Where will our power come from?

TEP Undergrounding Policy prioritizes selective underground power lines to manage wildfire risk, engineering costs, and ratepayer impacts, balancing transmission and distribution reliability with right-of-way, safety, and vegetation management per Arizona regulators.

Key Points

A selective TEP approach to bury lines where safety, engineering, and cost justify undergrounding.

✅ Selective undergrounding for feeders near substations

✅ Balances wildfire mitigation, reliability, and ratepayer costs

✅ Follows ACC rules, BLM and USFS vegetation management

Though wildfires in California caused by power lines have prompted calls for more underground lines, Tucson Electric Power Co. plans to keep to its policy of burying lines selectively for safety.

Like many other utilities, TEP typically doesn’t install its long-range, high-voltage transmission lines, such as the TransWest Express project, and distribution equipment underground because of higher costs that would be passed on to ratepayers, TEP spokesman Joe Barrios said.

But the company will sometimes bury lower-voltage lines and equipment where it is cost-effective or needed for safety as utilities adapt to climate change across North America, or if customers or developers are willing to pay the higher installation costs

Underground installations generally include additional engineering expenses, right-of-way acquisition for projects like the New England Clean Power Link in other regions, and added labor and materials, Barrios said.

“This practice avoids passing along unnecessary costs to customers through their rates, so that all customers are not asked to subsidize a discretionary expenditure that primarily benefits residents or property owners in one small area of our service territory,” he said, adding that the Arizona Corporation Commission has supported the company’s policy.

Even so, TEP will place equipment underground in some circumstances if engineering or safety concerns, including electrical safety tips that utilities promote during storm season, justify the additional cost of underground installation, Barrios said.

In fact, lower-voltage “feeder” lines emerging from distribution substations are typically installed underground until the lines reach a point where they can be safely brought above ground, he added.

While in California PG&E has shut off power during windy weather to avoid wildfires in forested areas traversed by its power lines after events like the Drum Fire last June, TEP doesn’t face the same kind of wildfire risk, Barrios said.

Most of TEP’s 5,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines aren’t located in heavily forested areas that would raise fire concerns, though large urban systems have seen outages after station fires in Los Angeles, he said.

However, TEP has an active program of monitoring transmission lines and trimming vegetation to maintain a fire-safety buffer zone and address risks from vandalism such as copper theft where applicable, in compliance with federal regulations and in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

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Waste-to-Graphene uses flash joule heating to convert carbon-rich trash into turbostratic graphene for composites, asphalt, concrete, and flexible electronics, delivering scalable, low-cost, high-quality material from food scraps, plastics, and tires with minimal processing.

Key Points

A flash heating method converting waste carbon into turbostratic graphene for scalable, low-cost industrial uses.

✅ Converts food scraps, plastics, and tires into graphene

✅ Produces turbostratic flakes that disperse well in composites

✅ Scalable, low-cost process via flash joule heating

Science doesn’t usually take after fairy tales. But Rumpelstiltskin, the magical imp who spun straw into gold, would be impressed with the latest chemical wizardry. Researchers at Rice University report today in Nature that they can zap virtually any source of solid carbon, from food scraps to old car tires, and turn it into graphene—sheets of carbon atoms prized for applications ranging from high-strength plastic to flexible electronics, and debates over 5G electricity use continue to evolve. Current techniques yield tiny quantities of picture-perfect graphene or up to tons of less prized graphene chunks; the new method already produces grams per day of near-pristine graphene in the lab, and researchers are now scaling it up to kilograms per day.

“This work is pioneering from a scientific and practical standpoint” as it promises to make graphene cheap enough to use to strengthen asphalt or paint, says Ray Baughman, a chemist at the University of Texas, Dallas. “I wish I had thought of it.” The researchers have already founded a new startup company, Universal Matter, to commercialize their waste-to-graphene process, while others are digitizing the electrical system to modernize infrastructure.

