IAEA fails to elect new head

US Nuclear Generating Costs 2017 show USD33.50/MWh for nuclear energy, the lowest since 2008, as capital expenditures, fuel costs, and operating costs declined after license renewals and uprates, supporting a reliable, low-carbon grid.

Key Points

The 2017 US nuclear average was USD33.50/MWh, lowest since 2008, driven by reduced capital, fuel, and operating costs.

✅ Average cost USD33.50/MWh, lowest since 2008

✅ Capital, fuel, O&M costs fell sharply since 2012 peak

✅ License renewals, uprates, market reforms shape competitiveness

Average total generating costs for nuclear energy in 2017 in the USA were at their lowest since 2008, according to a study released by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), amid a continuing nuclear decline debate in other regions.

The report, Nuclear Costs in Context, found that in 2017 the average total generating cost - which includes capital, fuel and operating costs - for nuclear energy was USD33.50 per megawatt-hour (MWh), even as interest in next-generation nuclear designs grows among stakeholders. This is 3.3% lower than in 2016 and more than 19% below 2012's peak. The reduction in costs since 2012 is due to a 40.8% reduction in capital expenditures, a 17.2% reduction in fuel costs and an 8.7% reduction in operating costs, the organisation said.

The year-on-year decline in capital costs over the past five years reflects the completion by most plants of efforts to prepare for operation beyond their initial 40-year licence. A few major items - a series of vessel head replacements; steam generator replacements and other upgrades as companies prepared for continued operation, and power uprates to increase output from existing plants - caused capital investment to increase to a peak in 2012. "As a result of these investments, 86 of the [USA's] 99 operating reactors in 2017 have received 20-year licence renewals and 92 of the operating reactors have been approved for uprates that have added over 7900 megawatts of electricity capacity. Capital spending on uprates and items necessary for operation beyond 40 years has moderated as most plants are completing these efforts," it says.

Since 2013, seven US nuclear reactors have shut down permanently, with the Three Mile Island debate highlighting wider policy questions, and another 12 have announced their permanent shutdown. The early closure for economic reasons of reliable nuclear plants with high capacity factors and relatively low generating costs will have long-term economic consequences, the report warns: replacement generating capacity, when needed, will produce more costly electricity, fewer jobs that will pay less, and, for net-zero emissions objectives, more pollution, it says.

NEI Vice President of Policy Development and Public Affairs John Kotek said the "hardworking men and women of the nuclear industry" had done an "amazing job" reducing costs through the institute's Delivering the Nuclear Promise campaign and other initiatives, in line with IAEA low-carbon lessons from the pandemic. "As we continue to face economic headwinds in markets which do not properly compensate nuclear plants, the industry has been doing its part to reduce costs to remain competitive," he said.

"Some things are in urgent need of change if we are to keep the nation's nuclear plants running and enjoy their contribution to a reliable, resilient and low-carbon grid. Namely, we need to put in place market reforms that fairly compensate nuclear similar to those already in place in New York, Illinois and other states," Kotek added.

Cost information in the study was collected by the Electric Utility Cost Group with prior years converted to 2017 dollars for accurate historical comparison.

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Tesla Supercharger Billing Update details kWh-based pricing that now includes HVAC, battery thermal management, and other HV loads during charging sessions, improving cost transparency across pay-per-use markets and extreme climate scenarios.

Key Points

Tesla's update bills for kWh used by HVAC, battery heating, and HV loads during charging, reflecting true energy costs.

✅ kWh charges now include HVAC and battery thermal management

✅ Expect 10-25 kWh increases in extreme climates during sessions

✅ Some regions still bill per minute due to regulations

Tesla has updated its Supercharger billing policy to add the cost of electricity use for things other than charging, like HVAC, battery thermal management, etc, while charging at a Supercharger station, a shift that impacts overall EV charging costs for drivers. 

For a long time, Tesla’s Superchargers were free to use, or rather the use was included in the price of its vehicles. But the automaker has been moving to a pay-to-use model over the last two years in order to finance the growth of the charging network amid the Biden-era charging expansion in the United States.

Not charging owners for the electricity enabled Tesla to wait on developing a payment system for its Supercharger network.

