Hydro One wants to spend another $6-million to redesign bills

Snow-powered nanogenerator harvests static electricity from falling snow using a silicone triboelectric design, enabling energy harvesting, solar panel support during snowfall, and dual-use sensing for weather monitoring and wearable winter sports analytics.

Key Points

A silicone triboelectric device that harvests snowDcharge to generate power and enable sensing.

✅ Triboelectric silicone layer captures charge from falling snow.

✅ Integrates with solar arrays to maintain power during snowfall.

✅ Functions as weather and motion sensor for winter sports.

Scientists from University of California, Los Angeles and McMaster University have invented a nanogenerator that creates electricity from falling snow.

Most Canadians have already seen a mini-version of this, McMaster Prof. Ravi Selvaganapathy told CTV’s Your Morning. “We find that we often get shocked in the winter when it’s dry when we come in into contact with a conductive surface like a doorknob.”

The thin device works by harnessing static electricity: positively-charged, falling snow collides with the negatively-charged silicone device, which produces a charge that’s captured by an electrode.

“You separate the charges and create electricity out of essentially nothing,” Richard Kaner, who holds UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation and whose lab has explored turning waste into graphene, said in a press release.

“The device can work in remote areas because it provides its own power and does not need batteries or reliance on home storage systems such as the Tesla Powerwall, which store energy for later use,” he said, explaining that the device was 3D printed, flexible and inexpensive to make because of the low cost of silicone.

“It’s also going to be useful in places like Canada, where we get a lot of snow and are pursuing a net-zero grid by 2050 to cut emissions. We can extract energy from the environment,” Selvaganapathy added.

The team, which also included scientists from the University of Toronto, published their findings in Nano Energy journal last year, but a few weeks ago, they revealed the device’s more practical uses.

About 30 per cent of the Earth’s surface is covered by snow each winter, which can significantly limit the energy generated by solar panels, including rooftop solar grids in cold climates.

So the team thought: why not simply harness electricity from the snow whenever the solar panels were covered?

Integrating their device into solar panel arrays could produce a continuous power supply whenever it snows, potentially as part of emerging virtual power plants that aggregate distributed resources, study co-author and UCLA assistant researcher Maher El-Kady explained.

The device also serves as a weather-monitoring station by recording how much snow is falling and from where; as well as the direction and speed of the wind.

The team said they also want to incorporate their device into weather sensors to help them better acquire and transmit electronic signals, supporting initiatives to use AI for energy savings across local grids. They said several Toronto-based companies -- which they couldn’t name -- have expressed interest in partnering with them.

Selvaganapathy said the device would hop on the trend of “sensors being incorporated into what we wear, into our homes and even to detect electricity theft in some markets in order to monitor a lot of the things that are important to us”

But the device’s arguably larger potential use is being integrated into technology to monitor athletes and their performances during winter sports, such as hiking, skiing and cross-country skiing.

Up to now, the movement patterns used during cross-country skiing couldn’t be detected by a smart watch, but this device may be able to.

Scientists such as Kaner believe the technology could usher in a new era of self-monitoring devices to assess an athlete’s performance while they’re running, walking or jumping.

The device is simply a proof of concept and the next step would be figuring out how to generate more electricity and integrate it into all of these potential devices, Selvaganapathy said.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Grid Technologies News

Hong Kong Electricity Tariff Increase reflects a projected 1-2% rise as HK Electric and CLP Power shift to cleaner fuel and natural gas, expand gas-fired units and LNG terminals, and adjust the fuel clause charge.

Key Points

An expected 1-2% 2018 rise from cleaner fuel, natural gas projects, asset growth, and shrinking fuel cost surpluses.

✅ Expected 1-2% rise amid cleaner fuel and gas shift

✅ Fuel clause charge and asset expansion pressure prices

✅ HK Electric and CLP Power urged to use surpluses prudently

Hong Kong customers have been asked to expect higher electricity bills next year, as seen with BC Hydro rate increases in Canada, with a member of a government panel on energy policy anticipating an increase in tariffs of one or two per cent.

The environment minister, Wong Kam-sing, also hinted they should be prepared to dig deeper into their pockets for electricity, as debates over California electric bills illustrate, in the wake of power companies needing to use more expensive but cleaner fuel to generate power in the future.