With atom-thin sheets of carbon atoms arranged like chicken wire, graphene is stronger than steel, conducts electricity and heat better than copper, and can serve as an impermeable barrier preventing metals from rusting, while advances such as superconducting cables aim to cut grid losses. But since its 2004 discovery, high-quality graphene—either single sheets or just a few stacked layers—has remained expensive to make and purify on an industrial scale. That’s not a problem for making diminutive devices such as high-speed transistors and efficient light-emitting diodes. But current techniques, which make graphene by depositing it from a vapor, are too costly for many high-volume applications. And higher throughput approaches, such as peeling graphene from chunks of the mineral graphite, produce flecks composed of up to 50 graphene layers that are not ideal for most applications.

Graphene comes in many forms. Single sheets, which are ideal for electronics and optics, can be grown using a method called chemical vapor deposition. But it produces only tiny amounts. For large volumes, companies commonly use a technique called liquid exfoliation. They start with chunks of graphite, which is just myriad stacked graphene layers. Then they use acids and solvents, as well as mechanical grinding, to shear off flakes. This approach typically produces tiny platelets each made up of 20 to 50 layers of graphene.

In 2014, James Tour, a chemist at Rice, and his colleagues found they could make a pure form of graphene—each piece just a few layers thick—by zapping a form of amorphous carbon called carbon black with a laser. Brief pulses heated the carbon to more than 3000 kelvins, snapping the bonds between carbon atoms; for comparison, researchers have also generated electricity from falling snow using triboelectric effects. As the cloud of carbon cooled, it coalesced into the most stable structure possible, graphene. But the approach still produced only tiny qualities and required a lot of energy.

Two years ago, Luong Xuan Duy, one of Tour’s graduate students, read that other researchers had created metal nanoparticles by zapping a material with electricity, creating the same brief blast of heat behind the success of the laser graphene approach. “I wondered if I could use that to heat a carbon source and produce graphene,” Duy says. So, he put a dash of carbon black in a clear glass vial and zapped it with 400 volts, similar in spirit to electrical weed zapping approaches in agriculture, for about 200 milliseconds. Initially he got junk. But after a bit of tweaking, he managed to create a bright yellowish white flash, indicating the temperature inside the vial was reaching about 3000 kelvins. Chemical tests revealed he had produced graphene.

It turned out to be a type of graphene that is ideal for bulk uses. As the carbon atoms condense to form graphene, they don’t have time to stack in a regular pattern, as they do in graphite. The result is a material known as turbostatic graphene, with graphene layers jumbled at all angles atop one another. “That’s a good thing,” Duy says. When added to water or other solvents, turbostatic graphene remains suspended instead of clumping up, allowing each fleck of the material to interact with whatever composite it’s added to.

“This will make it a very good material for applications,” says Monica Craciun, a materials physicist at the University of Exeter. In 2018, she and her colleagues reported that adding graphene to concrete more than doubled its compressive strength. Tour’s team saw much the same result. When they added just 0.05% by weight of their flash-produced graphene to concrete, the compressive strength rose 25%; graphene added to polydimethylsiloxane, a common plastic, boosted its strength by 250%.

As digital control spreads across energy networks, research to counter ransomware-driven blackouts is increasingly important for grid resilience.

Those results could reignite efforts to use graphene in a wide range of composites. Researchers in Italy reported recently that adding graphene to asphalt dramatically reduces its tendency to fracture and more than doubles its life span. Last year, Iterchimica, an Italian company, began to test a 250-meter stretch of road in Milan paved with graphene-spiked asphalt. Tests elsewhere have shown that adding graphene to paint dramatically improves corrosion resistance.

These applications would require high-quality graphene by the ton. Fortunately, the starting point for flash graphene could hardly be cheaper or more abundant: Virtually any organic matter, including coffee grounds, food scraps, old tires, and plastic bottles, can be vaporized to make the material. “We’re turning garbage into graphene,” Duy says.

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Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) Emissions drive rising greenhouse gas impacts in electrical switchgear, power grids, and renewables, with extreme global warming potential, long atmospheric lifetime, and leakage risks challenging climate targets and grid decarbonization.

Key Points

SF6 emissions are leaks from electrical switchgear and grids, a high-GWP gas with ~1,000-year lifetime.