It didn’t need one for the first five years of the network, and now the automaker has been fine-tuning its approach to charge owners for the electricity they consume as part of building better charging networks across markets.

At first, it meant fluctuating prices, and now Tesla is also adjusting how it calculates the total power consumption.

Last weekend, Tesla sent a memo to its staff to inform them that they are updating the calculation used to bill Supercharging sessions in order to take into account all the electricity used:

The calculation used to bill for Supercharging has been updated. Owners will also be billed for kWhs consumed by the car going toward the HVAC system, battery heater, and other HV loads during the session. Previously, owners were only billed for the energy used to charge the battery during the charging session.

Tesla says that the new method should more “accurately reflect the value delivered to the customer and the cost incurred by Tesla,” which mirrors recent moves in its solar and home battery pricing strategy as well.

The automaker says that customers in “extreme climates” could see a difference of 10 to 25 kWh for the energy consumed during a charging session:

Owners may see a noticeable increase in billed kWh if they are using energy-consuming features while charging, e.g., air conditioning, heating etc. This is more likely in extreme climates and could be a 10-25 kWh difference from what a customer experienced previously, as states like California explore grid-stability uses for EVs during peak events.

Of course, this is applicable where Tesla is able to charge by the kWh for charging sessions. In some markets, regulations push Tesla to charge by the minute amid ongoing fights over charging control between utilities and private operators.

Electrek’s Take
It actually looks like an oversight from Tesla in the first place. It’s fair to charge for the total electricity used during a session, and not just what was used to charge your battery pack, since Tesla is paying for both, even as some states add EV ownership fees like the Texas EV fee that further shape costs.

However, I wish Tesla would have a clearer way to break down the charging sessions and their costs.

There have been some complaints about Tesla wrongly billing owners for charging sessions, and this is bound to create more confusion if people see a difference between the kWhs gained during charging and what is shown on the bill.

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American Green Energy Independence accelerates electrification and renewable energy, leveraging solar, wind, and EVs to boost energy security, cut emissions, create jobs, and reduce reliance on volatile oil and natural gas markets influenced by geopolitics.

Key Points

American Green Energy Independence is a strategy to electrify, expand renewables, and enhance energy security.

✅ Electrifies vehicles, appliances, and infrastructure

✅ Expands solar, wind, and storage to stabilize grids

✅ Cuts oil dependence, strengthens energy security and jobs

As Putin's heavy hand uses Russia's power over oil and natural gas as a weapon against Europe, which is facing an energy nightmare across its markets, and the people of Ukraine, it's impossible not to wonder how we can mitigate the damages he's causing. Simultaneously, it's a devastating reminder of the freedom we so often take for granted and a warning to increase our energy independence as a nation. There are many ways we can, but one of the best is to follow the lead of the European Union and quicken our transition to green and renewable energies.

We've known it for a long time: our reliance on fossil fuels is a national security risk. Volatile prices coupled with our extreme demand mean that concerns over fossil fuel access have driven foreign policy decisions. We've seen it happen countless times — most notably during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and it's played out again in Ukraine, which has leaned on imports to keep the lights on during the crisis. Concerned by Russia's power over the oil and natural gas market, the US and Europe were quite reluctant to impose the harshest, most recent sanctions because doing so will hurt their citizens' pocketbooks.

As homeowners, we know how much decisions like these can hurt, especially with gas prices being historically high even as an energy crisis isn't spurring a green shift for many consumers. However, the solution to this problem isn't to drill more, as some well-funded oil and gas interest groups have claimed. Doing so likely won't even provide a short-term solution to the problem as it takes six months to a year at minimum to build a new well with all its associated infrastructure.

The best long-term solution is to declare our independence from the global oil market amid a global energy war that is driving price hikes and invest in American-made clean energy. We need to electrify our vehicles, appliances, and infrastructure, and make America fully energy independent. This will save families thousands of dollars a year, make our country more self-sufficient, and provide hundreds of thousands of quality jobs here in the Midwest.

Already, over 600,000 Midwesterners are employed in clean-energy professions, and they make 25 percent more than the national median wage. Nationally, clean energy is the biggest job creator in our country's energy sector, employing almost three times as many workers as the fossil fuel industry.

