at NCC, one of Scandinavia’s largest construction and industrial groups, was brought in early on by Abildgaard to represent industry on the municipality’s climate panel, and to facilitate discussions with the wider business community. He thinks there are several reasons why.

“The Danes have a trading mindset, meaning ‘What will I have to sell tomorrow?’ is just as important as ‘What am I producing today?’” he says. “Also, many big Danish companies are still ultimately family-owned, so the culture leans more towards long-term thinking.”

It is, he says, natural for business to be concerned with issues around sustainability and be willing to endure short-term pain: “To do responsible, long-term business, you need to see yourself as part of the larger puzzle that is called ‘society’.”

Furthermore, in Denmark climate change denial is given extremely short shrift. “We believe in the science,” says Anders Haugaard, a local entrepreneur. “Why wouldn’t you? We’re told sustainability brings only benefits and we’ve got no reason to be suspicious.”

“No one would dare argue against the environment,” says his friend Claus Nielsen, a furniture maker and designer. “We’re such a rich country – change should be easy for us.” Nielsen talks about how enlightened his kids are – “my 11-year-old daughter is now a flexitarian ” – and says that nowadays he mainly buys organic; Haugaard doesn’t see a problem with getting rid of petrol cars (the whole country is aiming to be fossil fuel-free by 2050 as the EU electricity use by 2050 is expected to double).

Above all, there’s a belief that sustainability need not make the city poorer: that innovation and “green growth” can be lucrative in and of themselves. “In Copenhagen, green transformation goes hand-in-hand with job creation, a growing economy and a better quality of life,” says Jensen. “We have also shown that it’s possible to combine this transition with economic growth and market opportunities for businesses, and I think that other countries can learn from our example.”

Besides, as Jensen notes, there is little alternative, and even less time: “National states have failed to take enough responsibility, but cities have the power and will to create concrete solutions. We need to start accelerating their implementation – we need to act now.”

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Texas PUC Spanish Power to Choose mandates bilingual parity in deregulated electricity markets, ensuring equal access to plans, transparent pricing, consumer protection, and provider listings for Spanish speakers, mirroring the English site offerings statewide.

Key Points

PUC mandate requiring identical Spanish and English plan listings for fair access in the deregulated power market.

✅ Orders parity across English and Spanish plan listings

✅ Increases transparency in a deregulated electricity market

✅ Deadline set for providers to post on both sites

The state’s Public Utility Commission has ordered that the Spanish-language version of the Power to Choose website provide the same options available on the English version of the site, a move that comes as shopping for electricity is getting cheaper statewide.

Texas is one of a handful of states with a deregulated electricity market, with ongoing market reforms under consideration to avoid blackouts. The idea is to give consumers the option to pick power plans that they think best fit their needs. Customers can find available plans on the state’s Power To Choose website, or its Spanish-language counterpart, Poder de Escoger. In theory, those two sites should have the exact same offerings, so no one is disadvantaged. But the Texas Public Utility Commission found that wasn’t the case.

Houston Chronicle business reporter Lynn Sixel has been covering this story. She says the Power to Choose website is important for consumers facing the difficult task of choosing an electric provider in a deregulated state, where electricity complaints have recently reached a three-year high for Texans.

“There are about 57 providers listed on the [English] Power to Choose website, and news about retailers like Griddy underscores how varied the offerings can be across providers. [Last week] there were only 23 plans on the Spanish Power to Choose site,” Sixel says. “If you speak Spanish and you’re looking for a low-cost plan, as of last week, it would have been difficult to find some of the really great offers.”

Mustafa Tameez, managing director of Outreach Strategists, a Houston firm that consults with companies and nonprofits on diversity, described this issue as a type of redlining.

“He’s referring to a practice that banks would use to circle areas on maps in which the bank decided they did not want to lend money or would charge higher rates,” Sixel says. “Typically it was poor minority neighborhoods. Those folks would not get the same great deals that their Anglo neighbors would get.”

DeAnn Walker, chairman of the Public Utility Commission, said she was not at all happy about the plans listings in a meeting Friday, against a backdrop where Texas utilities have recently backed out of a plan to create smart home electricity networks.

