Clean energy initiative for poor proposed

European Oil Majors Energy Transition highlights BP, Shell, and Total rapidly scaling renewables, wind and solar assets, hydrogen, electricity, and EV charging while cutting upstream capex, aligning with net-zero goals and utility-style energy services.

Key Points

It is the shift by BP, Shell, Total and peers toward renewables, electricity, hydrogen, and EV charging to meet net-zero goals.

✅ Offshore wind, solar, and hydrogen projects scale across Europe

✅ Capex shifts, fossil output declines, net-zero targets by 2050

✅ EV charging, utilities, and power trading become core services

Under pressure from governments and investors, including rising investor pressure at utilities that reverberates across the sector, industry leaders like BP and Shell are accelerating their production of cleaner energy.

This may turn out to be the year that oil giants, especially in Europe, started looking more like electric companies.

Late last month, Royal Dutch Shell won a deal to build a vast wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands. Earlier in the year, France’s Total, which owns a battery maker, agreed to make several large investments in solar power in Spain and a wind farm off Scotland. Total also bought an electric and natural gas utility in Spain and is joining Shell and BP in expanding its electric vehicle charging business.

At the same time, the companies are ditching plans to drill more wells as they chop back capital budgets. Shell recently said it would delay new fields in the Gulf of Mexico and in the North Sea, while BP has promised not to hunt for oil in any new countries.

Prodded by governments and investors to address climate change concerns about their products, Europe’s oil companies are accelerating their production of cleaner energy — usually electricity, sometimes hydrogen — and promoting natural gas, which they argue can be a cleaner transition fuel from coal and oil to renewables, as carbon emissions drop in power generation.

For some executives, the sudden plunge in demand for oil caused by the pandemic — and the accompanying collapse in earnings — is another warning that unless they change the composition of their businesses, they risk being dinosaurs headed for extinction.

This evolving vision is more striking because it is shared by many longtime veterans of the oil business.

“During the last six years, we had extreme volatility in the oil commodities,” said Claudio Descalzi, 65, the chief executive of Eni, who has been with that Italian company for nearly 40 years. He said he wanted to build a business increasingly based on green energy rather than oil.

“We want to stay away from the volatility and the uncertainty,” he added.

Bernard Looney, a 29-year BP veteran who became chief executive in February, recently told journalists, “What the world wants from energy is changing, and so we need to change, quite frankly, what we offer the world.”

The bet is that electricity will be the prime means of delivering cleaner energy in the future and, therefore, will grow rapidly as clean-energy investment incentives scale globally.

American giants like Exxon Mobil and Chevron have been slower than their European counterparts to commit to climate-related goals that are as far reaching, analysts say, partly because they face less government and investor pressure (although Wall Street investors are increasingly vocal of late).

“We are seeing a much bigger differentiation in corporate strategy” separating American and European oil companies “than at any point in my career,” said Jason Gammel, a veteran oil analyst at Jefferies, an investment bank.

Companies like Shell and BP are trying to position themselves for an era when they will rely much less on extracting natural resources from the earth than on providing energy as a service tailored to the needs of customers — more akin to electric utilities than to oil drillers.

They hope to take advantage of the thousands of engineers on their payrolls to manage the construction of new types of energy plants; their vast networks of retail stations to provide services like charging electric vehicles; and their trading desks, which typically buy and hedge a wide variety of energy futures, to arrange low-carbon energy supplies for cities or large companies.

All of Europe’s large oil companies have now set targets to reduce the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Most have set a ”net zero” ambition by 2050, a goal also embraced by governments like the European Union and Britain.

The companies plan to get there by selling more and more renewable energy and by investing in carbon-free electricity across their portfolios, and, in some cases, by offsetting emissions with so-called nature-based solutions like planting forests to soak up carbon.

Electricity is the key to most of these strategies. Hydrogen, a clean-burning gas that can store energy and generate electric power for vehicles, also plays an increasingly large role.