As we employ our own citizens, we will defund Putin's Russia, which has long been funded by his powerful oil and gas industry. Instead of diversifying his economy during the oil boom of the 2010s, Putin doubled down on petroleum. We should exploit his weakness by leading a global movement to abandon the very resource that funds his warmongering. Doing so will further destabilize his economy and protect the citizens of Ukraine, especially as they prepare for winter amid energy challenges today.

We can start doing this as everyday consumers by seeking electric options like stoves, cars, or other appliances. Congress should help Americans afford these changes by providing tax credits for everyday Americans and innovators in electric vehicle and green energy industries. Doing so will spur innovation in the industry, further reducing the cost to consumers. We should also ensure that our semiconductors, solar panels, wind turbines, and other technology needed for a green future are manufactured and assembled in America. This will ensure that our energy industry is safe from price or supply shocks and reduce brownout risks linked to disruptions caused by an international crisis like the invasion of Ukraine.

In many ways, our next steps as a country can define world history for generations to come. Will we continue our reliance on oil and its tacit support of Putin's economy? Or will we intensify our shift to green energies and make our country more self-sufficient and secure? The global spotlight is on us once again to lead. We hope our country will honor the lives of its veterans and the soldiers fighting in Ukraine by strengthening energy security support and transitioning towards green energy.

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Green Party Mission Possible 2030 outlines a rapid transition to renewable energy, electric vehicles, carbon pricing, and grid modernization, phasing out oil and gas while creating green jobs, public transit upgrades, and building retrofits.

Key Points

A Canadian climate roadmap to decarbonize by 2030 via renewables, EVs, carbon pricing, and grid upgrades.

✅ Ban on new gas cars by 2030; accelerate EV adoption and charging.

✅ 100 percent renewable-powered grid with interprovincial links.

✅ Just transition: retraining, green jobs, and building retrofits.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has a vision for Canada in 2030. In 11 years, all new cars will be electric. A national ban will prohibit anyone from buying a gas-powered vehicle. No matter where you live, charging stations will make driving long distances easy and affordable. Alberta’s oil industry will be on the way out, replaced by jobs in sectors such as urban farming, renewable energy and retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency. The electric grid will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy as Canada’s race to net-zero accelerates.

It’s all part of the Greens’ “Mission Possible” – a detailed plan released Monday with a level of ambition made clear by its very name. May insists it’s the only way to confront the climate crisis head-on before it’s too late.

“We have to set our targets on what needs to be done. You can’t negotiate with physics,” May told CTV’s Power Play on Monday.

But is that 2030 vision realistic?

CTVNews.ca spoke with experts in economics, political policy, renewable energy and climate science to explore how feasible May’s plan is, how much it would cost and what transitioning to an environmentally-centred economy would look like for everyday Canadians.

MOVING TO A GREEN ECONOMY

Recent polling from Nanos Research shows that the environment and climate change is the top issue among voters this election.

If the Greens win a majority on Oct. 21 – an outcome that May herself acknowledged isn’t likely – it would signal a major restructuring of the Canadian economy.

According to the party’s platform, jobs in the fuels sectors, such as oil and gas production in Alberta, would eventually disappear. The Greens say those job losses would be replaced by opportunities in a variety of fields including renewable energy, farming, public transportation, manufacturing, construction and information technology.

The party would also introduce a guaranteed livable income and greater support for technical and educational training to help workers transition to new jobs.

But Jean-Thomas Bernard, an economist who specializes in energy markets, said plenty of people in today’s energy sector, such as oil and gas workers, wouldn’t have the skills to make that transition.

“Quite a few of these jobs have low technical requirements. Driving a truck is driving a truck. So quite few of these people will not have the capacity to be recycled into well-paid jobs in the renewable sector,” he said.

“Maybe this would be for the young generation, but not people who are 40, 45, 50.”

Ryan Katz-Rosene is an associate professor at the University of Ottawa who researches environmental policy. He says May’s overall pitch is technically possible but would require a huge amount of enthusiasm on behalf of the public. 

“The plan in itself is not physically impossible. It is theoretically achievable. But it would require a major, major change in the urgency and the level of action, the level of investment, the level of popular urgency, the level of political commitment,” he said.

“But it’s not completely fantastical in it being theoretically impossible.”