“She gave a deadline of 8 a.m. Monday morning for any providers who wanted to put their plans on the Power to Choose website, must put them on both the Spanish language and the English language versions,” Sixel says. “All the folks that I talked to really had no idea that there were different plans on both sites and I think that there was sort of an assumption.”

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Nighttime Thermoelectric Generator converts radiative cooling into renewable energy, leveraging outer space cold; a Stanford-UCLA prototype complements solar, serving off-grid loads with low-power output during peak evening demand, using simple materials on a rooftop.

Key Points

A device converting nighttime radiative cooling into electricity, complementing solar for low-power evening needs.

✅ Uses thermocouples to convert temperature gradients to voltage.

✅ Exploits radiative cooling to outer space for night power.

✅ Complements solar; low-cost parts suit off-grid applications.

Two years ago, one freezing December night on a California rooftop, a tiny light shone weakly with a little help from the freezing night air. It wasn't a very bright glow. But it was enough to demonstrate the possibility of generating renewable power after the Sun goes down.

Working with Stanford University engineers Wei Li and Shanhui Fan, University of California Los Angeles materials scientist Aaswath Raman put together a device that produces a voltage by channelling the day's residual warmth into cooling air, effectively generating electricity from thin air with passive heat exchange.

"Our work highlights the many remaining opportunities for energy by taking advantage of the cold of outer space as a renewable energy resource," says Raman.

"We think this forms the basis of a complementary technology to solar. While the power output will always be substantially lower, it can operate at hours when solar cells cannot."

For all the merits of solar energy, it's just not a 24-7 source of power, although research into nighttime solar cells suggests new possibilities for after-dark generation. Sure, we can store it in a giant battery or use it to pump water up into a reservoir for later, but until we have more economical solutions, nighttime is going to be a quiet time for renewable solar power. 

Most of us return home from work as the Sun is setting, and that's when energy demands spike to meet our needs for heating, cooking, entertaining, and lighting.

Unfortunately, we often turn to fossil fuels to make up the shortfall. For those living off the grid, it could require limiting options and going without a few luxuries.

Shanhui Fan understands the need for a night time renewable power source well. He's worked on a number of similar devices, including carbon nanotube generators that scavenge ambient energy, and a recent piece of technology that flipped photovoltaics on its head by squeezing electricity from the glow of heat radiating out of the planet's Sun-warmed surface.

While that clever item relied on the optical qualities of a warm object, this alternative device makes use of the good old thermoelectric effect, similar to thin-film waste-heat harvesting approaches now explored.

Using a material called a thermocouple, engineers can convert a change in temperature into a difference in voltage, effectively turning thermal energy into electricity with a measurable voltage. This demands something relatively toasty on one side and a place for that heat energy to escape to on the other.

The theory is the easy part – the real challenge is in arranging the right thermoelectric materials in such a way that they'll generate a voltage from our cooling surrounds that makes it worthwhile.

To keep costs down, the team used simple, off-the-shelf items that pretty much any of us could easily get our hands on.

They put together a cheap thermoelectric generator and linked it with a black aluminium disk to shed heat in the night air as it faced the sky. The generator was placed inside a polystyrene enclosure sealed with a window transparent to infrared light, and linked to a single tiny LED.

For six hours one evening, the box was left to cool on a roof-top in Stanford as the temperature fell just below freezing. As the heat flowed from the ground into the sky, the small generator produced just enough current to make the light flicker to life.

At its best, the device generated around 0.8 milliwatts of power, corresponding to 25 milliwatts of power per square metre.

That might just be enough to keep a hearing aid working. String several together and you might just be able to keep your cat amused with a simple laser pointer. So we're not talking massive amounts of power.

But as far as prototypes go, it's a fantastic starting point. The team suggests that with the right tweaks and the right conditions, 500 milliwatts per square metre isn't out of the question.

"Beyond lighting, we believe this could be a broadly enabling approach to power generation suitable for remote locations, and anywhere where power generation at night is needed," says Raman.

