Zero-carbon community planned near Edmonton

Clean Electricity Standard (CES) sets utility emissions targets, uses tradable credits, and advances decarbonization via technology-agnostic benchmarks, carbon capture, renewable portfolio standards, upstream methane accounting, and cap-and-trade alternatives in reconciliation policy.

Key Points

CES sets utility emissions targets using tradable credits and benchmarks to drive power-sector decarbonization.

✅ Annual clean energy targets phased to 2050

✅ Tradable credits for compliance across utilities

✅ Includes upstream methane and lifecycle emissions

The Biden Administration and Democratic members of Congress have supported including a clean electricity standard (CES) in the upcoming reconciliation bill. A CES is an alternative to pricing carbon dioxide through a tax or cap-and-trade program and focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced during electricity generation by establishing targets, while early assessments show mixed results so far. In principle, it is a technology-agnostic approach. In practice, however, it pushes particular technologies out of the market.

The details of the CES are still being developed, but recent legislation may provide insight into how the CES could operate. In May, Senator Tina Smith and Representative Ben Ray Luján introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2019 (CESA), while Minnesota's 100% carbon-free mandate offers a state-level parallel, and in January 2020, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a discussion draft of the Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s (CLEAN) Future Act. Both bills increase the clean energy target annually until 2050 in order to phase out emissions. Both bills also create a credit system where clean sources of electricity as determined by a benchmark, carbon dioxide emitted per kilowatt-hour, receive credits. These credits may be transferred, sold, and auctioned so utilities that fail to meet targets can procure credits from others, as large energy customers push to accelerate clean energy globally.

The bills’ benchmarks vary, and while the CLEAN Future Act allows natural gas-fired generators to receive partial credits, CESA does not. Under both bills, these generators would be expected to install carbon capture technology to continue meeting increasing targets for clean electricity generation. Both bills go beyond considering the emissions resulting from generation and include upstream emissions for natural gas-fired generators. Natural gas, a greenhouse gas, that is leaked upstream of a generator during transportation is to be included among its emissions. The CLEAN Future Act also calls for newly constructed hydropower generators to account for the emissions associated with the facility’s construction despite producing clean electricity. These additional provisions demonstrate not only the CES’s inability to fully address the issue of emissions but also the slippery slope of expanding the program to include other markets, echoing cost and reliability concerns as California exports its energy policies across the West.

A majority of states have adopted clean energy, electricity, or renewable portfolio standards, with some considering revamping electricity rates to clean the grid, leaving legislators with plenty of examples to consider. As they weigh their options, legislators should consider if they are effectively addressing the problem at hand, economy-wide emissions reductions, and at what cost, drawing on examples like New Mexico's 100% clean electricity bill to inform trade-offs.

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Hydro One Disconnection Ban Extension keeps Ontario electricity customers connected during COVID-19, extending the moratorium on power shutoffs and expanding financial relief programs amid ongoing pandemic restrictions and persistent hot weather across the province.

Key Points

An open-ended Ontario utility moratorium preventing residential power shutoffs and offering bill relief during COVID-19.

✅ No residential disconnections until further notice

✅ Extended bill assistance and flexible payment options

✅ Response to COVID-19 restrictions and extreme heat

Ontario's primary electricity provider says it's extending a ban on disconnecting homes from the power grid until further notice.

Hydro One first issued the ban towards the beginning of the province's COVID-19 outbreak, saying self-isolating customers needed to be able to rely on electricity while they were kept at home during the pandemic.

A spokesman for the utility says the ban was initially set to expire at the end of July, but has now been extended in a manner similar to winter disconnection bans without a fixed end-date.

Hydro One says the move is necessary given the ongoing restrictions posed by the pandemic, and notes it has supported provincial COVID-19 efforts in recent months, as well as persistent hot weather across much of the province.

It says it's also planning to extend a financial relief program to help customers struggling to pay their hydro bills, reflecting demand for more choice and flexibility among ratepayers.

The province also extended off-peak electricity rates to provide relief for families, small businesses and farms during this period.

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Australia Clean Energy Target drives renewables in the National Electricity Market, with RepuTex modelling and the Finkel Review showing lower wholesale prices and emissions as gas generators set prices less often under ambitious targets.

Key Points

Policy boosting low emissions generation to cut electricity emissions and lower wholesale prices across Australia.

✅ Ambitious targets lower wholesale prices through added generation

✅ RepuTex modelling shows renewables displace costly gas peakers

✅ Finkel Review suggests CET cuts emissions and boosts reliability

The more ambitious a clean energy target is, the lower Australian wholesale electricity prices will be, according to new modelling by energy analysis firm RepuTex.