The coming changes are clearest at BP. Mr. Looney said this month that he planned to increase investment in low-emission businesses like renewable energy by tenfold in the next decade to $5 billion a year, while cutting back oil and gas production by 40 percent. By 2030, BP aims to generate renewable electricity comparable to a few dozen large offshore wind farms.

Mr. Looney, though, has said oil and gas production need to be retained to generate cash to finance the company’s future.

Environmentalists and analysts described Mr. Looney’s statement that BP’s oil and gas production would decline in the future as a breakthrough that would put pressure on other companies to follow.

BP’s move “clearly differentiates them from peers,” said Andrew Grant, an analyst at Carbon Tracker, a London nonprofit. He noted that most other oil companies had so far been unwilling to confront “the prospect of producing less fossil fuels.”

While there is skepticism in both the environmental and the investment communities about whether century-old companies like BP and Shell can learn new tricks, they do bring scale and know-how to the task.

“To make a switch from a global economy that depends on fossil fuels for 80 percent of its energy to something else is a very, very big job,” said Daniel Yergin, the energy historian who has a forthcoming book, “The New Map,” on the global energy transition now occurring in energy. But he noted, “These companies are really good at big, complex engineering management that will be required for a transition of that scale.”

Financial analysts say the dreadnoughts are already changing course.

“They are doing it because management believes it is the right thing to do and also because shareholders are severely pressuring them,” said Michele Della Vigna, head of natural resources research at Goldman Sachs.

Already, he said, investments by the large oil companies in low-carbon energy have risen to as much as 15 percent of capital spending, on average, for 2020 and 2021 and around 50 percent if natural gas is included.

Oswald Clint, an analyst at Bernstein, forecast that the large oil companies would expand their renewable-energy businesses like wind, solar and hydrogen by around 25 percent or more each year over the next decade.

Shares in oil companies, once stock market stalwarts, have been marked down by investors in part because of the risk that climate change concerns will erode demand for their products. European electric companies are perceived as having done more than the oil industry to embrace the new energy era.

“It is very tricky for an investor to have confidence that they can pull this off,” Mr. Clint said, referring to the oil industry’s aspirations to change.

But, he said, he expects funds to flow back into oil stocks as the new businesses gather momentum.

At times, supplying electricity has been less profitable than drilling for oil and gas. Executives, though, figure that wind farms and solar parks are likely to produce more predictable revenue, partly because customers want to buy products labeled green.

Mr. Descalzi of Eni said converted refineries in Venice and Sicily that the company uses to make lower-carbon fuel from plant matter have produced better financial results in this difficult year than its traditional businesses.

Oil companies insist that they must continue with some oil and gas investments, not least because those earnings can finance future energy sources. “Not to make any mistake,” Patrick Pouyanné, chief executive of Total, said to analysts recently: Low-cost oil projects will be a part of the future.

During the pandemic, BP, Total and Shell have all scrutinized their portfolios, partly to determine if climate change pressures and lingering effects from the pandemic mean that petroleum reserves on their books — developed for perhaps billions of dollars, when oil was at the center of their business — might never be produced or earn less than previously expected. These exercises have led to tens of billions of dollars of write-offs for the second quarter, and there are likely to be more as companies recalibrate their plans.

“We haven’t seen the last of these,” said Luke Parker, vice president for corporate analysis at Wood Mackenzie, a market research firm. “There will be more to come as the realities of the energy transition bite.”

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Australia-PNG Infrastructure Rollout delivers electricity and broadband expansion across PNG, backed by New Zealand, the US, Japan, and South Korea, enhancing telecom capacity, digital connectivity, and regional development ahead of the APEC summit.

Key Points

A multi-billion-dollar plan to expand power and broadband in PNG, covering 70% of users with allied support.

✅ Delivers internet to 70% of PNG households and communities

✅ Expands electricity grid, boosting reliability and access

✅ Backed by NZ, US, Japan, and S. Korea; complements APEC investments

Australia will lead a new multi-billion-dollar electricity and internet rollout in Papua New Guinea, with the PM rules out taxpayer-funded power plants stance underscoring its approach to energy policy.

