Ontario must wean itself off energy imports: Tories

Hourly Electricity Emissions Tracking maps grid balancing areas, embodied emissions, and imports/exports, revealing carbon intensity shifts across PJM, ERCOT, and California ISO, and clarifying renewable energy versus coal impacts on health and climate.

Key Points

An hourly method tracing generation, flows, and embodied emissions to quantify carbon intensity across US balancing areas.

✅ Hourly traces of imports/exports and generation mix

✅ Consumption-based carbon intensity by balancing area

✅ Policy insights for renewables, coal, health costs

In the United States, electricity generation accounts for nearly 30% of our carbon emissions. Some states have responded to that by setting aggressive renewable energy standards; others are hoping to see coal propped up even as its economics get worse. Complicating matters further is the fact that many regional grids are integrated, and as America goes electric the stakes grow, meaning power generated in one location may be exported and used in a different state entirely.

Tracking these electricity exports is critical for understanding how to lower our national carbon emissions. In addition, power from a dirty source like coal has health and environment impacts where it's produced, and the costs of these aren't always paid by the parties using the electricity. Unfortunately, getting reliable figures on how electricity is produced and where it's used is challenging, even for consumers trying to find where their electricity comes from in the first place, leaving some of the best estimates with a time resolution of only a month.

Now, three Stanford researchers—Jacques A. de Chalendar, John Taggart, and Sally M. Benson—have greatly improved on that standard, and they have managed to track power generation and use on an hourly basis. The researchers found that, of the 66 grid balancing areas within the United States, only three have carbon emissions equivalent to our national average, and they have found that imports and exports of electricity have both seasonal and daily changes. de Chalendar et al. discovered that the net results can be substantial, with imported electricity increasing California's emissions/power by 20%.

Hour by hour
To figure out the US energy trading landscape, the researchers obtained 2016 data for grid features called balancing areas. The continental US has 66 of these, providing much better spatial resolution on the data than the larger grid subdivisions. This doesn't cover everything—several balancing areas in Canada and Mexico are tied in to the US grid—and some of these balancing areas are much larger than others. The PJM grid, serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, for example, is more than twice as large as Texas' ERCOT, in a state that produces and consumes the most electricity in the US.

Despite these limitations, it's possible to get hourly figures on how much electricity was generated, what was used to produce it, and whether it was used locally or exported to another balancing area. Information on the generating sources allowed the researchers to attach an emissions figure to each unit of electricity produced. Coal, for example, produces double the emissions of natural gas, which in turn produces more than an order of magnitude more carbon dioxide than the manufacturing of solar, wind, or hydro facilities. These figures were turned into what the authors call "embodied emissions" that can be traced to where they're eventually used.

Similar figures were also generated for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Released by the burning of fossil fuels, these can both influence the global climate and produce local health problems.

Huge variation
The results were striking. "The consumption-based carbon intensity of electricity varies by almost an order of magnitude across the different regions in the US electricity system," the authors conclude. The low is the Bonneville Power grid region, which is largely supplied by hydropower; it has typical emissions below 100kg of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour. The highest emissions come in the Ohio Valley Electric region, where emissions clear 900kg/MW-hr. Only three regional grids match the overall grid emissions intensity, although that includes the very large PJM (where capacity auction payouts recently fell), ERCOT, and Southern Co balancing areas.

Most of the low-emissions power that's exported comes from the Pacific Northwest's abundant hydropower, while the Rocky Mountains area exports electricity with the highest associated emissions. That leads to some striking asymmetries. Local generation in the hydro-rich Idaho Power Company has embodied emissions of only 71kg/MW-hr, while its imports, coming primarily from Rocky Mountain states, have a carbon content of 625kg/MW-hr.

The reliance on hydropower also makes the asymmetry seasonal. Local generation is highest in the spring as snow melts, but imports become a larger source outside this time of year. As solar and wind can also have pronounced seasonal shifts, similar changes will likely be seen as these become larger contributors to many of these regional grids. Similar things occur daily, as both demand and solar production (and, to a lesser extent, wind) have distinct daily profiles.