The Finkel review, released last month recommended the government introduce a clean energy target (CET), which it found would cut emissions from the national electricity market and put downward pressure on both wholesale and retail prices, aligning with calls to favor consumers over generators in market design.

The Finkel review only modelled a CET that would cut emissions from the electricity sector by 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. But all available analysis has demonstrated that such a cut would not be enough to meet Australia’s overall emissions reductions made as part of the Paris agreement, which themselves were too weak to help meet the central aim of that agreement – to keep global warming to “well below 2C”.

RepuTex modelled the effect of a CET that cut emissions from the electricity sector by 28% – like that modelled in the Finkel Review – as well as one it said was consistent with 2C of global warming, which would cut emissions from electricity by 45% below 2005 levels by 2030.

It found both scenarios caused wholesale prices to drop significantly compared to doing nothing, despite IEA warnings on falling energy investment that could lead to shortages, with the more ambitious scenario resulting in lower wholesale prices between 2025 and 2030.

In the “business as usual scenario”, RepuTex found wholesale prices would hover roughly around the current price of $100 per MWh.

Under a CET that reduced electricity emissions by 28%, prices would drop to under $40 around 2023, and then rise to nearly $60 by 2030.

The more ambitious CET had a broadly similar effect on wholesale prices. But RepuTex found it would drive prices down a little slower, but then keep them down for longer, stabilising at about $40 to $50 for most of the 2020s.

It found a CET would drive prices down by incentivising more generation into the market. The more ambitious CET would further suppress prices by introducing more renewable energy, resulting in expensive gas generators less often being able to set the price of electricity in the wholesale market, a dynamic seen with UK natural gas price pressures recently.

The downward pressure of a CET on wholesale prices was more dramatic in the RepuTex report than in Finkel’s own modelling. But that was largely because, as Alan Finkel himself acknowledged, the estimates of the costs of renewable energy in the Finkel review modelling were conservative.

Speaking at the National Press Club, Finkel said: “We were conservative in our estimates of wind and large-scale solar generator prices. Indeed, in recent months the prices for wind generation have already come in lower than what we modelled.”

The RepuTex modelling also found the economics of the national electricity market no longer supported traditional baseload generation – such as coal power plants that were unable to respond flexibly to demand, with debates over power market overhauls in Alberta underscoring similar tensions – and so they would not be built without the government distorting the market.

“With a premium placed on flexible generation that can ramp up or down, baseload only generation – irrespective of how clean or dirty it is – is likely to be too inflexible to compete in Australia’s future electricity system,” the report said.

“In this context, renewable energy remains attractive to the market given it is able to deliver energy reliability, with no emissions, at low cost prices, with clean grid and battery trends in Canada informing the shift for policymakers. This affirms that renewables are a lay down misere to out-compete traditionally fossil-fuel sources in Australia for the foreseeable future.”

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Alberta Renewable Energy Market is accelerating as wind and solar prices fall, corporate PPAs expand, and a deregulated, energy-only system, AESO outlooks, and TIER policy drive investment across the province.

Key Points

An open, energy-only Alberta market where wind and solar growth is driven by corporate PPAs, AESO outlooks, and TIER.

✅ Energy-only, deregulated grid enables private investment

✅ Corporate PPAs lower costs and hedge power price risk

✅ AESO forecasts and TIER policy support renewables

By Chris Varcoe, Calgary Herald

A few things are abundantly clear about the state of renewable energy in Alberta today.

First, the demise of Alberta’s Renewable Electricity Program (REP) under the UCP government isn’t going to see new projects come to a screeching halt.

In fact, new developments are already going ahead.

And industry experts believe private-sector companies that increasingly want to purchase wind or solar power are going to become a driving force behind even more projects in Alberta.

BluEarth Renewables CEO Grant Arnold, who spoke Wednesday at the Canadian Wind Energy Association conference, pointed out the sector is poised to keep building in the province, even with the end of the REP program that helped kick-start projects and triggered low power prices.

“The fundamentals here are, I think, quite fantastic — strong resource, which leads to really competitive wind prices . . . it’s now the cheapest form of new energy in the province,” he told the audience.

“Alberta is in a fundamentally good place to grow the wind power market.”

Unlike other provinces, Alberta has an open, deregulated marketplace, which create opportunities for private-sector investment and renewable power developers as well.

The recent decision by the Kenney government to stick with the energy-only market, instead of shifting to a capacity market, is seen as positive for Alberta's energy future by renewable electricity developers.

There is also increasing interest from corporations to buy wind and solar power from generators — a trend that has taken off in the United States with players such as Google, General Motors and Amazon — and that push is now emerging in Canada.