While we search for big, bright ideas to drive the revolution for renewables, it's important to make sure we don't let the smaller, simpler solutions like these slip away quietly into the night.

This research was published in Joule.

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Nova Scotia Cap-and-Trade Program joins Western Climate Initiative to leverage emissions trading IT systems, track allowances, and manage compliance, while setting in-province caps, carbon pricing signals, and third-party verified reporting for industrial and fuel suppliers.

Key Points

A provincial emissions trading system using WCI services to cap GHGs, track allowances, and enforce verified compliance.

✅ Uses WCI IT system to manage allowances and registry

✅ Initial trading limited to in-province participants

✅ Third-party verification and annual reporting deadlines

Nova Scotia is yet to set targets for its new cap and trade regime to reduce greenhouse gases, but the province announced Monday that it has joined the Western Climate Initiative Inc. -- a non-profit corporation formed to provide administrative and technical services to states and provinces with emissions trading programs.

Environment Minister Iain Rankin said joining the initiative would allow the province to use its IT system to manage and track its new cap and trade program.

Rankin said the province can join without trading greenhouse gas emission allowances with other jurisdictions -- California, Quebec, and Ontario are currently linked through the program, with Hydro-Québec's U.S. sales highlighting cross-border dynamics. Nova Scotia currently has no plans to trade outside the province as it works on emissions caps Rankin said will be ready sometime in June.

#google#

Nova Scotia is yet to set targets for its new cap and trade regime to reduce greenhouse gases, but the province announced Monday that it has joined the Western Climate Initiative Inc. -- a non-profit corporation formed to provide administrative and technical services to states and provinces with emissions trading programs.

Environment Minister Iain Rankin said joining the initiative would allow the province to use its IT system to manage and track its new cap and trade program.

Rankin said the province can join without trading greenhouse gas emission allowances with other jurisdictions -- California, Quebec, and Ontario are currently linked through the program. Nova Scotia currently has no plans to trade outside the province as it works on emissions caps Rankin said will be ready sometime in June.

"By keeping our system internal it ensures that our greenhouse gas reductions are happening within our province," said Rankin. "But we do have that opportunity (to join) and if there are new entrants or we need more access to credits then that may shift our strategy."

The use of the system will cost Nova Scotia about US$314,000 for 2018-19, with an annual cost in subsequent years of about US$228,000 or more, if the province requests modifications.

"If we were to do something like that internally we would have to build a full database and hire more people, so this was an obvious choice for us," said Rankin.

Nova Scotia has already met the national reduction target of 30 per cent below 2005 levels and says it's on track to have 40 per cent of electricity generation from renewables by 2020, underscoring how cleaning up Canada's electricity supports climate pledges.

Stephen Thomas, energy campaign coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre, called the province's move an "important small step," stressing the importance of using the same administrative rules as the other jurisdictions involved.

But Thomas said Nova Scotia should go further and trade emissions with California, Quebec, and Ontario, and also put a price on carbon by auctioning credits as they do.

Thomas said Nova Scotia's system stands to be volatile because of the smaller number of participants -- about 20 including Nova Scotia Power, Northern Pulp, Lafarge, and large oil and gasoline companies such as ExxonMobil, Imperial and Irving.

"It's very likely to favour Nova Scotia Power as the largest single emitter with the most credits to sell here, and that would change if we had a linked system, at a time when Canada will need more electricity to hit net-zero according to the IEA," Thomas said.

He said it's important to have a linked system and a regional approach in Atlantic Canada, which has more emissions per person and more emissions per GDP than places like Ontario, Quebec and California, and where policies like Newfoundland's rate reduction plan can influence electricity strategy.

"Reducing emissions, because we are so emissions-intensive here, is a little bit cheaper," said Thomas. "So it's possible that Ontario, Quebec and California could pay Nova Scotia to reduce its emissions."

Under its program, Nova Scotia requires industrial facilities generating 50,000 tonnes or more of greenhouse gas emissions per year to report emissions.

Regulations also cover petroleum product suppliers that import or produce 200 litres of fuel or more per year for consumption and natural gas distributors whose products produce at least 10,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

Companies were to have reported to the Environment Department by May 1 but Rankin said the deadline has been pushed back to June 1, a deadline that was to be followed in subsequent years in any event. Reports must be verified by a third party by Sept. 1 every year.