The Golden State
California's CISO provides another instructive case. Imports represent less than 30% of its total electric use in 2016, yet California electricity imports provided 40% of its embodied emissions. Some of these, however, come internally from California, provided by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The state itself, however, has only had limited tracking of imported emissions, lumping many of its sources as "other," and has been exporting its energy policies to Western states in ways that shape regional markets.

Overall, the 2016 inventory provides a narrow picture of the US grid, as plenty of trends are rapidly changing our country's emissions profile, including the rise of renewables and the widespread adoption of efficiency measures and other utility trends in 2017 that continue to evolve. The method developed here can, however, allow for annual updates, providing us with a much better picture of trends. That could be quite valuable to track things like how the rapid rise in solar power is altering the daily production of clean power.

More significantly, it provides a basis for more informed policymaking. States that wish to promote low-emissions power can use the information here to either alter the source of their imports or to encourage the sites where they're produced to adopt more renewable power. And those states that are exporting electricity produced primarily through fossil fuels could ensure that the locations where the power is used pay a price that includes the health costs of its production.

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Washington County solar farm incentives aim to steer projects to industrial sites with tax breaks, underground grid connections, decommissioning bonds, and wildlife corridors, balancing zoning, historic preservation, and Maryland renewable energy mandates.

Key Points

Policies steer solar to industrial sites with tax breaks, buried lines, and bonds, aligning with zoning and state goals.

✅ Tax breaks to favor rooftops and parking canopies

✅ Bury new grid lines to shift projects to industrial parks

✅ Require decommissioning bonds and wildlife corridors

Incentives for establishing solar farms at industrial spaces instead of on prime farmland are among the ideas the Washington County Planning Commission is recommending for the county to update its policies regarding solar farms.

Potential incentives would include tax breaks on solar equipment and requiring developers to put power-grid connections and line extensions underground, a move tied to grid upgrade cost debates in other regions, Planning Commission members said during a Monday meeting.

The tax break could make it more attractive for a developer to put a solar farm on a roof or over a parking lot, similar to California's building-solar requirement policies that favor rooftop generation, which could cost more than putting it on farmland, said Commission member Dave Kline, who works for FirstEnergy.

Requiring a company to bury new transmission lines could steer them to industrial or business parks where, theoretically, transmission lines are more readily available, Kline said Wednesday in a phone interview.

Chairman Clint Wiley suggested talking to industrial property owners to create a list of industrial sites that make sense for a solar site, which could generate extra income for the property owner.

Commission members also talked about requiring a wildlife corridor. Anne Arundel County requires such a corridor if a solar site is over 15 acres, according to Jill Baker, deputy director of planning and zoning. The solar site is broken into sections so animals such as deer can get through, she said.

However, that means the solar farm would take up more agricultural land, Commission member Jeremiah Weddle said. Weddle, a farmer, has repeatedly voiced concerns about solar farms using prime farmland.

County zoning law already states solar farms are prohibited in Rural Legacy Areas, Priority Preservation Areas, and within Antietam Overlay zones that preserve the Antietam National Battlefield viewshed. They also cannot be built on land with permanent preservation easements, Baker said.

However, a big reason county officials are looking to strengthen county policies for solar generating systems, or solar farms, is a recent court decision that ruled the Maryland Public Service Commission can preempt county zoning law when it comes to large solar farms.

County zoning law defines a solar energy generating system as a solar facility, with multiple solar arrays, tied into the power grid and whose primary purpose is to generate power to distribute and/or sell into the public utility grid rather than consuming that power on site.

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in July that the Public Service Commission can preempt local zoning regarding solar farms larger than 2 megawatts. But the ruling also stated local government is a "significant participant in the process" and the state commission must give "due consideration" to local zoning laws.

County officials are looking at recommendations for solar farms, whether they are over 2 megawatts or not.

Solar farms are a popular issue statewide, especially with Maryland solar subscriptions expanding, and were discussed at a recent Maryland Association of Counties meeting for planners, Planning and Zoning Director Stephen Goodrich said.

