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Ontario Ultra-Low Overnight Electricity Rate lets eligible customers opt in to 2.4 cents per kWh time-of-use pricing, set by the Ontario Energy Board, as utilities roll out the plan between May 1 and Nov. 1.

Key Points

An OEB-set overnight TOU price of 2.4 cents per kWh for eligible Ontarians, rolling out in phases via local utilities.

✅ 8 of 61 utilities offering rate at May 1 launch

✅ About 20% of 5M customers eligible at rollout

✅ Enova Power delays amid merger integration work

A million households can opt into a new ultra-low overnight electricity rate offered by the Ministry of Energy, as province-wide rate changes begin, but that's just a fraction of customers in Ontario.

Only eight of the 61 provincial power utilities will offer the new rate on the May 1 launch date, following the earlier fixed COVID-19 hydro rate period. The rest have up to six months to get on board.

That means it will be available to 20 percent of the province's five million electricity consumers, the Ministry of Energy confirmed to CBC News.

The Ford government's new overnight pricing was pitched as a money saver for Ontarians, amid the earlier COVID-19 recovery rate that could raise bills, undercutting its existing overnight rate from 7.4 to 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour. Both rates are set by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB).

"We wanted to roll it out to as many people as possible," Kitchener-Conestoga PC MPP Mike Harris Jr. told CBC News. "These companies were ready to go, and we're going to continue to work with our local providers to make sure that everybody can meet that Nov. 1 deadline."

Enova Power — which serves Kitchener, Waterloo, Woolwich, Wellesley and Wilmot — won't offer the reduced overnight rate until the fall, after typical bills rose when fixed pricing ended province-wide.

Enova merger stalls adoption

The power company is the product of the recently merged Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro and Waterloo North Hydro.

The Sept. 1 merger is a major reason Enova Power isn't offering the ultra-low rate alongside the first wave of power companies, said Jeff Quint, innovation and communications manager.

"With mergers, a lot of work goes into them. We have to evaluate, merge and integrate several systems and processes," said Quint.

"We believe that we probably would have been able to make the May 1 timeline otherwise."

The ministry said retroactive pricing wouldn't be available, unlike the off-peak price freeze earlier in the pandemic, and Harris said he doesn't expect the province will issue any rebates to customers of companies that introduce the rates later than May 1.

"These organizations were able to look at rolling things out sooner. But, obviously — if you look at Toronto Hydro, London, Centre Wellington, Hearst, Renfrew — there's a dynamic range of large and smaller-scale providers there. I'm very hopeful the Region of Waterloo folks will be able to work to try and get this done as soon as we can," Harris said.

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Ukraine Winter Energy Attacks strain the power grid as Russian missile strikes hit critical infrastructure, causing blackouts, civilian casualties, and damage in Kyiv, Kherson, and Kharkiv, underscoring air defense needs and looming cold-weather risks.

Key Points

Russian strikes on energy infrastructure cause outages, damage, and harm as Ukraine braces for freezing winter months.

✅ Russian missile barrage targets critical infrastructure nationwide.

✅ Power cuts reported in 400 localities; grid stability at risk.

✅ Kyiv seeks more air defenses as winter threats intensify.

Ukraine has warned that a difficult winter looms ahead after a massive Russian missile barrage targeted civilian infrastructure, killing three in the south and wounding many across the country.

Russia launched the strikes as Ukraine prepares for a third winter during Moscow's 19-month long invasion and as President Volodymyr Zelensky made his second wartime trip to Washington amid a U.S. end to grid support announcement.

"Most of the missiles were shot down. But only the majority. Not all," Zelensky said, calling for the West to provide Kyiv with more anti-missile systems to help keep the lights on this winter amid ongoing attacks.

The fresh attack came as Poland said it would honour pre-existing commitments of weapons supplies to Kyiv, a day after saying it would no longer arm its neighbour in a mounting row between the two allies.

Moscow hit cities from Rivne in western Ukraine to Kherson in the south, the capital Kyiv and cities in the centre and northeast of the country.

Kyiv also reported power cuts across the country -- in almost 400 cities, towns and villages -- as Russia targeted power plants across the grid, but said it was "too early" to tell if this was the start of a new Russian campaign against its energy sites.