PHASING OUT BITUMEN PRODUCTION

Katz-Rosene said that, under the Greens’ plan, Canadians would need to pay for a bold carbon pricing plan that helps shift the country away from fossil fuels and has significant implications for electricity grids, he said. It would also mean dramatically upscaling the capacity of Canada’s existing electrical grid to account for millions of new electric cars, reflecting the need for more electricity to hit net-zero as demand grows.

 “Given Canada’s slow attempt to climate action and pretty lacklustre results in these years, to be frank, this plan is very, very difficult to achieve. We’re talking 11 years from now. But things change, people change, and sometimes that change can occur very quickly. Just look at the type of climate mobilization we’re seen among young people in the last year, or the last five years.”

Bernard, the economist, is less optimistic. He cited international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol from 1997 and the more recent Paris Climate Agreement and said that little has come of those plans.

A climate solution with teeth, he suggests, would need to be global – something that no federal government can completely control.

“I find a lot this talk to be overly optimistic. I don’t know why we keep having this talk that is overly optimistic,” he said, adding that he believes humankind is already beyond the point of being able to stop irreversible climate change. 

“I think we are moving toward a mess, but the effort to control that is still not there.”

As for transitioning away from Canada’s oil industry, Bernard said May’s plan simply wouldn’t work.

“Trying to block some oil production here and there means more oil will be produced elsewhere,” he said. “Canada could become a clean country, but worldwide it would not be much.”

Mike Hudema, a climate organizer with Greenpeace Canada, thinks the Green Party’s promises for 2030 are big – and that’s kind of the point.

“They are definitely ambitious, but ambition is exactly what these times call for.  Unfortunately our government has delayed acting on this problem for so long that we have a very short timeline which we have to turn the ship,” he said.

“So this is the type of ambition that the science is calling for. So yes, I believe that if we here in Canada were to put our minds to addressing this problem, then we have the ability to reach it in that 2030 timeframe.”

In a statement to CTVNews.ca, a Green Party spokesperson said the 2030 timeline is intended to meet the 45 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 as laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“If we miss the 2030 target, we risk triggering runaway global warming,” the spokesperson said.

GREENING THE GRID BY 2030

Greening Canada’s existing electric grid – a goal May has pegged to 2030 – is quite feasible, Katz-Rosene said, and cleaning up Canada’s electricity is critical to meeting climate pledges. Already, 82 per cent of the country’s electric grid is run off of renewable resources, which makes Canada a world leader in the field, he said.

Hudema agrees.

“It is feasible. Canada does have a grid already that has a lot of renewables in it. So yes we can definitely make it over the hump and complete the transition. But we do need investments in our electric grid infrastructure to ensure a certain capability. That comes with tremendous job growth. That’s the exciting part that people keep missing,” Hudema said.

But Bernard said switching the grid to 100 per cent renewables would be quite difficult. He suggested that the Greens’ 2030 vision would require Ontario and Quebec’s hydro production to help power the Prairies.

“To think we could boost (hydro production) much more in order to meet Saskatchewan and Alberta’s needs? Oh boy. To do this before 2030? I think that’s not reasonable, not feasible.”

In a statement to CTV News, the Greens said their strategy includes building new connections between eastern Manitoba and western Ontario to transmit clean energy. They would also upgrade existing connections between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and between B.C. and Alberta to boost reliability.

A number of “micro-grids” in local communities capable of storing clean energy would help reduce the dependency on nationwide distribution systems, the party said.

Even so, the Greens acknowledged that, by 2030, some towns and cities will still be using some fossil fuels, and that even by 2050 – the goal for achieving overall carbon neutrality – some “legacy users” of fossil fuels will remain.

However, according to party projections, the emissions of these “legacy users” would be at most 8 per cent of today’s levels and those emissions would be “more than completely offset” by re-forestation and new technologies, such as CO2 capture and storage.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE REVOLUTION

The Green Party’s platform promises to revolutionize the Canadian auto sector. By 2030, all new cars made in Canada would be electric and federal EV sales regulations would prohibit the sale of cars powered by gasoline.

Danny Harvey, a geography professor with the University of Toronto who specializes in renewable energy, said he thinks May’s plan for making a 100 per cent renewable-powered electric grid is feasible.

On cars, however, he thinks the emphasis on electric vehicles is “misplaced.”