“It’s been really important in the U.S. for unlocking a lot of renewable energy development,” said Sara Hastings-Simon, founding director of the Business Renewable Centre Canada, which seeks to help corporate buyers source renewable energy directly from project developers.

“You have some companies where . . . it’s what their investors and customers are demanding. I think we will see in Alberta customers who see this as a good way to meet their carbon compliance requirements.

“And the third motivation to do it is you can get the power at a good price.”

Just last month, Perimeter Solar signed an agreement with TC Energy to supply the Calgary-based firm with 74 megawatts from its solar project near Claresholm.

More deals in the industry are being discussed, and it’s expected this shift will drive other projects forward.

There is increasing interest from corporations to buy solar and wind energy directly from generators.

“The single-biggest change has been the price of wind and solar,” Arnold said in an interview.

“Alberta looks really, really bright right now because we have an open market. All other provinces, for regulatory reasons, we can’t have this (deal) . . . between a generator and a corporate buyer of power. So Alberta has a great advantage there.”

These forces are emerging as the renewable energy industry has seen dramatic change in recent years in Alberta, with costs dropping and an array of wind and solar developments moving ahead, even as solar expansion faces challenges in the province.

The former NDP government had an aggressive target to see green energy sources make up 30 per cent of all electricity generation by 2030.

Last week, the Alberta Electric System Operator put out its long-term outlook, with its base-case scenario projecting moderate demand growth for power over the next two decades. However, the expected load growth — expanding by an average of 0.9 per cent annually until 2039 — is only half the rate seen in the past 20 years.

Natural gas will become the main generation source in the province as coal-fired power (now comprising more than one-third of generation) is phased out.

Renewable projects initiated under the former NDP government’s REP program will come online in the near term, while “additional unsubsidized renewable generation is expected to develop through competitive market mechanisms and support from corporate power purchase agreements,” the report states.

AESO forecasts installed generation capacity for renewables will almost double to about 19 per cent by 2030, with wind and solar increasing to 21 per cent by 2039.

Another key policy issue for the sector will likely come within the next few weeks when the provincial government introduces details of its new Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction program (TIER).

The initiative will require large industrial emitters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a benchmark level, pay into the technology fund, or buy offsets or credits. The carbon price is expected to be around $20 to $30 a tonne, and the system will kick in on Jan. 1, 2020.

Industry players point out the decision to stick with Alberta’s energy-only market along with the details surrounding TIER, and a focus by government on reducing red tape, should all help the sector attract investment.

“It is pretty clear there is a path forward for renewables here in the province,” said Evan Wilson, regional director with the Canadian Wind Energy Association.

All of these factors are propelling the wind and solar sector forward in the province, at the same time the oil and gas sector faces challenges to grow.

But it doesn’t have to be an either/or choice for the province moving forward. We’re going to need many forms of energy in the coming decades, and Alberta is an energy powerhouse, with potential to develop more wind and solar, as well as oil and natural gas resources.

“What we see sometimes is the politics and discussion around renewables or oil becomes a deliberate attempt to polarize people,” Arnold added.

“What we are trying to show, in working in Alberta on renewable projects, is it doesn’t have to be polarizing. There are a lot of solutions.

“The combination of solutions is part of what we need to talk about.”

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Iran Power Outage Protests surge as electricity blackouts, drought, and a looming heat wave spark unrest in Tehran, Shiraz, and more, with chants against leadership, strikes, and sanctions-driven economic pressures mounting.

Key Points

Protests across Iran over blackouts, drought, and economic strain challenge authorities and demand accountability.

✅ Rolling blackouts blamed on drought, heat wave, and surging demand.

✅ Chants target leadership amid strikes and wage, water shortages.

✅ Legitimacy questioned after low-turnout election and sanctions.

There have been protests in a number of cities in Iran amid rising public anger over widespread electricity blackouts.

Videos on social media appeared to show crowds in Shar-e Rey near Tehran, Shiraz, Amol and elsewhere overnight.

Some people can be heard shouting "Death to the dictator" and "Death to Khamenei" - a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The government has apologised for the blackouts, which it has blamed on a severe drought and high demand.

Elsewhere, similar outages have had political repercussions, as a widespread power outage in Taiwan prompted a minister's resignation earlier this year.

President Hassan Rouhani explained in televised remarks on Tuesday morning that the drought meant most of the country's hydroelectric power plants were not operating, placing more pressure on thermal power plants, and that electricity consumption had surged as people used air conditioning to cope with the intense summer heat.

"I apologise to our dear people who have faced problems and suffering in the past few days and I urge them to co-operate [by cutting their electricity use]. People complain about power outages and they are right," Mr Rouhani said.