Officials added that electricity reserves could limit scheduled outages if no new large-scale strikes occur.

Last winter many Ukrainians had to go without electricity and heating in freezing temperatures as Russia hit Kyiv's energy facilities.

"Difficult months are ahead: Russia will attack energy and critically important facilities," said Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Kyiv's presidential office.

Ukraine also said that it had struck a military airfield in Moscow-annexed Crimea, a claim denied by Russian-installed authorities.

'Ceilings fell down'
Russia's overnight strikes were deadliest in the southern Kherson, where three people were killed.

In Kyiv's eastern Darnitsky district, frightened residents of a dormitory woke up to their rooms with shattered windows and parked cars outside completely burnt out.

Communities have also adopted new energy solutions to cope with winter blackouts, from generators to shared warming points.

Debris from a downed missile in the capital wounded seven people, including a child.

"God, god, god," Maya Pelyukh, a cleaner who lives in the building, said as she looked at her living room covered in broken glass and debris on her bed.

Her windows and door were blown away, with the 50-year-old saying she crawled out from under a door frame.

Some residents outside were still in dressing gowns as they watched emergency workers put out a fire the authorities said had spread over 400 square meters (4,300 square feet).

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv seamstresses were clearing a damaged clothing factory, with a Russian missile hitting nearby.

"The ceilings fell down. Windows were blown out. There are chunks of the road inside," Yulia Barantsova said, as she cleared a sewing machine from dust and rubble.

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BC Hydro SAP Oversight Report assesses B.C. Utilities Commission findings on misleading testimony, governance failures, public funds oversight, IT project risk, compliance gaps, audit controls, ratepayer impacts, and regulatory accountability in major enterprise software decisions.

Key Points

A summary of BCUC findings on BC Hydro's SAP IT project oversight, governance lapses, and regulatory compliance.

✅ BCUC probed testimony, cost overruns, and governance failures

✅ Project split to avoid scrutiny; incomplete records and late corrections

✅ Reforms pledged: stronger business cases, compliance, audit controls

B.C. Hydro misled the province’s independent regulator about an expensive technology program, thereby avoiding scrutiny on how it spent millions of dollars in public money, according to a report by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

The Crown power corporation gave inaccurate testimony to regulators about the software it had chosen, called SAP, for an information technology project that has cost $197 million, said the report.

“The way the SAP decision was made prevented its appropriate scrutiny by B.C. Hydro’s board of directors and the BCUC, reflecting governance risks seen in Manitoba Hydro board changes in other jurisdictions,” the commission found.

“B.C. Hydro’s CEO and CFO and its (audit and risk management board committee) members did not exhibit good business judgment when reviewing and approving the SAP decision without an expenditure approval or business case, highlighting how board upheaval at Hydro One can carry market consequences.”

The report was the result of a complaint made in 2016 by then-opposition NDP MLA Adrian Dix, who alleged B.C. Hydro lied to the regulatory commission to try to get approval for a risky IT project in 2008 that then went over budget and resulted in the firing of Hydro’s chief information officer.

The commission spent two years investigating. Its report outlined how B.C. Hydro split the IT project into smaller components to avoid scrutiny, failed to produce the proper planning document when asked, didn’t disclose cost increases of up to $38 million, reflecting pressures seen at Manitoba Hydro's debt across the sector, gave incomplete testimony and did not quickly correct the record when it realized the mistakes.

“Essentially all of the things I asserted were substantiated, and so I’m pleased,” Dix, who is now minister of health, said on Monday. “I think ratepayers can be pleased with it, because even though it was an elaborate process, it involves hundreds of millions of spending by a public utility and it clearly required oversight.”

The BCUC stopped short of agreeing with Dix’s allegation that the errors were deliberate. Instead it pointed toward a culture at B.C. Hydro of confusion, misunderstanding and fear of dealing with the independent regulatory process.

“Therefore, the panel finds that there was a culture of reticence to inform the BCUC when there was doubt about something, even among individuals that understood or should have understood the role of the BCUC, a pattern that can fuel Hydro One investor concerns in comparable markets,” read the report.

“Because of this doubt and uncertainty among B.C. Hydro staff, the panel finds no evidence to support a finding that the BCUC was intentionally misled. The panel finds B.C. Hydro’s culture of reticence to be inappropriate.”

