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Hydro-Quebec NECEC Transmission Line faces Maine PUC scrutiny over clean energy claims, greenhouse gas emissions, spillage capacity, resource shuffling, and Massachusetts contracts, amid opposition from natural gas generators and environmental groups debating public need.

Key Points

A $1B Maine corridor for Quebec hydropower to Massachusetts, debated over emissions, spillage, and public need.

✅ Maine PUC weighing public need and ratepayer benefits

✅ Emissions impact disputed: resource shuffling vs new supply

✅ Hydro-Quebec spillage claims questioned without data

As Maine regulators are deciding whether to approve construction of a $1 billion electricity corridor across much of western Maine, the Canadian hydroelectric utility poised to make billions of dollars from the project has been absent from the process.

This has left both opponents and supporters of the line arguing about how much available energy the utility has to send through a completed line, and whether that energy will help fulfill the mission of the project: fighting climate change.

And while the utility has avoided making its case before regulators, which requires submitting to cross-examination and discovery, it has engaged in a public relations campaign to try and win support from the region's newspapers.

Government-owned Hydro-Quebec controls dams and reservoirs generating hydroelectricity throughout its namesake province. It recently signed agreements to sell electricity across the proposed line, named the New England Clean Energy Connect, to Massachusetts as part of the state's effort to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, including natural gas.

At the Maine Public Utilities Commission, attorneys for Central Maine Power Co., which would build and maintain the line, have been sparring with the opposition over the line's potential impact on Maine and its electricity consumers. Leading the opposition is a coalition of natural gas electricity generators that stand to lose business should the line be built, as well as the Natural Resources Council of Maine, an environmental group.

That unusual alliance of environmental and business groups wants Hydro-Quebec to answer questions about its hydroelectric system, which they argue can't deliver the amount of electricity promised to Massachusetts without diverting energy from other regions.

In that scenario, critics say the line would not produce the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that CMP and Hydro-Quebec have made a central part of their pitch for the project. Instead, other markets currently buying energy from Hydro-Quebec, such as New York, Ontario and New Brunswick, would see hydroelectricity imports decrease and have to rely on other sources of energy, including coal or oil, to make up the difference. If that happened, the total amount of clean energy in the world would remain the same.

Opponents call this possibility "greenwashing." Massachusetts regulators have described these circumstances as "resource shuffling."

But CMP spokesperson John Carroll said that if hydropower was diverted from nearby markets to power Massachusetts, those markets would not turn to fossil fuels. Rather they would seek to develop other forms of renewable energy "leading to further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the region."

Hydro-Quebec said it has plenty of capacity to increase its electricity exports to Massachusetts without diverting energy from other places.

However, Hydro-Quebec is not required to participate -- and has not voluntarily participated -- in regulatory hearings where it would be subject to cross examinations and have to testify under oath. Some participants wish it would.

At a January hearing at the Maine Public Utilities Commission, hearing examiner Mitchell Tannenbaum had to warn experts giving testimony to "refrain from commentary regarding whether Hydro-Quebec is here or not" after they complained about its absence when trying to predict potential ramifications of the line.

"I would have hoped they would have been visible and available to answer legitimate questions in all of these states through which their power is going to be flowing," said Dot Kelly, a member of the executive committee at the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club who has participated in the line's regulatory proceedings as an individual. "If you're going to have a full and fair process, they have to be there."

[What you need to know about the CMP transmission line proposed for Maine]

While Hydro-Quebec has not presented data on its system directly to Maine regulators, it has brought its case to the press. Central to that case is the fact that it's "spilling" water from its reservoirs because it is limited by how much electricity it can export. It said that it could send more water through its turbines and lower reservoir levels, eliminating spillage and creating more energy, if only it had a way to get that energy to market. Hydro-Quebec said the line would make that possible, and, in doing so, help lower emissions and fight climate change.

"We have that excess potential that we need to use. Essentially, it's a good problem to have so long as you can find an export market," Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Serge Abergel told the Bangor Daily News.

Hydro-Quebec made its "spillage" case to the editorial boards of The Boston Globe, The Portland Press Herald and the BDN, winning qualified endorsements from the Globe and Press Herald. (The BDN editorial board has not weighed in on the project).

Opponents have questioned why Hydro-Quebec is willing to present their case to the press but not regulators.