The Australian newspaper reported New Zealand, the US, Japan, whose utilities' offshore wind deal in the UK signaled expanding energy interests, and South Korea are supporting the project, which will be PNG's largest ever development investment.

The project will deliver internet to 70 percent of PNG and improve access to power, even as clean energy investment in developing nations has slipped sharply, according to a recent report.

Both China and the US are also expected to announce new investments in the region at the APEC summit this week, and recent China-Cambodia nuclear energy cooperation underscores those energy ties.

Beijing will announce new mining and energy investments in PNG, echoing projects such as the Chinese-built electricity poles plant in South Sudan, and two Confucius Insitutes to be housed at PNG universities.

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US Power Grid Cyberattacks target utilities and nuclear plants, probing SCADA, ICS, and business networks at sites like Wolf Creek; suspected Russian actors, malware, and spear-phishing trigger DHS and FBI alerts on critical infrastructure resilience.

Key Points

Intrusions on energy networks probing ICS and SCADA, seeking persistence and elevating risks to critical infrastructure.

✅ Wolf Creek nuclear plant targeted; no operational systems breached

✅ Attackers leveraged stolen credentials, malware, and spear-phishing

✅ DHS and FBI issued alerts; utilities enhance cyber resilience

Hackers working for a foreign government recently breached at least a dozen US power plants, including the Wolf Creek nuclear facility in Kansas, according to current and former US officials, sparking concerns the attackers were searching for vulnerabilities in the electrical grid.

The rivals could be positioning themselves to eventually disrupt the nation’s power supply, warned the officials, who noted that a general alert, prompting a renewed focus on protecting the U.S. power grid, was distributed to utilities a week ago. Adding to those concerns, hackers recently infiltrated an unidentified company that makes control systems for equipment used in the power industry, an attack that officials believe may be related.

The chief suspect is Russia, according to three people familiar with the continuing effort to eject the hackers from the computer networks. One of those networks belongs to an ageing nuclear generating facility known as Wolf Creek -- owned by Westar Energy Inc, Great Plains Energy Inc, and Kansas Electric Power Cooperative Inc -- on a lake shore near Burlington, Kansas.

The possibility of a Russia connection is particularly worrying, former and current official s say, because Russian hackers have previously taken down parts of the electrical grid in Ukraine and appear to be testing increasingly advanced tools, including cyber weapons to disrupt power grids, to disrupt power supplies.

The hacks come as international tensions have flared over US intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to influence the 2016 presidential election, and amid U.S. government condemnation of Russian power-grid hacking in recent advisories. The US, which has several continuing investigations into Russia’s activities, is known to possess digital weapons capable of disrupting the electricity grids of rival nations.

“We don’t pay attention to such anonymous fakes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, in response to a request to comment on alleged Russian involvement.

It was unclear whether President Donald Trump was planning to address the cyber attacks at his meeting on Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an earlier speech in Warsaw, Trump called out Russia’s “destabilising activities” and urged the country to join “the community of responsible nations.”

The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation said they are aware of a potential intrusion in the energy sector. The alert issued to utilities cited activities by hackers since May.

“There is no indication of a threat to public safety, as any potential impact appears to be limited to administrative and business networks,” the government agencies said in a joint statement.

The Department of Energy also said the impact appears limited to administrative and business networks and said it was working with utilities and grid operators to enhance security and resilience.

“Regardless of whether malicious actors attempt to exploit business networks or operational systems, we take any reports of malicious cyber activity potentially targeting our nation’s energy infrastructure seriously and respond accordingly,” the department said in an emailed statement.

Representatives of the National Security Council, the Director of National Intelligence and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declined to comment. While Bloomberg News was waiting for responses from the government, the New York Times reported that hacks were targeting nuclear power stations.

The North American Electric Reliability Corp, a nonprofit that works to ensure the reliability of the continent’s power system, said it was aware of the incident and was exchanging information with the industry through a secure portal.