By law, B.C. Hydro is supposed to get approval by the commission for rate changes and major expenditures. Its officials are often put under oath when providing information.

B.C. Hydro apologized for its conduct in 2016. The Crown corporation said Monday it supports the commission’s findings and has made improvements to management of IT projects, including more rigorous business case analyses.

“We participated fully in the commission’s process and acknowledged throughout the inquiry that we could have performed better during the regulatory hearings in 2008,” said spokesperson Tanya Fish.

“Since then, we have taken steps to ensure we meet the highest standards of openness and transparency during regulatory proceedings, including implementing a (thorough) awareness program to support staff in providing transparent and accurate testimony at all times during a regulatory process.”

The Ministry of Energy, which is responsible for B.C. Hydro, said in a statement it accepts all of the BCUC recommendations and will include the findings as part of a review it is conducting into Hydro’s operations and finances, including its deferred operating costs for context, and regulatory oversight.

Dix, who is now grappling with complex IT project management in his Health Ministry, said the lessons learned by B.C. Hydro and outlined in the report are important.

“I think the report is useful reading on all those scores,” he said. “It’s a case study in what shouldn’t happen in a major IT project.”

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Power Grid Attacks surge across substations and transmission lines, straining critical infrastructure as DHS and FBI cite vandalism, domestic extremists, and cybersecurity risks impacting resilience, outages, and grid reliability nationwide.

Key Points

Power Grid Attacks are deliberate strikes on substations and lines to disrupt power and weaken grid reliability.

✅ Physical attacks rose across multiple states and utilities.

✅ DHS and FBI warn of threats to critical infrastructure.

✅ Substation security and grid resilience upgrades urged.

Even before Christmas Day attacks on power substations in five states in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast, similar incidents of attacks, vandalism and suspicious activity were on the rise.

Federal energy reports through August – the most recent available – show an increase in physical attacks at electrical facilities across the nation this year, continuing a trend seen since 2017.

At least 108 human-related events were reported during the first eight months of 2022, compared with 99 in all of 2021 and 97 in 2020. More than a dozen cases of vandalism have been reported since September.

The attacks have prompted a flurry of calls to better protect the nation's power grid, with a renewed focus on protecting the U.S. power grid across sectors, but experts have warned for more than three decades that stepped-up protection was needed.

Attacks on power stations on the rise 
Twice this year, the Department of Homeland Security warned "a heightened threat environment" remains for the nation, including its critical infrastructure amid reports of suspected Russian breaches of power plant systems. 

At least 20 actual physical attacks were reported, compared with six in all of 2021. 
Suspicious-activity reports jumped three years ago, nearly doubling in 2020 to 32 events. In the first eight months of this year, 34 suspicious incidents were reported.
Total human-related incidents – including vandalism, suspicious activity and cyber events such as Russian hackers and U.S. utilities in recent years – are on track to be the highest since the reports started showing such activity in 2011.

Attacks reported in at least 5 states
Since September, attacks or potential attacks have been reported on at least 18 additional substations and one power plant in Florida, Oregon, Washington and the Carolinas. Several involved firearms.

• In Florida: Six "intrusion events" occurred at Duke Energy substations in September, resulting in at least one brief power outage, according to the News Nation television network, which cited a report the utility sent to the Energy Department. Duke Energy spokesperson Ana Gibbs confirmed a related arrest, but the company declined to comment further.
• In Oregon and Washington state: Substations were attacked at least six times in November and December, with firearms used in some cases, local news outlets reported. On Christmas Day, four additional substations were vandalized in Washington State, cutting power to more than 14,000 customers.
• In North Carolina: A substation in Maysville was vandalized on Nov. 11. On Dec. 3, shootings that authorities called a "targeted attack" damaged two power substations in Moore County, leaving tens of thousands without power amid freezing temperatures.
• In South Carolina: Days later, gunfire was reported near a hydropower plant, but police said the shooting was a "random act."

It's not yet clear whether any of the attacks were coordinated. After the North Carolina attacks, a coordinating council between the electric power industry and the federal government ordered a security evaluation.

FBI mum on its investigations
The FBI is looking into some of the attacks, including cyber intrusions where hackers accessed control rooms in past cases, but it hasn't said how many it's investigating or where. 