✅ 23,500x CO2 global warming potential (GWP)

✅ Leaks from switchgear, breakers, gas-insulated substations

✅ Clean air and vacuum alternatives emerging for MV/HV

Sulphur hexafluoride, or SF6, is widely used in the electrical industry to prevent short circuits and accidents.

But leaks of the little-known gas in the UK and the rest of the EU in 2017 were the equivalent of putting an extra 1.3 million cars on the road.

Levels are rising as an unintended consequence of the green energy boom and the broader global energy transition worldwide.

Cheap and non-flammable, SF6 is a colourless, odourless, synthetic gas. It makes a hugely effective insulating material for medium and high-voltage electrical installations.

It is widely used across the industry, from large power stations to wind turbines to electrical sub-stations in towns and cities.

It prevents electrical accidents and fires.

However, the significant downside to using the gas is that it has the highest global warming potential of any known substance. It is 23,500 times more warming than carbon dioxide (CO2).

Just one kilogram of SF6 warms the Earth to the same extent as 24 people flying London to New York return.

It also persists in the atmosphere for a long time, warming the Earth for at least 1,000 years.

So why are we using more of this powerful warming gas?

The way we make electricity around the world is changing rapidly, with New Zealand's push to electrify in its energy system.

Where once large coal-fired power stations brought energy to millions, the drive to combat climate change and to move away from coal means they are now being replaced by mixed sources of power including wind, solar and gas.

This has resulted in many more connections to the electricity grid, and with EU electricity use could double by 2050, a rise in the number of electrical switches and circuit breakers that are needed to prevent serious accidents.

Collectively, these safety devices are called switchgear. The vast majority use SF6 gas to quench arcs and stop short circuits.

"As renewable projects are getting bigger and bigger, we have had to use it within wind turbines specifically," said Costa Pirgousis, an engineer with Scottish Power Renewables on its new East Anglia wind farm, which doesn't use SF6 in turbines.

"As we are putting in more and more turbines, we need more and more switchgear and, as a result, more SF6 is being introduced into big turbines off shore.

"It's been proven for years and we know how it works, and as a result it is very reliable and very low maintenance for us offshore."

How do we know that SF6 is increasing?

Across the entire UK network of power lines and substations, there are around one million kilograms of SF6 installed.

A study from the University of Cardiff found that across all transmission and distribution networks, the amount used was increasing by 30-40 tonnes per year.

This rise was also reflected across Europe with total emissions from the 28 member states in 2017 equivalent to 6.73 million tonnes of CO2. That's the same as the emissions from 1.3 million extra cars on the road for a year.

Researchers at the University of Bristol who monitor concentrations of warming gases in the atmosphere say they have seen significant rises in the last 20 years.

"We make measurements of SF6 in the background atmosphere," said Dr Matt Rigby, reader in atmospheric chemistry at Bristol.

"What we've seen is that the levels have increased substantially, and we've seen almost a doubling of the atmospheric concentration in the last two decades."

How does SF6 get into the atmosphere?

The most important means by which SF6 gets into the atmosphere is from leaks in the electricity industry.

Electrical company Eaton, which manufactures switchgear without SF6, says its research indicates that for the full life-cycle of the product, leaks could be as high as 15% - much higher than many other estimates.

Louis Schaeffer, electrical business manager at Eaton, said: "The newer gear has very low leak rates but the key question is do you have newer gear?

"We looked at all equipment and looked at the average of all those leak rates, and we didn't see people taking into account the filling of the gas. Plus, we looked at how you recycle it and return it and also included the catastrophic leaks."

How damaging to the climate is this gas?

Concentrations in the atmosphere are very small right now, just a fraction of the amount of CO2 in the air.

However, the global installed base of SF6 is expected to grow by 75% by 2030, as data-driven electricity demand surges worldwide.

Another concern is that SF6 is a synthetic gas and isn't absorbed or destroyed naturally. It will all have to be replaced and destroyed to limit the impact on the climate.

Developed countries are expected to report every year to the UN on how much SF6 they use, but developing countries do not face any restrictions on use.

Right now, scientists are detecting concentrations in the atmosphere that are 10 times the amount declared by countries in their reports. Scientists say this is not all coming from countries like India, China and South Korea.