“At this time, there has been no bulk power system impact in North America,” the corporation said in an emailed statement.

In addition, the operational controls at Wolf Creek were not pierced, according to government officials, even as attackers accessed utility control rooms elsewhere in the U.S., according to separate reports. “There was absolutely no operational impact to Wolf Creek,” Jenny Hageman, a spokeswoman for the nuclear plant, said in a statement to Bloomberg News.

“The reason that is true is because the operational computer systems are completely separate from the corporate network.”

Determining who is behind an attack can be tricky. Government officials look at the sophistication of the tools, among other key markers, when gauging whether a foreign government is sponsoring cyber activities.

Several private security firms, including Symantec researchers, are studying data on the attacks, but none has linked the work to a particular hacking team or country.

“We don’t tie this to any known group at this point,” said Sean McBride, a lead analyst for FireEye Inc, a global cyber security firm. “It’s not to say it’s not related, but we don’t have the evidence at this point.”

US intelligence officials have long been concerned about the security of the country’s electrical grid. The recent attack, striking almost simultaneously at multiple locations, is testing the government’s ability to coordinate an effective response among several private utilities, state and local officials, and industry regulators.

Specialised teams from Homeland Security and the FBI have been scrambled to help extricate the hackers from the power stations, in some cases without informing local and state officials. Meanwhile, the US National Security Agency is working to confirm the identity of the hackers, who are said to be using computer servers in Germany, Italy, Malaysia and Turkey to cover their tracks.

Many of the power plants are conventional, but the targeting of a nuclear facility adds to the pressure. While the core of a nuclear generator is heavily protected, a sudden shutdown of the turbine can trigger safety systems. These safety devices are designed to disperse excess heat while the nuclear reaction is halted, but the safety systems themselves may be vulnerable to attack.

Homeland Security and the FBI sent out a general warning about the cyber attack to utilities and related parties on June 28, though it contained few details or the number of plants affected. The government said it was most concerned about the “persistence” of the attacks on choke points of the US power supply. That language suggests hackers are trying to establish backdoors on the plants’ systems for later use, according to a former senior DHS official who asked not to be identified.

Those backdoors can be used to insert software specifically designed to penetrate a facility’s operational controls and disrupt critical systems, according to Galina Antova, co-founder of Claroty, a New York firm that specialises in securing industrial control systems.

“We’re moving to a point where a major attack like this is very, very possible,” Antova said. “Once you’re into the control systems -- and you can get into the control systems by hacking into the plant’s regular computer network -- then the basic security mechanisms you’d expect are simply not there.”

The situation is a little different at nuclear facilities. Backup power supplies and other safeguards at nuclear sites are meant to ensure that “you can’t really cause a nuclear plant to melt down just by taking out the secondary systems that are connected to the grid,” Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a phone interview.

The operating systems at nuclear plants also tend to be legacy controls built decades ago and don’t have digital control systems that can be exploited by hackers. Wolf Creek, for example, began operations in 1985. “They’re relatively impervious to that kind of attack,” Lyman said.

The alert sent out last week inadvertently identified Wolf Creek as one of the victims of the attack. An analysis of one of the tools used by the hackers had the stolen credentials of a plant employee, a senior engineer. A US official acknowledged the error was not caught until after the alert was distributed.

According to a security researcher who has seen the report, the malware that activated the engineer’s username and password was designed to be used once the hackers were already inside the plant’s computer systems.

The tool tries to connect to non-public computers, and may have been intended to identify systems related to Wolf Creek’s generation plant, a part of the facility typically more modern than the nuclear reactor control room, according to a security expert who asked to note be identified because the alert is not public.

Even if there is no indication that the hackers gained access to those control systems, the design of the malware suggests they may have at least been looking for ways to do so, the expert said.

Stan Luke, the mayor of Burlington, the largest community near Wolf Creek, which is surrounded by corn fields and cattle pastures, said he learned about a cyber threat at the plant only recently, and then only through golfing buddies.