“At this point in time we should be requiring automobiles to transition, by 2030, to making cars that can go three times further on a litre of gasoline than at present. This would require selling only advanced hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs), which would run entirely on gasoline (like current HEVs),” he said.

“After that, and when the grid is fully ready, we could make the transition to fully electric or plugin hybrid electric vehicles, possibly using H2 for long-distance driving.”

At the moment, zero-emissions vehicles account for just over 2 per cent of annual vehicle sales in Canada. Katz-Rosene said that “isn’t a whole lot,” but the industry is on an exponential growth curve that doesn’t show any signs of slowing.

The trouble with May’s 2030 goal on electric vehicles, he said, has to do with Canadians’ taste in vehicles. In short: Canadians like trucks.

“The biggest obstacle I see is that I don’t even think it’s possible to get a light-duty truck, a Ford F150, in an electric model in Canada. And that’s the most popular type of vehicle,” he said.

However, if a zero emissions truck were on the market – something that automakers are already working on – then that could potentially shake things up, especially if the government introduces incentives for electric vehicles and higher taxes on gasoline, he said.

WHAT ABOUT THE COST?

CTVNews.ca reached out to the Green Party to ask how it would pay to revamp the electrical grid. The party did not give a precise figure but said that the plan “has been estimated to cost somewhat less” than the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.

The Greens have vowed to scrap the expansion and put that money toward the project.

Upgrading the electric grid to 100 per cent sustainable energy would also be a cost-effective, long-term solution, the Greens believe, though critics say Ottawa is making electricity more expensive for Albertans amid the transition.

“Current projects for renewable energy in Canada and worldwide are consistently at lower capital and operating costs than any type of fossil, hydro or nuclear energy project,” the party spokesperson said.

The party’s platform includes other potential sources of money, including closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, cracking down on offshore tax dodging and a new corporate tax on e-commerce companies, such as Facebook, Amazon and Netflix. The Greens have also vowed to eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies.

As for the economic realities, Katz-Rosene acknowledged that May’s plan may appeal to “radical” voters who view economic growth as anathema to addressing climate change.

But while May’s plan would be disruptive, it isn’t anti-capitalist, he said.

“It’s restrained capitalism. But it by no means an anti-capitalist platform, and none of the parties have an anti-capitalist platform by any stretch of the imagination,” Katz-Rosene said.

From an economist’s perspective, Bernard said the plan is still “very costly” and that taxes can only go so far.

“In the end, no corporation operates at a loss. At some stage, these taxes have to go to the users,” he said.

But conversations around money must also consider the cost of inaction on climate change, Hudema said.

“Costing (Elizabeth May) is always a concern and how we’re going to afford these things is something we definitely need to keep top of mind. But within that conversation we need to look at what is the cost of not doing what is in line with what the science is saying. I would say that cost is much more substantial.”

“The forecast, if we don’t act – it’s astronomical.”

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South Carolina Energy Freedom Act lifts net metering caps, reforms PURPA, and overhauls utility planning to boost solar competition, grid resiliency, and consumer choice across the Southeast amid Santee Cooper debt and utility monopoly pressure.

Key Points

A bipartisan reform lifting net metering caps, modernizing PURPA, and updating utility planning to expand solar.

✅ Lifts net metering cap to accelerate rooftop and community solar.

✅ Reforms PURPA contracts to enable fair pricing and transparent procurement.

✅ Modernizes utility IRP and opens markets to competition and customer choice.

The South Carolina House has approved the latest version of the Energy Freedom Act, a bill that overhauls the state’s electricity policies, including lifting the net metering caps and reforming PURPA implementation and utility planning processes in a way that advocates say levels the playing field for solar at all scales.

With Governor Henry McMaster (R) expected to sign the bill shortly, this is a major coup not just for solar in the state, but the region. This is particularly notable given the struggle that solar has had just to gain footing in many parts of the South, which is dominated by powerful utility monopolies and conservative politicians.

Two days ago when the bill passed the Senate we covered the details of the policy, but today we’re going to take a look at the politics of getting the Energy Freedom Act passed, and what this means for other Southern states and “red” states.