The thinking is the best way for counties to express their opinions about a solar project is to participate in the state commission's local public hearings, where issues like how solar owners are paid often arise, Goodrich said. Another popular idea is for the county to continue to follow its process, which requires a public hearing for a special exception to establish a solar farm. That will help the county form an opinion, on individual cases, to offer the state commission, he said.

Recommendations discussed by the Planning Commission include:

A break on personal property taxes, which is on equipment, including affordable battery storage that can firm output, to steer developers away from areas where the county doesn't want solar farms. The Board of County Commissioners have been split on tax-break agreements for solar farms, with a majority recently granting a few.

Protecting valuable historic sites.

Requiring a decommissioning bond for removing the equipment at the end of the solar farm's life. The bond is protection in case the company goes bankrupt. The county commissioners have been making such a bond a requirement when granting recent tax breaks.

Looking at allowing solar farms in stormwater-management areas.

Other counties, particularly in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore, are having issues with solar farms even as research to improve solar and wind advances, because land is cheaper and there are wide-open spaces, Goodrich said.

Many solar projects are being developed or proposed because state lawmakers passed legislation requiring 50% of electricity produced in the state to come from renewable sources by 2030, and a federal plan to expand solar is also shaping expectations. Of that 50%, 14.5% is to come from solar energy.

In Maryland, the average number of homes that can be powered by 1 megawatt of solar energy is about 110, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association's website.

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Virtual Power Plants orchestrate distributed energy resources like rooftop solar, home batteries, and EVs to deliver grid services, demand response, peak shaving, and resilience, lowering costs while enhancing reliability across wholesale markets and local networks.

Key Points

Virtual Power Plants aggregate solar and batteries to provide grid services, cut peak costs, and boost reliability.

✅ Aggregates DERs via cloud to bid into wholesale markets

✅ Reduces peak demand, defers costly grid upgrades

✅ Enhances resilience vs outages, cyber risks, and wildfires

If “virtual” meetings can allow companies to gather without anyone being in the office, then remotely distributed solar panels and batteries can harness energy and act as “virtual power plants.” It is simply the orchestration of millions of dispersed assets within a smarter electricity infrastructure to manage the supply of electricity — power that can be redirected back to the grid and distributed to homes and businesses. 

The ultimate goal is to revamp the energy landscape, making it cleaner and more reliable. By using onsite generation such as rooftop solar and smart solar inverters in combination with battery storage, those services can reduce the network’s overall cost by deferring expensive infrastructure upgrades and by reducing the need to purchase cost-prohibitive peak power. 

“We expect virtual power plants, including aggregated home solar and batteries, to become more common and more impactful for energy consumers throughout the country in the coming years,” says Michael Sachdev, chief product officer for Sunrun Inc., a rooftop solar company, in an interview. “The growth of home solar and batteries will be most apparent in places where households have an immediate need for backup power, as they do in California, where grid reliability pressures have led utilities to turn off the electricity to reduce wildfire risk.”

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Home battery adoption, such as Tesla Powerwall systems, is becoming commonplace in Hawaii and in New England, he adds, because those distributed assets are improving the efficiency of the electrical network. It is a trend that is reshaping the country’s energy generation and delivery system by relying more on clean onsite generation and less on fossil fuels.

Sunrun has recently formed a business partnership with AutoGrid, which will manage Sunrun’s fleet of rechargeable batteries. It is a cloud-based system that allows Sunrun to work with utilities to dispatch its “storage fleet” to optimize the economic results. AutoGrid compiles the data and makes AI-driven forecasts that enable it to pinpoint potential trouble spots. 

But a distributed energy system, or a virtual power plant, would have 200,000 subsystems. Or, 200,000 5 kilowatt batteries would be the equivalent of one power plant that has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. 

“A virtual power plant acts as a generator,” says Amit Narayan, chief executive officer of AutoGrid, in an interview. “It is one of the top five innovations of the decade. If you look at Sunrun, 60% of every solar system it sells in the Bay Area is getting attached to a battery. The value proposition comes when you can aggregate these batteries and market them as a generation unit. The pool of individual assets may improve over time. But when you add these up, it is better than a large-scale plant. It is like going from mainframe computers to laptops.”