With a population of just 2,700, Burlington boasts a community pool with three water slides and a high school football stadium that would be the envy of any junior college. Luke said those amenities lead back to the tax dollars poured into the community by Wolf Creek, Coffey County’s largest employer with some 1,000 workers, 600 of whom live in the county.

E&E News first reported on digital attacks targeting US nuclear plants, adding it was code-named Nuclear 17. A senior US official told Bloomberg that there was a bigger breach of conventional plants, which could affect multiple regions.

Industry experts and US officials say the attack is being taken seriously, in part because of recent events in Ukraine. Antova said that the Ukrainian power grid has been disrupted at least twice, first in 2015, and then in a more automated attack last year, suggesting the hackers are testing methods.

Scott Aaronson, executive director for security and business continuity at the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group, said utilities, grid operators and federal officials were already dissecting the attack on Ukraine’s electric sector to apply lessons in North America before the US government issued the latest warning to “energy and critical manufacturing sectors”. The current threat is unrelated to recently publicised ransomware incidents or the CrashOverride malware, Mr Aaronson said in an emailed statement.

Neither attack in Ukraine caused long-term damage. But with each escalation, the hackers may be gauging the world’s willingness to push back.

“If you think about a typical war, some of the acts that have been taken against critical infrastructure in Ukraine and even in the US, those would be considered crossing red lines,” Antova said.

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NRC Advanced Reactor Licensing streamlines a risk-informed, performance-based, technology-inclusive pathway for advanced non-light water reactors, aligning with NEIMA to enable predictable regulatory reviews, inherent safety, clean energy deployment, and industrial heat, hydrogen, and desalination applications.

Key Points

A risk-informed, performance-based NRC pathway streamlining licensing for advanced non-light water reactors.

✅ Aligned with NEIMA: risk-informed, performance-based, tech-inclusive

✅ Predictable licensing for advanced non-light water reactor designs

✅ Enables clean heat, hydrogen, desalination beyond electricity

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) voted 4-0 to approve the implementation of a more streamlined and predictable licensing pathway for advanced non-light water reactors, aligning with nuclear innovation priorities identified by industry advocates, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) announced, and amid regional reliability measures such as New England emergency fuel stock plans that have drawn cost scrutiny.

This approach is consistent with the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernisation Act (NEIMA), a nuclear innovation act passed in 2019 by the US Congress calling for the development of a risk-informed, performance-based and technology inclusive licensing process for advanced reactor developers.

NEI Chief Nuclear Officer Doug True said: “A modernised regulatory framework is a key enabler of next-generation nuclear technologies that, amid ACORE’s challenge to DOE subsidy proposals in energy market proceedings, can help us meet our energy needs while protecting the climate. The Commission’s unanimous approval of a risk-informed and performance-based licensing framework paves the way for regulatory reviews to be aligned with the inherent safety characteristics, smaller reactor cores and simplified designs of advanced reactors.”

Over the last several years the industry’s Licensing Modernisation Project, sponsored by US Department of Energy, led by Southern Nuclear, and supported by NEI’s Advanced Reactor Regulatory Task Force, and influenced by a presidential order to bolster uranium and nuclear energy, developed the guidance for this new framework. Amid shifts in the fuel supply chain, including the U.S. ban on Russian uranium, this approach will inform the development of a new rule for licensing advanced reactors, which NEIMA requires.

“A well-defined licensing path will benefit the next generation of nuclear plants, especially as regions consider New England market overhaul efforts, which could meet a wide range of applications beyond generating electricity such as producing heat for industry, desalinating water, and making hydrogen – all without carbon emissions,” True noted.

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North Carolina Power Outages continue after Hurricane Florence, with Wilmington and Eastern Carolina facing flooding, storm damage, and limited access as Duke Energy crews and mutual aid work on restoration across affected counties.

Key Points

Outages after Hurricane Florence, with Wilmington and Eastern Carolina hardest hit as crews restore service amid floods.