One study found that the methods used to calculate emissions in richer countries "severely under-reported" emissions over the past two decades.

Why hasn't this been banned?

SF6 comes under a group of human-produced substances known as F-gases. The European Commission tried to prohibit a number of these environmentally harmful substances, including gases in refrigeration and air conditioning, back in 2014.

But they faced strong opposition from industries across Europe.

"In the end, the electrical industry lobby was too strong and we had to give in to them," said Dutch Green MEP Bas Eickhout, who was responsible for the attempt to regulate F-gases.

"The electric sector was very strong in arguing that if you want an energy transition, and you have to shift more to electricity, you will need more electric devices. And then you also will need more SF6.

"They used the argument that otherwise the energy transition would be slowed down."

What do regulator and electrical companies say about the gas?

Everyone is trying to reduce their dependence on the gas, and US control efforts suggest targeted policies can drive declines, as it is universally recognised as harmful to the climate.

In the UK, energy regulator Ofgem says it is working with utilities to try to limit leaks of the gas.

"We are using a range of tools to make sure that companies limit their use of SF6, a potent greenhouse gas, where this is in the interest of energy consumers," an Ofgem spokesperson told BBC News.

"This includes funding innovation trials and rewarding companies to research and find alternatives, setting emissions targets, rewarding companies that beat those targets, and penalising those that miss them."

Are there alternatives - and are they very expensive?

The question of alternatives to SF6 has been contentious over recent years.

For high-voltage applications, experts say there are very few solutions that have been rigorously tested.

"There is no real alternative that is proven," said Prof Manu Haddad from the school of engineering at Cardiff University.

"There are some that are being proposed now but to prove their operation over a long period of time is a risk that many companies don't want to take."

Medium voltage operations there are several tried-and-tested materials. Some in the industry say that the conservative nature of the electrical industry is the key reason that few want to change to a less harmful alternative.

"I will tell you, everyone in this industry knows you can do this; there is not a technical reason not to do it," said Louis Schaffer from Eaton.

"It's not really economic; it's more a question that change takes effort and if you don't have to, you won't do it."

Some companies are feeling the winds of change

Sitting in the North Sea some 43km from the Suffolk coast, Scottish Power Renewables has installed one of world's biggest wind farms, in line with a sustainable electric planet vision, where the turbines will be free of SF6 gas.

East Anglia One will see 102 of these towering generators erected, with the capacity to produce up to 714MW (megawatts) of power by 2020, enough to supply half a million homes.

Previously, an installation like this would have used switchgear supplied with SF6, to prevent the electrical accidents that can lead to fires.

Each turbine would normally have contained around 5kg of SF6, which, if it leaked into the atmosphere, would add the equivalent of around 117 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This is roughly the same as the annual emissions from 25 cars.

"In this case we are using a combination of clean air and vacuum technology within the turbine. It allows us to still have a very efficient, reliable, high-voltage network but to also be environmentally friendly," said Costa Pirgousis from Scottish Power Renewables.

"Once there are viable alternatives on the market, there is no reason not to use them. In this case, we've got a viable alternative and that's why we are using it."

But even for companies that are trying to limit the use of SF6, there are still limitations. At the heart of East Anglia One sits a giant offshore substation to which all 102 turbines will connect. It still uses significant quantities of the highly warming gas.

What happens next ?

The EU will review the use of SF6 next year and will examine whether alternatives are available. However, even the most optimistic experts don't think that any ban is likely to be put in place before 2025.

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Wylfa Nuclear Project Cancellation reflects Hitachi's withdrawal, pulling £16bn from North Wales, risking jobs, reshaping UK nuclear power plans as renewables grow and Chinese involvement rises amid shifting energy market policies.

Key Points

An indefinite halt to Hitachi's Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant, removing about £16bn investment and jobs from North Wales.

✅ Hitachi withdraws funding amid changing energy market costs

✅ Puts 400 local roles and up to 10,000 construction jobs at risk

✅ UK shifts toward renewables as nuclear project support stalls

Chris Ruane said Japanese firm Hitachi’s announcement this morning about the Wylfa project would take £16 billion of investment out of the region.