The AutoGrid executive goes on to say that centralized systems are less reliable than distributed resources. While one battery could falter, 200,000 of them that operate from remote locations will prove to be more durable — able to withstand cyber attacks and wildfires. Sunrun’s Sachdev adds that the ability to store energy in batteries, as seen in California’s expanding grid-scale battery use supporting reliability, and to move it to the grid on demand creates value not just for homes and businesses but also for the network as a whole.

The good news is that the trend worldwide is to make it easier for smaller distributed assets, including energy storage for microgrids that support local resilience, to get the same regulatory treatment as power plants. System operators have been obligated to call up those power supplies that are the most cost-effective and that can be easily dispatched. But now regulators are giving virtual power plants comprised of solar and batteries the same treatment. 

In the United States, for example, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order in 2018 that allows storage resources to participate in wholesale markets — where electricity is bought directly from generators before selling that power to homes and businesses. Under the ruling, virtual power plants are paid the same as traditional power suppliers. A federal appeals court this month upheld the commission’s order, saying that it had the right to ensure “technological advances in energy storage are fully realized in the marketplace.” 

“In the past, we have used back-up generators,” notes AutoGrid’s Narayan. “As we move toward more automation, we are opening up the market to small assets such as battery storage and electric vehicles. As we deploy more of these assets, there will be increasing opportunities for virtual power plants.” 

Virtual power plants have the potential to change the energy horizon by harnessing locally-produced solar power and redistributing that to where it is most needed — all facilitated by cloud-based software that has a full panoramic view. At the same time, those smaller distributed assets can add more reliability and give consumers greater peace-of-mind — a dynamic that does, indeed, beef-up America’s generation and delivery network.

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California Renewable Energy Record highlights near-100% clean power as CAISO reports solar, wind, and storage meeting demand, with Interstate 10 arrays and distributed rooftop photovoltaics boosting the grid during Stagecoach, signaling progress toward 100%.

Key Points

CA Renewable Energy Record marks CAISO's peak when renewables nearly met total load, led by utility solar and storage.

✅ CAISO hit 99.87% renewables serving load at 2:50 p.m.

✅ Two-thirds of power came from utility-scale solar along I-10.

✅ Tariff inquiry delays solar-storage projects statewide.

Renewable electricity met just shy of 100% of California's demand for the first time on Saturday, officials said, much of it from large amounts of solar power, part of a California solar boom, produced along Interstate 10, an hour east of the Coachella Valley.

While partygoers celebrated in the blazing sunshine at the Stagecoach music festival,  "at 2:50 (p.m.), we reached 99.87 % of load served by all renewables, which broke the previous record," said Anna Gonzales, spokeswoman for California Independent System Operator, a nonprofit that oversees the state's bulk electric power system and transmission lines. Solar power provided two-thirds of the amount needed.

Environmentalists who've pushed for years for all of California's power to come from renewables and meet clean energy targets were jubilant as they watched the tracker edge to 100% and slightly beyond. 

"California busts past 100% on this historic day for clean energy!" Dan Jacobson, senior adviser to Environment California, tweeted.

"Once it hit 100%, we were very excited," said Laura Deehan, executive director for Environment California. She said the organization and others have worked for 20 years to push the Golden State to complete renewable power via a series of ever tougher mandates, even as solar and wind curtailments increase across the grid. "California solar plants play a really big role."

But Gonzales said CAISO double-checked the data Monday and had to adjust it slightly because of reserves and other resource needs, an example of rising curtailments in the state. 

Environment California pushed for 1 million solar rooftops statewide, which has been achieved, adding what some say is a more environmentally friendly form of solar power, though wildfire smoke can undermine gains, than the solar farms, which eat up large swaths of the Mojave desert and fragile landscapes.