✅ Over 250,000 outages statewide as of early Wednesday

✅ Wilmington cut off by flooding, hindering utility access

✅ Duke Energy and EMC crews conduct phased restoration

Power is slowly being restored to Eastern Carolina residents after Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wilmington on Friday, September 15, a scenario echoed by storm-related outages in Tennessee in recent days.

On Monday, more than half a million people remained without power across the state, a situation comparable to post-typhoon electricity losses in Hong Kong reported elsewhere.

As of Wednesday morning at 1am, the Dept. of Public Safety reports 252,596 total power outages in North Carolina, and utilities continue warning about copper theft hazards during restoration.

More than half of those customers are in Eastern Carolina.

More than 32,000 customers are without power in Carteret County and roughly 21,000 are without power in Onslow County.

In Craven County, roughly 15,000 people remain without power Wednesday morning.

Many of the state's outages are effecting the Wilmington area, where Florence made landfall and widespread flooding is still cutting off the city from outside resources, similar to how a fire-triggered outage in Los Angeles disrupted service regionally.

Heavy rain, strong winds and now flooded roadways have hindered power crews, challenges that utility climate adaptation aims to address while many of them have out-of-state or out-of-town help working to restore power to so many people.

Here's a breakdown of current outages by utility company:

DUKE ENERGY PROGRESS - 

• 1,350 in Beaufort Co. 
• 10,706 in Carteret Co. 
• 2,716 in Pamlico Co. 
• 7,422 in Craven Co. 
• 1,687 in Jones Co. 
• 13,319 in Onslow Co. 
• 7,452 in Pender Co. 
• 48,281 in New Hanover Co. 
• 5,257 in Duplin Co. 
• 488 in Lenoir Co. 
• 1,231 in Pitt Co.

JONES-ONSLOW EMC - 10,964 total 

• 7,699 in Onslow Co. 
• 2,366 in Pender Co. 
• 816 in Jones Co.

TIDELAND EMC - 

• 174 in Beaufort Co.
• 1,521 in Craven Co.
• 1,693 in Pamlico Co.

CARTERET-CRAVEN ELECTRIC CO OP- 

• 21,974 in Carteret Co. 
• 6,553 in Craven Co.
• 216 in Jones Co.

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Ontario Electricity Policy debates rates, subsidies, renewables, nuclear baseload, and Quebec hydro imports, highlighting grid transmission limits, community consultation, conservation, and the province's energy mix after cancelled wind projects and rising costs to taxpayers.

Key Points

Ontario Electricity Policy guides rates, generation, grid planning, subsidies and imports for reliable, low-cost power.

✅ Focuses on rates, subsidies, and consumer affordability

✅ Balances nuclear baseload, renewables, and Quebec hydro imports

✅ Emphasizes grid transmission, consultation, and conservation

When Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals went down to defeat at the hands of Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives, Ontario electricity had a lot to do with it. That was in 2018. Now, two years later, Ford’s government has electricity issues of its own, including a new stance on wind power that continues to draw scrutiny.

Electricity is politically fraught in Ontario. It’s among the most expensive in Canada. And it has been mismanaged at least as far back as nuclear energy cost overruns starting in the 1980s.

From the start Wynne’s government was tainted by the gas plant scandal of her predecessor Dalton McGuinty and then she created her own with the botched roll-out of her green energy plan. And that helped Ford get elected promising to lower electricity prices. But, rates haven’t gone down under Ford while the cost to the government coffers for subsidizing them have soared - now costing $5.6 billion a year.

Meanwhile, Ford’s government has spent at least $230 million to tear up green energy contracts signed by the former Liberal government, including two wind-farm projects that were already mid-construction.

Lessons learned?
In the final part of a three-part series, the six candidates vying to become the next leader of the Ontario Liberals discuss the province's electricity system, including the lessons learned from the prior Liberal government's botched attempts to fix it that led to widespread local opposition to a string of wind power projects, and whether they'd agree to import more hydroelectricity from Quebec.