Opportunity amid crisis

The first thing to note about this bill is that it comes within a crisis in South Carolina’s electricity sector. This was the first legislative session following state-run utility Santee Cooper’s formal abandonment of a project to build two new reactors at the Virgil C. Sumner nuclear power plant, on which work stopped nearly two years ago.

Santee Cooper still holds $4 billion in construction debt related to the nuclear projects. According to an article in The State, this is costing its customers $5 per month toward the current debt, and this will rise to $13 per month for the next 40 years.

Such costs are particularly unwelcome in South Carolina, which has the highest annual electricity bills in the nation due to a combination of very high electricity usage driven by widespread air conditioning during the hot summers and higher prices per unit of power than other Southern states.

Following this fiasco, Santee Cooper’s CEO has stepped down, and the state government is currently considering selling the utility to a private entity. According to Maggie Clark, southeast state affairs senior manager for Solar Energy Industries Association, all of this set the stage for the bill that passed today.

“South Carolina is in a really ripe state for transformational energy policy in the wake of the VC Sumner nuclear plant cancellation,” Clark told pv magazine. “They were looking for a way forward, and I think this bill really provided them something to champion.”

Renewable energy policy for red states

This major win for solar policy comes in a state where the Republican Party holds majorities in both houses of the state’s legislature and sends bills to a Republican governor.

Broadly speaking, Republican politicians seldom show the level of interest in supporting renewable energy that Democrats do either at the state or national level, and show even less inclination to act to address greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the 100% clean energy mandates that are being implemented in four states and Washington D.C. have only passed with Democratic trifectas, in other words with Republicans controlling neither house of the state legislature nor the governor’s office. (Note: This does not apply to Puerto Rico, which has a different party structure to the rest of the United States)

However, South Carolina shows there are Republican politicians who will support pro-renewable energy policies, and circumstances under which Republican majorities will vote for legislation that aids the adoption of solar. And these specific circumstances speak to both different priorities and ideological differences between the two parties.

SEIA’s Maggie Clark emphasizes that the Energy Freedom Act was about reforming market rules. “This was a way to provide a program that did not provide subsidies or incentives in any way, but to really open the market to competition,” explains Clark. “I think that appealing to conservatives in the South about energy independence and resiliency and ultimately cost savings is the winning message on this issue.”

Such messaging in South Carolina is not an accident. Not only has such messaging been successful in the past, but coalition partner Vote Solar paid for polling to find what messages resounded with the state’s voters, and found that choice and competition were likely to resound.

And all of this happened in the context of what Clark describes as an “extremely well-resourced effort”, with SEIA in particular dedicating national attention and resources to the state – as part of an effort by President and CEO Abigail Hopper to shift attention more towards state-level policy. Maggie Clark is one of two new regional staff who Hopper has hired, and SEIA’s first staff member focused on Southern states.

“Absolutely the South is a prioritized region,” Hopper told pv magazine, noting that three Southern states – the Carolinas and Florida – are among the 12 states that the organization has identified to work on this year. “It became clear that as a region it needed more attention.”

SEIA is not expecting fly-by-night victories, and Hopper attributes the success in South Carolina not only to a broad coalition, but to years of work on the ground in the state.

Nor is SEIA the only organization to grow its presence in the region. Vote Solar now has two full time staff located in the South, whereas two years ago its sole staff member dedicated to the region was located in Washington D.C.

Ideology versus reality in the South

The Energy Freedom Act aligns with conservative ideas about small government and competition, but the American right is not monolithic, nor do political ideas and actions always line up neatly, as other successful policies in other states in the region show

By far the largest deployment of renewable energy in the nation has been in Texas, aside from in California which leads overall. Here a system of renewable energy zones in the sparsely populated but windy and sunny west, north and center of the state feed cities to the east with power from wind and more recently solar.

This was enabled by transmission lines whose cost was socialized among the state’s ratepayers – a tremendous irony given that the state’s politicians would be some of the last in the nation to want to be identified with socializing anything.

Another example is Louisiana, which saw a healthy residential solar market over the last decade due to a 50% state rebate. The policy has expired, but when operating it was exactly the sort of outright subsidy that right-wing media and politicians rail against.

Of course there is also North Carolina, which built the 2nd-largest solar market in the nation on the back of successful state-level implementation of PURPA, a federal law. Finally there is Virginia, where large-scale projects are booming following a 2018 law that found that 5 GW of solar is in the public interest.