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Deehan said in a statement that more needs to be done, especially at the federal level. "Despite incredible progress illustrated by the milestone this weekend, and the fact that U.S. renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022, a baffling regulatory misstep by the Biden administration has advocates concerned about backsliding on California’s clean energy targets." 

Deehan said a Department of Commerce inquiry into tariffs on imported solar panels is delaying thousands of megawatts of solar-storage projects in California, even as U.S. renewable energy hit a record 28% in April across the grid.

Still, Deehan said, “California has shown that, for one brief and shining moment, we could do it! It's time to move to 100% clean energy, 100% of the time.”

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Ontario Electricity Pricing Pilot Projects explore alternative rates beyond time-of-use, with LDCs and the Ontario Energy Board testing dynamic pricing, demand management, smart-meter billing, and residential customer choice to enhance service and energy efficiency.

Key Points

Ontario LDC trials testing alternatives to time-of-use rates to improve billing, demand response, and efficiency.

✅ Data shared across LDCs and Ontario Energy Board provincewide

✅ Tests dynamic pricing, peak/off-peak plans, demand management

✅ Insights to enhance customer choice, bills, and energy savings

The results from three electricity pilot projects being offered in southern Ontario will be valuable to utility companies across the province.

Ontario Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault was in Barrie on Tuesday to announce the pilot projects, which will explore alternative pricing plans for electricity customers from three different utility companies, informed by the electricity cost allocation framework guiding rate design.

"Everyone in the industry is watching to see how the pilots deliver.", said Wendy Watson, director of communications for Greater Sudbury Utilities.

"The data will be shared will all the LDCs [local distribution companies] in the province, and probably beyond...because the industry tends to share that kind of information."

Most electricity customers in the province are billed using time-of-use rates, including options like the ultra-low overnight rates that lower costs during off-peak periods, where the cost of electricity varies depending on demand.

The Ontario Energy Board said in a media release that the projects will give residential customers more choice in how much they pay for electricity at different times, reflecting changes for Ontario electricity consumers that expand plan options.

Pilot projects can help improve service

Watson says these kinds of projects give LDCs the chance to experiment and explore new ways of delivering their service, including demand-response initiatives like the Peak Perks program that encourage conservation.

"Any pilot project is a great way to see if in practice if the theory proves out, so I think it's great that the province is supporting these LDCs," she says.

GSU recently completed its own pilot project, the Home Energy Assessment and Retrofit (HEAR) program, which focused on customers who use electric baseboards to heat their homes, amid broader provincial support for electric bills to ease costs."We installed some measures, like programmable thermostats and a few other pieces of equipment into their house," Watson says. "We also made some recommendations about other things that they could do to make their homes more energy efficient."

At the end of the program, GSU provided customers with a report so that they could the see the overall impact on their energy consumption.

Watson says a report on the results of the HEAR program will be released in the near future, for other LDCs interested in new ways to improve their service.

"We think it's incumbent on every LDC...to see what ideas that they can come up with and get approved so they can best serve their customers."

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Hydro One-Avista acquisition sparks Idaho regulatory scrutiny over foreign ownership, utility merger impacts, rate credits, and public interest, as FERC and FCC approvals advance and consumers question governance, service reliability, and long-term rate stability.

Key Points

A cross-border utility merger proposal with Idaho oversight, weighing foreign ownership, rates, and reliability.

✅ Idaho PUC review centers on public interest and rate impacts.

✅ FERC and FCC approvals granted; state decisions pending.

✅ Avista to retain name and Spokane HQ post-transaction.

“Please don’t sell us to Canada.” That refrain, or versions of it, is on full display at the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, which admittedly isn’t everyone’s go-to entertainment site. But it is vitally important for this reason: the first big test of the expansionist dreams of the politically tempest-tossed Hydro One, facing political risk as it navigates markets, rests with its successful acquisition of Avista Corp., provider of electric generation, transmission and distribution to retail customers spread from Oregon to Washington to Montana and Idaho and up into Alaska.