HK Electric supplies power to Hong Kong Island, Lamma Island and Ap Lei Chau. Photo: David Wong

The city’s two power companies, HK Electric and CLP Power, are to brief lawmakers on their respective annual tariff adjustments for 2018, amid Ontario electricity price pressures drawing international attention, at a Legislative Council economic development panel meeting on Tuesday.

HK Electric supplies electricity to Hong Kong Island and neighbouring Lamma Island and Ap Lei Chau, while CLP Power serves Kowloon and the New Territories, including Lantau Island.

Wong said on Monday: “We have to appreciate that when we use cleaner fuel, there is a need for electricity tariffs to keep pace. I believe it is the hope of mainstream society to see a low-carbon and healthier environment.”

Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing believes most people desire a low-carbon environment. Photo: Sam Tsang

But he declined to comment on how much the tariffs might rise.

World Green Organisation chief executive William Yu Yuen-ping, also a member of the Energy Advisory Committee, urged the companies to better use their “overflowing” surpluses in their fuel cost recovery accounts.

Tariffs are comprised of two components: a basic amount reflecting a company’s operating costs and investments, and the fuel clause charge, which is based on what the company projects it will pay for fuel for the year.

William Yu of World Green Organisation says the companies should use their surpluses more carefully. Photo: May Tse

Critics have claimed the local power suppliers routinely overestimate their fuel costs and amass huge surpluses.

In recent years, the two managed to freeze or cut their tariffs thanks to savings from lower fuel costs. Last year, HK Electric offered special rebates to its customers, which saw its tariff drop by 17.2 per cent. CLP Power froze its own charge for 2017.

Yu said the two companies should use the surpluses “more carefully” to stabilise tariffs.

Rise after fall in Hong Kong electricity use linked to subsidies

“We estimate a big share of the surplus has been used up and so the honeymoon period is over.”

Based on his group’s research, Yu believed the tariffs would increase by one or two per cent.

Economist and fellow committee member Billy Mak Sui-choi said the expansion of the power companies’ fixed asset bases, such as building new gas-fired units and offshore liquefied natural gas terminals, a pattern reflected in Nova Scotia's 14% rate hike recently approved by regulators, would also cause tariffs to rise.

To fight climate change and improve air quality, the government has pledged to cut carbon intensity by between 50 and 60 per cent by 2020. Officials set a target of boosting the use of natural gas for electricity generation to half the total fuel mix from 2020.

Both power companies are privately owned and monitored by the government through a mutually agreed scheme of control agreements, akin to oversight seen under the UK energy price cap in other jurisdictions. These require the firms to seek government approval for their development plans, including their projected basic tariff levels.

At present, the permitted rate of return on their net fixed assets is 9.99 per cent. The deals are due to expire late next year.

Earlier this year, officials reached a deal with the two companies on the post-2018 scheme, settling on a 15-year term. The new agreements slash their permitted rate of return to 8 per cent.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

Australian Rooftop Solar Grid Constraints are driving debates over voltage rise, export limits, inverter curtailment, DER integration, and network reliability, amid concerns about localized blackouts, infrastructure protection, tariff reform, and battery storage adoption.

Key Points

Limits on solar exports to curb voltage rise, protect equipment, and keep the distribution grid reliable.

✅ Voltage rise triggers transformer protection and local outages.

✅ Export limits and smart inverter curtailment manage midday backfeed.

✅ Tariff reform and DER orchestration defer costly network upgrades.

With almost 1.8 million Australian homes and businesses relying on power from rooftop solar panels, there is a fight brewing over the impact of solar energy on the national electricity grid.

Electricity distributors are warning that as solar uptake continues to increase, there is a risk excess solar power could flow into the network, elevating power outage risks, causing blackouts and damaging infrastructure.

But is it the network businesses that are actually at risk, as customers turn away from centrally produced electricity?

This is what three different parties have to say:

Andrew Dillon of the network industry peak body, Energy Networks Australia (ENA), told 7.30 the way customers are charged for electricity has to change, or expensive grid upgrades to poles and wires will be needed to keep solar customers on the grid.

"The engineering reality is once we get too much solar in a certain space it does start to cause technical issues," he said.