A video that has gone viral in recent days shows a woman complaining about the blackouts and corruption at a government office in the northern city of Gorgan and demanding that her comments be conveyed to "higher-ups like Mr Rouhani". "The only thing you have done is forcing hijab on us," she shouts.

The president has promised that the government will seek to resolve the problems within the next two or three weeks.

However, a power sector spokesman warned on Monday that consumption was exceeding the production capacity of Iran's power plants by 11GW, and said a "looming heat wave" could make the situation worse, as seen in Iraq's summer electricity crunch this year.

Iranians have also been complaining about water shortages and the non-payment of wages by some local authorities, while thousands of people working in Iran's oil industry have been on strike over pay and conditions, as officials discuss further energy cooperation with Iraq to ease supply pressures.

There was already widespread discontent at government corruption and the economic hardship caused by sanctions that were reinstated when the US abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran three years ago, even as Iran supplies about 40% of Iraq's electricity through cross-border sales.

Analysts say that after the historically low turnout in last month's presidential election, when more than half of the eligible voters stayed at home, the government is facing a serious challenge to its legitimacy.

Mr Rouhani will be succeeded next month by Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line cleric close to Ayatollah Khamenei who won 62% of the vote after several prominent contenders were disqualified, while Iran finalizes power grid deals with Iraq to bolster regional ties.

The 60-year-old former judiciary chief has presented himself as the best person to combat corruption and solve Iran's economic problems, including ambitions to transmit electricity to Europe as a regional power hub.

But many Iranians and human rights activists have pointed to his human rights record, accusing him of playing a role in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s and in the deadly crackdowns on mass anti-government protests in 2009 and 2019.

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Africa Energy Investment must quadruple, says IEA, to deliver electricity access via grids, mini-grids, and stand-alone solar PV, wind, hydropower, natural gas, and geothermal, targeting $120 billion annually and 2.5% of GDP.

Key Points

Africa Energy Investment funds reliable, low-carbon electricity via grids, mini-grids, and renewables.

✅ Requires about $120B per year, or 2.5% of GDP

✅ Mix: grids, mini-grids, stand-alone solar PV and wind

✅ Targets reliability, economic growth, and electricity access

African countries will need to quadruple their rate of investment in their power sectors for the next two decades to bring reliable electricity to all Africans, as outlined in the IEA’s path to universal access analysis, an International Energy Agency (IEA) study published on Friday said.

If African countries continue on their policy trajectories, 530 million Africans will still lack electricity in 2030, the IEA report said. It said bringing reliable electricity to all Africans would require annual investment of around $120 billion and a global push for clean, affordable power to mobilize solutions.

“We’re talking about 2.5% of GDP that should go into the power sector,” Laura Cozzi, the IEA’s Chief Energy Modeller, told journalists ahead of the report’s launch. “India’s done it over the past 20 years. China has done it, with solar PV growth outpacing any other fuel, too. So it’s something that is doable.”

Taking advantage of technological advances and optimizing natural resources, as highlighted in a renewables roadmap, could help Africa’s economy grow four-fold by 2040 while requiring just 50% more energy, the agency said.

Africa’s population is currently growing at more than twice the global average rate. By 2040, it will be home to more than 2 billion people. Its cities are forecast to expand by 580 million people, a historically unprecedented pace of urbanization.

While that growth will lead to economic expansion, it will pile pressure on power sectors that have already failed to keep up with demand, with the sub-Saharan electricity challenge intensifying across the region. Nearly half of Africans - around 600 million people - do not have access to electricity. Last year, Africa accounted for nearly 70% of the global population lacking power, a proportion that has almost doubled since 2000, the IEA found.

Some 80% of companies in sub-Saharan Africa suffered frequent power disruptions in 2018, leading to financial losses that curbed economic growth.

The IEA recommended changing how power is distributed, with mini-grids and stand-alone systems like household solar playing a larger role in complementing traditional grids as targeted efforts to accelerate access funding gain momentum.

According to IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, with the right government policies and energy strategies, Africa has an opportunity to pursue a less carbon-intensive development path than other regions.

“To achieve this, it has to take advantage of the huge potential that solar, wind, hydropower, natural gas and energy efficiency offer,” he said.

Despite possessing the world’s greatest solar potential, Africa boasts just 5 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV), or less than 1% of global installed capacity, a slow green transition that underscores the scale of the challenge, the report stated.

To meet demand, African nations should add nearly 15 gigawatts of PV each year through 2040. Wind power should also expand rapidly, particularly in Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. And Kenya should develop its geothermal resources.

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