He said it was the latest in a list of energy projects which had been scrapped as he responded to a statement from business secretary Greg Clark.

Mr Ruane, the Labour member for the Vale of Clywd, said: “In his statement he said the Government are relying now more on renewables, can I put the North Wales picture to him; 1,500 wind turbines were planned off the coast of North Wales. They were removed, those plans were cancelled by the private sector.

“The tidal lagoons for Wales were key to the development of the Welsh economy – the Government itself pulled the support for the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. That had a knock-on effect for the huge lagoon planned off the coast of North Wales.

“And now today we hear of the cancellation of a £16 billion investment in the North Wales economy. This will devastate the North Wales economy. The people of North Wales need to know that the Prime Minister is batting for them and batting for the UK.”

Mr Clark blamed the changing landscape of the energy market for today’s announcement, and said Wales has been a “substantial and proud leader” in renewable energy during the UK’s green industrial revolution over recent years.

But another Labour MP from North Wales, Albert Owen, of Ynys Mon, said the Wylfa plant’s cancellation in his constituency is putting 400 jobs at risk, as well as the “potential of 8-10,000 construction jobs”, as well as hundreds of operational jobs and 33 apprenticeships.

He asked Mr Clark: “Can I say straightly can we work together to keep this project alive, to ensure that we create the momentum so it can be ready for a future developer or this developer with the right mechanism?”

The minister replied that he and his officials would “work together in a completely open-book way on the options” to try and salvage the project.

But in the Lords, Labour former security minister Lord West of Spithead said the UK’s nuclear industry was in crisis, noting that Europe is losing nuclear power as well.

“In the 1950s our nation led the world in nuclear power generation and decisions by successive governments, of all hues, have got us in the position today where we cannot even construct a large civil nuclear reaction,” he told peers at question time.

Lord West asked: “Are we content that now the only player seems to be Chinese and that by 2035… we are happy for the Chinese to control one third of the energy supply of our nation?”

Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy minister Lord Henley said the Government had hoped for a better announcement from Hitachi but that was not the case.

He said costs in the nuclear sector were rising, amid setbacks at Hinkley Point C, while costs for many renewables were coming down and this was one of the reasons for the problem.

Tory former energy secretary Lord Howell of Guildford said the Chinese were in “pole position” for the rebuilding and replacement “of our nuclear fleet” and this would have a major impact on UK energy policy and plans to meet net zero targets in the 2030s.

Plaid Cymru’s Lord Wigley warned that putting the Wylfa Newydd on indefinite hold would cause economic planning blight in north-west Wales and urged the Government to raise the level of support allocated to the region.

Lord Henley acknowledged the announcement was not welcome but added: “We remain committed to nuclear power. We will look to see what we can do. We still have a great deal of expertise in this country and we can work on that.”

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U.S. Utility Spending Shift highlights rising transmission and distribution costs, grid modernization, and smart meters, while generation expenses decline amid fuel price volatility, capital and labor pressures, and renewable integration across the power sector.

Key Points

A decade-long trend where utilities spend more on delivery and grid upgrades, and less on electricity generation costs.

✅ Delivery O&M, wires, poles, and meters drive rising costs

✅ Generation spending declines amid fuel price changes and PPI

✅ Grid upgrades add reliability, resilience, and renewable integration

Over the past decade, major utilities in the United States have been spending more on delivering electricity to customers and less on producing that electricity, a shift occurring as electricity demand is flat across many regions.

After adjusting for inflation, major utilities spent 2.6 cents per kilowatthour (kWh) on electricity delivery in 2010, using 2020 dollars. In comparison, spending on delivery was 65% higher in 2020 at 4.3 cents/kWh, and residential bills rose in 2022 as inflation persisted. Conversely, utility spending on power production decreased from 6.8 cents/kWh in 2010 (using 2020 dollars) to 4.6 cents/kWh in 2020.

Utility spending on electricity delivery includes the money spent to build, operate, and maintain the electric wires, poles, towers, and meters that make up the transmission and distribution system. In real 2020 dollar terms, spending on electricity delivery increased every year from 1998 to 2020 as utilities worked to replace aging equipment, build transmission infrastructure to accommodate new wind and solar generation amid clean energy transition challenges that affect costs, and install new technologies such as smart meters to increase the efficiency, reliability, resilience, and security of the U.S. power grid.