"If there is too much energy coming back up the system in the middle of the day, it can cause frequency voltage disturbances in the system, which can lead to transformers tripping off to protect themselves from being damaged and that will cause localised blackouts.

"There are pockets of the grid already where we have significant penetration and we are starting to see technical issues."

However, he acknowledges that excess solar power has yet to cause any blackouts, or damage electricity infrastructure.

"I don't buy that at all," he said.

"It can be that in some suburbs or parts of suburbs a high penetration of solar on the point of use can raise voltage, these issues generally can be dealt with quickly.

"The critical issue is think where you are getting that perspective from. It is from an industry whose underlying market is threatened by customers doing it for themselves through peer-to-peer energy models. So, think with some critical insight to these claims."

He said when too many people rely on solar it threatens the very business model of the companies that own Australia's poles and wires.

"When the customers use the network less to buy centrally produced electricity, they ship less product," he said.

"When they ship less product, their underlying business is undermined, they need to charge more to the customers left and that leads to what has been called a death spiral.

"We are seeing rapid reductions in consumption at the point of use per household."

But Mr Dillon denies the distributors are acting out of self-interest.

"I absolutely reject that claim," he said.

"[What] we, as networks, have an interest in is running a safe network, running a reliable network, enabling the transition to a low carbon future and doing all that while keeping costs down as much as possible."

Solar installers say the networks are holding back business

Around Australia the poles and wires companies can decide which solar systems can connect to the grid.

Small systems can connect automatically, but in some areas, those wanting a larger system can find themselves caught up in red tape.

The vice-president of the Australian Solar Council, Glen Morris, said these limitations were holding back solar installation businesses and preventing the take-up of new battery storage technology.

"If you've already got a five kilowatt system, your house is full as far as the network is concerned," Mr Morris said.

"You go to add a battery, that's another five kilowatts and so they say no you're already full … so you can't add storage to your solar system."

The powers that be are stumbling in the dark to prevent a looming energy crisis, as the grid seeks to balance renewables' hidden challenges and competing demands.

Mr Morris also said the networks had the capacity to solve the problem of any excess solar flows into the grid, and infrastructure upgrades were not necessary.

"They already have the capability to turn off your solar invertor whenever they feel like it," he said.

"If they choose to connect that functionality, it's there in the inverter. The customer already has it."

ENA has acknowledged there is frustration with rooftop system size limits in the solar industry.

"What we are seeing is solar installers and others slightly frustrated at different requirements for different networks and sometimes they are unclear on the reasons for that," Mr Dillon said.

"Limitations are in place across the country to keep the lights on and make sure the network stays safe and we don't have sudden rushes of people connecting to the grid that causes outage issues."

But Mr Mountain is unconvinced, calling the limitations "somewhat spurious".

"The published, documented, critically reviewed analyses are few and far between, so it is very easy for engineers to make these arguments and those in policy circles only have so much tolerance for the detail," he said.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Renewable Energy News

PG&E property tax payments bolster counties, education, public safety, and infrastructure across Northern and Central California, reflecting semi-annual levies tied to utility assets, capital investments, and economic development that serve 16 million customers.

Key Points

PG&E property tax payments are semi-annual county taxes funding public services and linked to utility infrastructure.

✅ $230M paid for Jul-Dec 2017 across 50 California counties

✅ Estimated $461M for FY 2017-2018, up 12% year over year

✅ Investments: $5.9B in grid, Gas Safety Academy, control center

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) paid property taxes of more than $230 million this fall to the 50 counties where the energy company owns property and operates gas and electric infrastructure that serves 16 million Californians. The tax payments help support essential public services like education and public health and safety actions across the region.

The semi-annual property tax payments made today cover the period from July 1 to December 31, 2017.

Total payments for the full tax year of July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 are estimated to total more than $461 million—an increase of $50 million, or 12 percent, compared with the prior fiscal year, even as customer rates are expected to stabilize in the years ahead.

“Property tax payments provide crucial resources to the many communities where we live and work, supporting everything from education to public safety. By continuing to make local investments in gas and electric infrastructure, we are not only creating one of the safest and most reliable energy systems in the country, including wildfire risk reduction programs and related efforts, we’re investing in the local economy and helping our communities thrive,” said Jason Wells, senior vice president and chief financial officer for PG&E.