The Liberal government passed enabling legislation for cap and trade last fall.

As for the upcoming emissions caps, Rankin isn't tipping the province's hand yet, even as B.C.'s 2050 targets face a shortfall in some forecasts.

"Those caps will recognize the investments that have already been made and therefore will be the most cost-effective program that we can put together to meet the federal requirement," he said.

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Minnesota Electric Cooperatives are driving grid innovation with smart meters, time-of-use pricing, demand response, and energy storage, including iron-air batteries, to manage peak loads, integrate wind and solar, and cut costs for rural members.

Key Points

Member-owned utilities piloting load management, meters, and storage to integrate wind and solar, cutting peak demand.

✅ Time-of-use pricing pilots lower bills and shift peak load.

✅ Iron-air battery tests add multi-day, low-cost energy storage.

✅ Smart meters enable demand response across rural co-ops.

Minnesota electric cooperatives have quietly emerged as laboratories for clean grid innovation, outpacing investor-owned utilities on smart meter installations, time-based pricing pilots, and experimental battery storage solutions.

“Co-ops have innovation in their DNA,” said David Ranallo, a spokesperson for Great River Energy, a generation and distribution cooperative that supplies power to 28 member utilities — making it one of the state’s largest co-op players.

Minnesota farmers helped pioneer the electric co-op model more than a century ago, similar to modern community-generated green electricity initiatives, pooling resources to build power lines, transformers and other equipment to deliver power to rural parts of the state. Today, 44 member-owned electric co-ops serve about 1.7 million rural and suburban customers and supply almost a quarter of the state’s electricity.

Co-op utilities have by many measures lagged on clean energy. Many still rely on electricity from coal-fired power plants. They’ve used political clout with rural lawmakers to oppose new pollution regulations and climate legislation, and some have tried to levy steep fees on customers who install solar panels.

Where they are emerging as innovators is with new models and technology for managing electric grid loads — from load-shifting water heaters to a giant experimental battery made of iron. The programs are saving customers money by delaying the need for expensive new infrastructure, and also showing ways to unlock more value from cheap but variable wind and solar power.

Unlike investor-owned utilities, “we have no incentive to invest in new generation,” said Darrick Moe, executive director of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. Curbing peak energy demand has a direct financial benefit for members.

Minnesota electric cooperatives have launched dozens of programs, such as the South Metro solar project, in recent years aimed at reducing energy use and peak loads, in particular. They include:

Cost calculations are the primary driver for electric cooperatives’ recent experimentation, and a lighter regulatory structure and evolving electricity market reforms have allowed them to act more quickly than for-profit utilities.

“Co-ops and [municipal utilities] can act a lot more nimbly compared to investor-owned utilities … which have to go through years of proceedings and discussions about cost-recovery,” said Gabe Chan, a University of Minnesota associate professor who has researched electric co-ops extensively. Often, approval from a local board is all that’s required to launch a venture.

Great River Energy’s programs, which are rebranded and sold through member co-ops, yielded more than 101 million kilowatt-hours of savings last year — enough to power 9,500 homes for a year.

Beyond lowering costs for participants and customers at large, the energy-saving and behavior-changing programs sometimes end up being cited as case studies by larger utilities considering similar offerings. Advocates supporting a proposal by the city of Minneapolis and CenterPoint Energy to allow residents to pay for energy efficiency improvements on their utility bills through distributed energy rebates used several examples from cooperatives.

Despite the pace of innovation on load management, electric cooperatives have been relatively slow to transition from coal-fired power. More than half of Great River Energy’s electricity came from coal last year, and Dairyland Power, another major power wholesaler for Minnesota co-ops, generated 70% of its energy from coal. Meanwhile, Xcel Energy, the state’s largest investor-owned utility, has already reduced coal to about 20% of its energy mix.

The transition to cleaner power for some co-ops has been slowed by long-term contracts with power suppliers that have locked them into dirty power. Others have also been stalled by management or boards that have been resistant to change. John Farrell, director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Energy Democracy program, said generalizing co-ops is difficult. 