Spending on power production includes the money spent to build, operate, fuel, and maintain power plants, as well as the cost to purchase power in cases where the utility either does not own generators or does not generate enough to fulfill customer demand. Spending on electricity production includes the cost of fuels including natural gas prices alongside capital, labor, and building materials, as well as the type of generators being built.

Other utility spending on electricity includes general and administrative expenses, general infrastructure such as office space, and spending on intangible goods such as licenses and franchise fees, even as electricity sales declined in recent years.

The retail price of electricity reflects the cost to produce and deliver power, the rate of return on investment that regulated utilities are allowed, and profits for unregulated power suppliers, and, as electricity prices at 41-year high have been reported, these components have drawn increased scrutiny.

In 2021, demand for consumer goods and the energy needed to produce them has been outpacing supply, though power demand sliding in 2023 with milder weather has also been noted. This difference has contributed to higher prices for fuels used by electric generators, especially natural gas. The increased cost for fuel, capital, labor, and building materials, as seen in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index, is increasing the cost of power production for 2021. U.S. average electricity prices have been higher every month of this year compared with 2020, according to our Monthly Electric Power Industry Report.

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Hydro-Québec Bill 34 Refund issues $535M customer credits tied to electricity rates, consumption-based rebates, and variance accounts, averaging $60 per account and 2.49% of 2018-2019 usage, via bill credits or mailed cheques.

Key Points

A $535M credit refunding 2.49% of 2018-2019 usage to Hydro-Québec customers via bill credits or cheques.

✅ Applies to 2018-2019 consumption; average refund about $60.

✅ Current customers get bill credits; former customers receive cheques.

✅ Refund equals 2.49% of usage from variance accounts under prior rates.

Following the adoption of Bill 34 in December 2019, a total amount of $535 million will be refunded to customers who were Hydro-Québec account holders in 2018 or 2019. This amount was accumulated in variance accounts required under the previous rate system between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2019.

If you are still a Hydro-Québec customer, a credit will be applied to your bill in the coming weeks, and improving billing layout clarity is a focus in some provinces as well. The amount will be indicated on your bill.

An average refund amount of $60. The refund amount is calculated based on the quantity of electricity that each customer consumed in 2018 and 2019. The refund will correspond to 2,49% of each customer's consumption between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2019, for an average of approximately $60, while Ontario hydro rates are set to increase on Nov. 1.

The following chart provides an overview of the refund amount based on the type of home. Naturally, the number of occupants, electricity use habits and features of the home, such as insulation and energy efficiency, may have a significant impact on the amount of the refund, and in other provinces, oversight debates continue following a BC Hydro fund surplus revelation.

What if you were an account holder in 2018 or 2019 but you are no longer a Hydro-Québec customer?
People who were account holders in 2018 or 2019, but who are no longer Hydro-Québec customers will receive their credit by cheque, a lump sum credit approach seen elsewhere.

To receive their cheque, these people must get in touch to update their address in one of the following ways:  

If they have a Hydro-Québec Customer Space and remember their access code, they can update their profile.

Anyone without a Customer Space or who doesn't remember their access code can fill out the Request for a credit form at the following address: www.hydroquebec.com/credit in which they can indicate the address where they wish to receive their cheque, where applicable.

Those who cannot send us their address online can call 514 385-7252 or 1 888 385-7252 to give it to a customer services representative, as utilities like Hydro One have moved to reconnect customers in some cases. Note that the process will take longer on the phone, especially if the call volume is high.

UPDATE: Hydro-Québec will be returning an additional $35 million to customers under the adoption of Bill 34, amid overcharging allegations reported elsewhere.

Energy Minister Jonatan Julien announced on Tuesday that the public utility will be refunding a total of $535 million to customers between January and April.

The legislation, which was passed in December, allows the Quebec government to take control of the rates charged for electricity in the province, including decisions on whether to seek a rate hike next year under the new framework.

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