PG&E invested more than $5.7 billion last year and expects to invest $5.9 billion this year to enhance and upgrade its gas and electrical infrastructure amid power line fire risks across Northern and Central California.

Some recent investments include the construction of PG&E’s $75 millionGas Safety Academy in Winters in Yolo County, which opened in September. Last year, PG&E opened a $36 million, state-of-the-art electric distribution control center in Rocklin.

PG&E supports the communities it serves in a variety of ways. In 2016, PG&E provided more than $28 million in charitable contributions to enrich local educational opportunities, preserve the environment, and support economic vitality and emergency preparedness and safety, including its Wildfire Assistance Program for impacted residents. PG&E employees provide thousands of hours of volunteer service in their local communities. The company also offers a broad spectrum of economic development services to help local businesses grow.

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Energy Policy News

U.S. power grid cyberattacks expose critical infrastructure to Russian hackers, DHS warns, targeting SCADA, smart grid sensors, and utilities; NERC CIP defenses, microgrids, and resilience planning aim to mitigate outages and supply chain disruptions.

Key Points

U.S. power grid cyberattacks target utility control systems, risking outages, disruption, requiring stronger defenses.

✅ Russian access to utilities and SCADA raises outage risk

✅ NERC CIP, DHS, and utilities expand cyber defenses

✅ Microgrids and renewables enhance resilience, islanding capability

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revealed that Russian government hackers accessed control rooms at hundreds of U.S. electrical utility companies, gaining far more access to the operations of many more companies than previously disclosed by federal officials.

Securing the electrical grid, upon which is built almost the entirety of modern society, is a monumental challenge. Several experts have explained aspects of the task, potential solutions and the risks of failure for The Conversation:

1. What’s at stake?

The scale of disruption would depend, in part, on how much damage the attackers wanted to do. But a major cyberattack on the electricity grid could send surges through the grid, much as solar storms have done.

Those events, explains Rochester Institute of Technology space weather scholar Roger Dube, cause power surges, damaging transmission equipment. One solar storm in March 1989, he writes, left “6 million people without power for nine hours … [and] destroyed a large transformer at a New Jersey nuclear plant. Even though a spare transformer was nearby, it still took six months to remove and replace the melted unit.”

More serious attacks, like larger solar storms, could knock out manufacturing plants that build replacement electrical equipment, gas pumps to fuel trucks to deliver the material and even “the machinery that extracts oil from the ground and refines it into usable fuel. … Even systems that seem non-technological, like public water supplies, would shut down: Their pumps and purification systems need electricity.”

In the most severe cases, with fuel-starved transportation stalled and other basic infrastructure not working, “[p]eople in developed countries would find themselves with no running water, no sewage systems, no refrigerated food, and no way to get any food or other necessities transported from far away. People in places with more basic economies would also be without needed supplies from afar.”

2. It wouldn’t be the first time

Russia has penetrated other countries’ electricity grids in the past, and used its access to do real damage. In the middle of winter 2015, for instance, a Russian cyberattack shut off the power to Ukraine’s capital in the middle of winter 2015.

Power grid scholar Michael McElfresh at Santa Clara University discusses what happened to cause hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to lose power for several hours, and notes that U.S. utilities use software similar to their Ukrainian counterparts – and therefore share the same vulnerabilities.

3. Security work is ongoing

These threats aren’t new, write grid security experts Manimaran Govindarasu from Iowa State and Adam Hahn from Washington State University. There are a lot of people planning defenses, including the U.S. government, as substation attacks are growing across the country. And the “North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which oversees the grid in the U.S. and Canada, has rules … for how electric companies must protect the power grid both physically and electronically.” The group holds training exercises in which utility companies practice responding to attacks.

4. There are more vulnerabilities now

Grid researcher McElfresh also explains that the grid is increasingly complex, with with thousands of companies responsible for different aspects of generating, transmission, and delivery to customers. In addition, new technologies have led companies to incorporate more sensors and other “smart grid” technologies. He describes how that, as a recent power grid report card underscores, “has created many more access points for penetrating into the grid computer systems.”

5. It’s time to ramp up efforts

The depth of access and potential control over electrical systems means there has never been a better time than right now to step up grid security amid a renewed focus on protecting the grid among policymakers and utilities, writes public-utility researcher Theodore Kury at the University of Florida. He notes that many of those efforts may also help protect the grid from storm damage and other disasters.