“We had the right idea but didn’t stick the landing,” said Steven Del Duca, a member of the former Wynne government who lost his Vaughan-area seat in 2018, referring to its green-energy plan. “We need to make sure that we work more collaboratively with local communities to gain the buy-in needed to be successful in this regard.”

“Consultation and listening is key,” agreed Mitzie Hunter, who was education minister under Kathleen Wynne and in 2018 retained her seat in the legislature representing Scarborough-Guildwood. “We must seek input from community members about investments locally,” she said. “Inviting experts in to advise on major policy is also important to make evidence-based decisions."

Michael Coteau, MPP for Don Valley East and the third leadership candidate who was a member of the former government, called for “a new relationship of respect and collaboration with municipalities.”

He said there is an “important balance to be achieved between pursuing province wide objectives for green-energy initiatives and recognizing and reflecting unique local conditions and circumstances.”

Kate Graham, who has worked in municipal public service and has not held a provincial public office, said that experts and local communities are best placed to shape decisions in the sector.

In the final part of a three-part series, Ontario's Liberal leadership contenders discuss electricity, lessons learned from the bungled rollout of previous Liberal green policy, and whether to lean more on Quebec's hydroelectricity.
“What's gotten Ontario in trouble in the past is when Queen's Park politicians are the ones micromanaging the electricity file,” she said.

“Community consultation is vitally important to the long-term success of infrastructure projects,” said Alvin Tedjo, a former policy adviser to Liberal ministers Brad Duguid and Glen Murray.

“Community voices must be heard and listened to when large-scale energy programs are going to be implemented,” agreed Brenda Hollingsworth, a personal injury lawyer making her first foray into politics.

Of the six candidates, only Coteau went beyond reflection to suggest a path forward, saying he would review the distribution of responsibilities between the province and municipalities, with the aim of empowering cities and towns.

Turn back to Quebec?
Ford’s government has also turned away from a deal signed in 2016 to import hydroelectricity from Quebec.

Graham and Hunter both said they would consider increasing such imports. Hunter noted that the deal, which would displace domestic natural gas production, will lower the cost of electricity paid by Ontario ratepayers by a net total of $38 million from 2017 to 2023, according to the province’s fiscal watchdog.

“I am open to working with our neighbouring province,” Hunter said. “This is especially important as we seek to bring electricity to remote northern, on-reserve Indigenous communities.”

Tedjo said he has no issues with importing clean energy as long as it’s at a fair price.

Hollingsworth and Coteau both said they would withhold judgment until they could see the province’s capacity status in 2022.

“In evaluating the case for increasing importation of water power from Quebec, we must realistically assess the limitations of the existing transmission system and the cost and time required to scale up transmission infrastructure, among other factors,” Coteau said.

Del Duca also took a wait-and-see approach. “This will depend on our energy needs and energy mix,” he said. “I want to see our energy needs go down; we need more efficiency and better conservation to make that happen.”

What's the right energy mix?
Nuclear energy currently accounts for about a third of Ontario’s energy-producing capacity, even as Canada explores zero-emissions electricity by 2035 pathways. But it actually supplies about 60 percent of Ontario’s electricity. That is because nuclear reactors are always on, producing so-called baseload power.

Hydroelectricity provides another 25 percent of supply, while oil and natural gas contribute 6 per cent and wind adds 7 percent. Both solar and biofuels account for less than one percent of Ontario’s energy supply. However, a much larger amount of solar is not counted in this tally, as it is used at or near the sites where it is generated, and never enters the transmission system.

Asked for their views on how large a role various sources of power should play in Ontario’s electricity mix in the future, the candidates largely backed the idea of renewable energy, but offered little specifics.

Graham repeated her statement that experts and communities should drive that conversation. Tedjo said all non-polluting technologies should play a role in Ontario’s energy mix, as provinces like Alberta demonstrate parallel growth in green energy and fossil fuels. Coteau said we need a mix of renewable-energy sources, without offering specifics.

“We also need to pursue carbon capture and sequestration, working in particular with our farming communities,” he added.

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