Shelley Lynch, a spokesperson for the FBI's Charlotte field office, confirmed the bureau was investigating the North Carolina attack. The Kershaw County Sheriff's Office reported the FBI was looking into the South Carolina incident.

Utilities in Oregon and Washington told news outlets they were cooperating with the FBI, but spokespeople for the agency's Seattle and Portland field offices said they couldn't confirm or deny an investigation.

Could domestic extremists be involved?
In January, the Department of Homeland Security said domestic extremists had been developing "credible, specific plans" since at least 2020, including a Neo-Nazi plot against power stations detailed in a federal complaint, and would continue to "encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure."

In February, three men who ascribed to white supremacy and Neo-Nazism pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to a scheme to attack the grid with rifles.

In a news release, Timothy Langan, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said the defendants "wanted to attack regional power substations and expected the damage would lead to economic distress and civil unrest."

Why is the power grid so hard to protect?
Industry experts, federal officials and others have warned in one report after another since at least 1990 that the power grid was at risk, and a recent grid vulnerability report card highlights dangerous weak points, said Granger Morgan, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who chaired three National Academies of Sciences reports.

The reports urged state and federal agencies to collaborate to make the system more resilient to attacks and natural disasters such as hurricanes and storms. 

"The system is inherently vulnerable, with the U.S. grid experiencing more blackouts than other developed nations in one study. It's spread all across the countryside," which makes the lines and substations easy targets, Morgan said. The grid includes more than 7,300 power plants, 160,000 miles of high-voltage power lines and 55,000 transmission substations.

One challenge is that there's no single entity whose responsibilities span the entire system, Morgan said. And the risks are only increasing as the grid expands to include renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, he said. 

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Climate Change Consensus and Disinformation highlights the 97% peer-reviewed agreement on human-caused warming, IPCC warnings, and how fossil fuel lobbying, misinformation, and astroturf tactics echo tobacco denial to mislead media and voters.

Key Points

Explains the 97% scientific consensus and the disinformation that obscures IPCC findings and misleads the public.

✅ 97% peer-reviewed consensus on human-caused climate change

✅ Fossil fuel funding drives denial and media misinformation

✅ IPCC and major scientific bodies confirm severe impacts

Orson Johnson says there is no scientific consensus on climate change. He’s wrong. A 2015 study by Drexel University’s Robert Brulle found that nearly $1 billion per year is being spent to support climate change denial. Electric utilities, fossil fuel and transportation sectors outspent environmental and renewable energy sectors by more than 10-to-1, undermining efforts to achieve net-zero electricity emissions globally. It is virtually the same strategy that tobacco companies used to deny the dangers of tobacco smoke, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to delay recognition of harm from tobacco smoke for decades, and today Trump's oil policies can similarly influence Wall Street's energy strategy. These are the same debunked sources Johnson quotes in his commentary.

The authors of six independent peer-reviewed papers on the consensus for human-caused climate change examined “the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies,” according to an abstract in Environmental Research Letters, and public support for action is strong, with most Americans willing to contribute financially to climate solutions. Of the 30,000 scientists (people with a bachelor’s degree or higher in science) Johnson cites, only 39 specialized in climate science.

A new study by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change draws on momentum from the Katowice climate summit to warn that “The consequences for nature and humanity are sweeping and severe.”

California’s Office of Planning and Research says: “Every major scientific organization in the United States with relevant expertise has confirmed the IPCC’s conclusion, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The list of international scientific organizations affirming the worldwide consensus on climate change is even longer.”

Former President Obama argued that decarbonization is irreversible as the clean-energy transition accelerates.

This issue is a symptom of an even larger problem. Recently, Facebook announced it would continue to allow political ads that contain obvious lies. America’s corporate news media has been following the same policy for years. Printing stories and commentary with information that is clearly not true or where data has been cherry-picked to strongly imply a lie, such as claims that Ottawa is making electricity more expensive for Albertans, sets up a false equivalence fallacy in which two incompatible arguments appear to be logically equivalent when, in fact, they are not.