6. A possible solution could be smaller grids

One protective effort was identified by electrical engineer Joshua Pearce at Michigan Technological University, who has studied ways to protect electricity supplies to U.S. military bases both within the country and abroad. He found that the Pentagon has already begun testing systems, as the military ramps up preparation for major grid hacks, that combine solar-panel arrays with large-capacity batteries. “The equipment is connected together – and to buildings it serves – in what is called a ‘microgrid,’ which is normally connected to the regular commercial power grid but can be disconnected and become self-sustaining when disaster strikes.”

He found that microgrid systems could make military bases more resilient in the face of cyberattacks, criminals or terrorists and natural disasters – and even help the military “generate all of its electricity from distributed renewable sources by 2025 … which would provide energy reliability and decrease costs, [and] largely eliminate a major group of very real threats to national security.”

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Grid Technologies News

EU Smart Meter Analytics integrates AMI data with grid edge platforms, enabling back-office efficiency, revenue assurance, and customer insights via cloud and PaaS solutions, while system integration cuts costs and improves utility performance.

Key Points

EU smart meter analytics uses AMI data and cloud to improve utility performance, revenue assurance, and outcomes.

✅ AMI underpins grid edge analytics and utility IT/OT integration

✅ Cloud and PaaS reduce costs and scale data-driven applications

✅ Focus shifts from meter rollout to back-office and revenue analytics

Europe's investment in smart meters has begun to open up the market for analytics that benefit both utilities and customers.

Two new reports from GTM Research demonstrate the substantial investment in both advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and specific customer analytics segments -- the first report analyzes the progress of AMI deployment in Europe, while the second is a comprehensive assessment of analytics use cases, including AI in utility operations, enabled by or interacting with AMI.

The Third Energy Package mandated EU member states to perform a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the economic viability of deploying smart meters and broader grid modernization costs across member states. Two-thirds of the member states found there was a net positive result, while seven members found negative or inconclusive results.

“The mandate spurred AMI deployment in the EU, but all member states are deploying some AMI. Even without an overall positive cost-benefit outcome, utilities found pockets of customers where there is a positive business case for AMI,” said Paulina Tarrant, research associate at GTM Research and lead author of “Racing to 2020: European Policy, Deployment and Market Share Primer.”

Annual AMI contracting peaked in 2013 -- two years after the mandate -- with 29 million contracted that year. Today, 100 million meters have been contracted overall. As member states reach their respective targets, the AMI market will cool in Europe and spending on analytics and applications will continue to ramp up, aligning with efforts to invest in smarter infrastructure across the sector, Tarrant noted.

Between 2017 and 2021, more than $30 billion will be spent on utility back-office and revenue-assurance analytics in the EU, reflecting the shift toward the digital grid architecture, according to GTM Research’s Grid Edge Customer Utility Analytics Ecosystems: Competitive Analysis, Forecasts and Case Studies.

The report examines the broad landscape of customer analytics showing how AMI interacts with the larger IT/OT environment of a utility.

“The benefits of AMI expand beyond revenue assurance -- in fact, AMI represents the backbone of many customer utility analytics and grid edge solutions,” said Timotej Gavrilovic, author of the Grid Edge Customer Utility Ecosystems report.

Integration is key, according to the report.

“Technology providers are integrating data sets, solutions and systems and partnering with others to provide a one-stop shop serving broad utility needs, increasing efficiencies and reducing costs,” Gavrilovic said. “Cloud-based deployments and platform-as-a-service offerings are becoming commonplace, creating an opportunity for utilities to balance the cost versus performance tradeoff to optimize their analytics systems and applications.”

A diverse array of customer analytics applications is a critical foundation for demonstrating the positive cost-benefit of AMI.

“Advanced analytics and applications are key to ensuring that AMI investments provide a positive return after smart meters are initiated,” said Tarrant. “Improved billing and revenue assurance was not enough everywhere to show customer benefit -- these analytics packages will leverage the distributed network infrastructure, including advanced inverters used with distributed energy resources, and subsequent increased data access, uniting the electricity markets of the EU.”

Related News

• Electricity Forum News

• Grid Technologies News