“We’ve seen some co-ops that have got 75-year contracts for coal, that are invested in coal mines and using their newsletter to deny climate change,” he said. “Then you see a lot of them doing really amazing things like creating energy storage systems … and load balancing [programs], because they are unique and locally managed and can have that freedom to experiment without having to go through a regulatory process.”

Great River Energy, for its part, says it intends to reach 54% renewable generation by 2025, while some communities, like Frisco, Colorado, are targeting 100% clean electricity by specific dates. Its members recently voted to sell North Dakota’s largest coal plant, but the arrangement involves members continuing to buy power from the new owners for another decade.

The cooperative’s path to clean power could become clearer if its experimental iron-air battery project is successful. The project, the first of its kind in the country, is expected to be completed by 2023.

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Ontario Electricity Demand Drop During COVID-19 reflects a 1,000-2,000 MW decline as IESO balances the grid, shifts peak demand later, throttles generators and baseload nuclear, and manages exports amid changing load curves.

Key Points

An about 10% reduction in Ontario's load, shifting peaks and requiring IESO grid balancing measures.

✅ Demand down 1,000-2,000 MW; roughly 10% below normal.

✅ Peak shifts later in morning as home use rises.

✅ IESO throttles generators; baseload nuclear stays online.

It’s as if the COVID-19 epidemic had tripped a circuit breaker, shutting off all power to a city the size of Ottawa.

Virus-induced restrictions that have shut down large swaths of normal commercial life across Canada has led to a noticeable drop in demand for power in Ontario and reflect a global demand dip according to reports, insiders said on Friday.

Terry Young, vice-president with the Independent Electricity System Operator, said planning was underway for further declines in usage and for whether Ontario will embrace more clean power in the long term, given the delicate balance that needs to be maintained between supply and demand.

“We’re now seeing demand that is running about 1,000 to 2,000 megawatts less than we would normally see,” Young said. “You’re essentially seeing a city the size of Ottawa drop off demand during the day.”

At the high end, a 2,000 megawatt reduction would be close to the equivalent peak demand of Ottawa and London, Ont., combined.

The decline, in the order of 10 per cent from the 17,000 to 18,000 megawatts of usage that might normally be expected and similar to the UK’s 10% drop reported during lockdowns, began last week, Young said. The downward trend became more noticeable as governments and health authorities ordered non-essential businesses to close and people to stay home. However, residential and hospital usage has climbed.

Experts say frequent hand-washing and staying away from others is the most effective way to curb the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus, which poses a special risk to older people and those with underlying health conditions. As a result, factories and other big users have reduced production or closed entirely.

Because electricity cannot be stored, generators need to throttle back their output as domestic demand shrinks and exports to places such as the United States, including New York City, which is also being hit hard by the coronavirus, fall.

“We’re watching this carefully,” Young said. “We’re able to manage this drop, but it’s something we obviously have to keep watching…and making sure we’re not over-generating electricity.”

Turning off generation, especially for nuclear plants, is an intensive process, as are restarts and would likely happen only if the downward demand trend intensifies significantly, amid concerns over Ontario’s electricity getting dirtier if baseload is displaced. However, one of North America’s largest generators, Bruce Power near Kincardine, Ont., said it had a large degree of flexibility to scale down or up.

“We have the ability to provide one-third of our output as a dynamic response, which is unique to our facility,” said James Scongack, an executive vice-president with Bruce Power. “We developed this coming out of the 2008 downturn and it’s been a critical system asset for the last decade.”

“We don’t see there being a scenario where our baseload will not be needed,” he said, even as some warn Ontario may be short of electricity in the coming years.

The province’s publicly owned Ontario Power Generation said it was also in conversations with the system operator, which provides direction to generators, and is often cited in the Ontario election discussion.

One clear shift in normal work-day usage with so many people staying at home has been the change in demand patterns. Typically, Young said, there’s a peak from about 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. as people wake and get ready to go to work or school. The peak is now occurring later in the morning, Young said.

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