The proposed deal — announced last summer, but not yet consummated — marks the first time the publicly traded Hydro One has embarked upon the acquisition of a U.S. utility. And if Idahoans spread from Boise to Coeur d’Alene to Hayden are any indication, they are not at all happy with the idea of foreign ownership. Here’s Lisa McCumber, resident of Hayden: “I am stating my objection to this outrageous merger/takeover. Hydro One charges excessive fees to the people it provides for, this is a monopoly beyond even what we are used to. I, in no way, support or as a customer, agree with the merger of this multi-billion-dollar, foreign, company.”

#google#

Or here’s Debra Bentley from Coeur d’Alene: “Fewer things have more control over a nation than its power source. In an age where we are desperately trying to bring American companies back home and ‘Buy American’ is somewhat of a battle cry, how is it even possible that it would or could be allowed for this vital necessity … to be controlled by a foreign entity?”

Or here’s Spencer Hutchings from Sagle: “This is an incredibly bad idea.”

There are legion of similar emails from concerned consumers, and the Maine transmission line debate offers a parallel in public opposition.

The rationale for the deal? Last fall Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt testified before the Idaho commission, which regulates all gas, water and electricity providers in the state. “Hydro One is a pure-play transmission and distribution utility located solely within Ontario,” Schmidt told commissioners. “It seeks diversification both in terms of jurisdictions and service areas. The proposed Transaction with Avista achieves both goals by expanding Hydro One into the U.S. Pacific Northwest and expanding its operations to natural gas distribution and electric generation. The proposed Transaction with Avista will deliver the increased scale and benefits that come from being a larger player in the utility industry.”

Translation: now that it is a publicly traded entity, Hydro needs to demonstrate a growth curve to the investment community. The value to you and me? Arguable. This is a transaction framed as a benefit to shareholders, one that won’t cause harm to customers. Premier Kathleen Wynne is feeling the pain of selling off control of an essential asset. In his testimony to the commission, Schmidt noted that the Avista acquisition would take the province’s Hydro ownership to under 45 per cent. (The Electricity Act technically prevents the sale of shares that would take the government’s ownership position below 40 per cent, though acquisitions appear to allow further dilution. )

Stratospheric compensation, bench-marked against other chief executives who enjoy similarly outsized rewards, is part of this game. I have written about Schmidt’s unconscionable compensation before, but that was when he was making a relatively modest $4 million. Relative, that is, to his $6.2 million in 2017 compensation ($3.5 million of that is in the form of share based awards).

Should the acquisition of Avista be approved, amendments to the CIC, or change in control agreements, for certain named Avista executive officers will allow them to voluntarily terminate their employment without “good reason.” That includes Scott Morris, the company’s CEO, who will exit with severance of $6.9 million (U.S.) and additional benefits taking the total to a potential $15.7 million.

Back to the deal: cost savings over time could be achieved, Schmidt continued in his testimony, though he was unable to quantify those. The integration between the two companies, he promised, will be “seamless.” Retail customers in Idaho, Washington and Oregon would benefit from proposed “Rate Credits” equalling an estimated $15.8 million across five years, even as Hydro One seeks to redesign its bills in Ontario. Idahoans would see a one per cent rate decrease through that period.

While Avista would become a wholly owned Hydro subsidiary, it would retain its name, and its headquarters in Spokane, Wash. In the case of Idaho specifically, a proposed settlement in April, subject to final approval by the commission, stipulates agreements on everything from staffing to governance to community contributions.

Will that meet the test? It’s up to the commission to determine whether the proposed transaction will keep a lid on rates and is “consistent with the public interest.” Hydro One is hoping for a decision from regulatory agencies in all the named states by mid-August and a closing date by the end of September, though U.S. regulators can ultimately determine the fate of such deals. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted its approval in January, followed last week by the Federal Communications Commission. Washington and Alaska have reached settlement agreements. These too are pending final state approvals.

The $5.3-billion deal (or $6.7 billion Canadian) is subject to ongoing hearings in Idaho, and elsewhere rate hikes face opposition as hearings begin. Members of the public are encouraged to have their say. The public comment deadline is June 27.

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