Conservatives focus exclusively on progressive income taxes to argue that rich people pay a disproportionate share of taxes while ignoring that they take a disproportionate share of income, and federal income taxes account for less than half of taxes collected, with almost all of the other taxes being heavily regressive. Critics of single-payer healthcare disregard that almost every other developed country on earth has been using single-payer for decades to provide better care with universal coverage at roughly half the cost. Other examples abound, including recent policy milestones like the historic U.S. climate deal that nevertheless become targets of misinformation. We live in a society where truth is no longer truth, reality is supplanted by alternative facts and where crippling polarization is driven by the inability to agree on basic facts.

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U.S. Power Grid Supply Shortages strain reliability as heat waves, hurricanes, and drought drive peak demand; transformer scarcity, gas constraints, and renewable delays raise outage risks across ERCOT and MISO, prompting FERC warnings.

Key Points

They are equipment and fuel constraints that, amid extreme weather and peak demand, elevate outage risks.

✅ Transformer shortages delay storm recovery and repairs.

✅ Record gas burn, low hydro tighten generation capacity.

✅ ERCOT and MISO warn of rolling outages in heat waves.

U.S. power companies are facing supply crunches amid the U.S. energy crisis that may hamper their ability to keep the lights on as the nation heads into the heat of summer and the peak hurricane season.

Extreme weather events such as storms, wildfires and drought are becoming more common in the United States. Consumer power use is expected to hit all-time highs this summer, reflecting unprecedented electricity demand across the Eastern U.S., which could strain electric grids at a time when federal agencies are warning the weather could pose reliability issues.

Utilities are warning of supply constraints for equipment, which could hamper efforts to restore power during outages. They are also having a tougher time rebuilding natural gas stockpiles for next winter, after the Texas power system failure highlighted cold-weather vulnerabilities, as power generators burn record amounts of gas following the shutdown of dozens of coal plants in recent years and extreme drought cuts hydropower supplies in many Western states.

"Increasingly frequent cold snaps, heat waves, drought and major storms continue to challenge the ability of our nation’s electric infrastructure to deliver reliable affordable energy to consumers," Richard Glick, chairman of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), said earlier this month.

Federal agencies responsible for power reliability like FERC have warned that grids in the western half of the country could face reliability issues this summer as consumers crank up air conditioners to escape the heat, with nationwide blackout risks not limited to Texas. read more

Some utilities have already experienced problems due to the heat. Texas' grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), was forced to urge customers to conserve energy as the Texas power grid faced another crisis after several plants shut unexpectedly during an early heat wave in mid-May. read more

In mid-June, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co (AEP.O) imposed rolling outages during a heat wave after a storm damaged transmission lines and knocked out power to over 200,000 homes and businesses.

The U.S. Midwest faces the most severe risk because demand is rising while nuclear and coal power supplies have declined. read more

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which operates the grid from Minnesota to Louisiana, warned that parts of its coverage area are at increased risk of temporary outages to preserve the integrity of the grid.

Supply-chain issues have already delayed the construction of renewable energy projects across the country, and the aging U.S. grid is threatening progress on renewables and EVs. Those renewable delays coupled with tight power in the Midwest prompted Wisconsin's WEC Energy Group Inc (WEC.N) and Indiana's NiSource Inc (NI.N) to delay planned coal plant shutdowns in recent months.

BRACING FOR SUPPLY SHORTAGES
Utility operators are conserving their inventory of parts and equipment as they plan to prevent summer power outages during severe storms. Over the last several months, that means operators have been getting creative.

"We’re doing a lot more splicing, putting cables together, instead of laying new cable because we're trying to maintain our new cable for inventory when we need it," Nick Akins, chief executive of AEP, said at the CERAWeek energy conference in March.

Transformers, which often sit on top of electrical poles and convert high-voltage energy to the power used in homes, are in short supply.

New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group Inc (PSEG) (PEG.N) Chief Executive Ralph Izzo told Reuters the company has had to look at alternate supply options for low voltage transformers.

"You don’t want to deplete your inventory because you don't know when that storm is coming, but you know it's coming," Izzo said.

Some utilities are facing waiting times of more than a year for transformer parts, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the American Public Power Association told U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a May letter.

Summer is just starting, but U.S. weather so far this year has already been about 21% warmer than the 30-year norm, according to data provider Refinitiv.

"If we have successive days of 100-degree-heat, those pole top transformers, they start popping like Rice Krispies, and we would not have the supply stack to replace them," Izzo said.

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