Furthermore, while conservatives continually expound the virtues of the free market, the reality of the electricity sector in the “deep red” South is anything but that. The region missed out on the wave of deregulation in the 1990s, and remains dominated by monopoly utilities regulated by the state: a union of big business and big government where competition is non-existent.

This has also meant that the solar which has been deployed in the South is mostly not the kind of rooftop solar that many think of as embodying energy independence, but rather large-scale solar built in farms, fields and forests.

Where to from here?

With such contradictions between stated ideology and practice, it is less clear what makes for successful renewable energy policy in the South. However, opening up markets appears to be working not only in South Carolina, but also in Florida, where third-party solar companies are making inroads after the state’s voters rejected a well-funded and duplicitous utilities’ campaign to kill distributed solar.

SEIA’s Hopper says that she is “aggressively optimistic” about solar in Florida. As utilities have dominated large-solar deployment in the state, even as the state declined federal solar incentives earlier this year, she says that she sees opening up the state’s booming utility-scale solar market to competition as a priority.

Some parts of the region may be harder than others, and it is notable that SEIA has not had as much to say about Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana, which are largely controlled by utility giants Southern Company and Entergy, or the area under the thumb of the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the most anti-solar entities in the power sector.

Abby Hopper says ultimately, demand from customers – both individuals and corporations – is the key to transforming policy. “You replicate these victories by customer demand,” Hopper told pv magazine. “That combination of voices from the customer are what’s going to drive change.”

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Manitoba Hydro Interim Rate Increase faces PUB scrutiny as consumers coalition challenges a 5% electricity rate hike, citing drought planning, retained earnings, affordability, transparency, and impacts on fixed incomes and northern communities.

Key Points

A proposed 5% electricity rate hike under PUB review, opposed by consumers citing drought planning and affordability.

✅ Coalition backs 2% hike; 5% seen as undue burden

✅ PUB review sought; interim process lacks transparency

✅ Retained earnings, efficiencies cited to offset drought

The Consumers Coalition is urging the Public Utilities Board (PUB) to reject Manitoba Hydro’s current interim rate increase application, amid ongoing debates about Hydro governance and policy.

Hydro is requesting a five per cent jump in electricity rates starting on January 1, claiming drought conditions warrant the increase but the coalition disagrees, saying a two per cent increase would be sufficient.

The coalition, which includes Harvest Manitoba, the Consumers’ Association of Canada-Manitoba, and the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg, said a 5 per cent rate increase would put an unnecessary strain on consumer budgets, especially for those on fixed incomes or living up north.

"We feel that, in many ways, Manitobans have already paid for this drought," said Gloria Desorcy, executive director of the Consumers’ Association of Canada - Manitoba.

The coalition argues that hydroelectric companies already plan for droughts and that hydro should be using past earnings to mitigate any losses.

The group claims drought conditions would have added about 0.8 per cent to Hydro’s bottom line. They said remaining revenues from a two per cent increase could then be used to offset the increased costs of major projects like the Keeyask generating station and service its growing debt obligations.

The group also said Hydro is financially secure and is projecting a positive net income of $112 million next year without rate increases, even as utility profits can swing with market conditions, assuming the drought doesn’t continue.

They argue Hydro can use retained earnings as a tool to mitigate losses, rather than relying on deferral accounting that shifts costs, and find further efficiencies within the corporation.

"So we said two per cent, which is much more palatable for consumers especially at the time when so many consumers are struggling with so many higher bills,” said Desorcy.

According to the coalition’s calculations, that works out to a $2-4 increase per month, and debates such as ending off-peak pricing in Ontario show how design affects bills, depending on whether electricity is used for heating, but it could be higher.

The coalition said their proposed two per cent rate increase should be applied to all Manitoba Hydro customers and have a set expiration date of January 1, 2023.

Another issue, according to the coalition, is the process of an interim rate application does not provide any meaningful transparency and accountability, whereas recent OEB decisions in Ontario have outlined more robust public processes.

Desorcy said the next step is up to the PUB, though board upheaval at Hydro One in Ontario shows how governance shifts can influence outcomes.

The board is expected to decide on the proposed increase in the next couple of weeks.

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