"We need a better answer than 'just trust us,'" Natural Resources Council of Maine attorney Sue Ely said. "What's clear is that CMP and HQ are engaging in a full-court publicity tour peddling false transparency in an attempt to sell their claims of greenhouse gas benefits."

Energy generators aren't typically parties to public utility commission proceedings involving the building of transmission lines, but Maine regulators don't typically evaluate projects that will help customers in another state buy energy generated in a foreign country.

"It's a unique case," said Maine Public Advocate and former Democratic Senate Minority Leader Barry Hobbins, who has neither endorsed nor opposed the project. Hobbins noted the project was not proposed to improve reliability for Maine electricity customers, which is typically the point of new transmission line proposals evaluated by the commission. Instead, the project "is a straight shot to Massachusetts," Hobbins said.

Maine Public Utilities Commission spokesperson Harry Lanphear agreed. "The Commission has never considered this type of project before," he said in an email.

In order to proceed with the project, CMP must convince the Maine Public Utilities Commission that the proposed line would fill a "public need" and benefit Mainers. Among other benefits, CMP said it will help lower electricity costs and create jobs in Maine. A decision is expected in the spring.

Given the uniqueness of the case, even the commission seems unsure about how to apply the vague "public need" standard. On Jan. 14, commission staff asked case participants to weigh in on how it should apply Maine law when evaluating the project, including whether the hydroelectricity that would travel over the line should be considered "renewable" and whether Maine's own carbon reduction goals are relevant to the case.

James Speyer, an energy consultant whose firm was hired by natural gas company and project opponent Calpine to analyze the market impacts of the line, said he has testified before roughly 20 state public utility commissions and has never seen a proceeding like this one.

"I've never been in a case where one of the major beneficiaries of the PUC decision is not in the case, never has filed a report, has never had to provide any data to support its assertions, and never has been subject to cross examination," Speyer said. "Hydro-Quebec is like a black box."

Hydro-Quebec would gladly appear before the Maine Public Utilities Commission, but it has not been invited, said spokesperson Abergel.

"The PUC is doing its own process," Abergel said. "If the PUC were to invite us, we'd gladly intervene. We're very willing to collaborate in that sense."

But that's not how the commission process works. Individuals and organizations can intervene in cases, but the commission does not invite them to the proceedings, commission spokesperson Lanphear said.

CMP spokesperson Carroll dismissed concerns over emissions, noting that Hydro-Quebec is near the end of completing a more than 15-year effort to develop its clean energy resources. "They will have capacity to satisfy the contract with Massachusetts in their reservoirs," Carroll said.

While Maine regulators are evaluating the transmission line, Massachusetts' Department of Public Utilities is deciding whether to approve 20-year contracts between Hydro-Quebec and that state's electric utilities. Those contracts, which Hydro-Quebec has estimated could be worth close to $8 billion, govern how the utility sells electricity over the line.

Dean Murphy, a consultant hired by the Massachusetts Attorney General's office to review the contracts, testified before Massachusetts regulators that the agreements do not require a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Murphy also warned the contracts don't actually require Hydro-Quebec to increase the total amount of energy it sends to New England, as energy could be shuffled from established lines to the proposed CMP line to satisfy the contracts.

Parties in the Massachusetts proceeding are also trying to get more information from Hydro-Quebec. Energy giant NextEra is currently trying to convince Massachusetts regulators to issue a subpoena to force Hydro-Quebec to answer questions about how its exports might change with the construction of the transmission line. Hydro-Quebec and CMP have opposed the motion.

Hydro-Quebec has a reputation for guarding its privacy, according to Hobbins.

"It would have been easier to not have to play Sherlock Holmes and try to guess or try to calculate without having a direct 'yes' or 'no' response from the entity itself," Hobbins said.

Ultimately, the burden of proving that Maine needs the line falls on CMP, which is also responsible for making sure regulators have all the information they need to make a decision on the project, said former Maine Public Utilities Commission Chairman Kurt Adams.

"Central Maine Power should provide the PUC with all the info that it needs," Adams said. "If CMP can't, then one might argue that they haven't met their burden."

'They treat HQ with nothing but distrust'

If completed, the line would bring 9.45 terawatt hours of electricity from Quebec to Massachusetts annually, or about a sixth of the total amount of electricity Massachusetts currently uses every year (and roughly 80 percent of Maine's annual load). CMP's parent company Avangrid would make an estimated $60 million a year from the line, according to financial analysts.

As part of its legally mandated efforts to reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change, Massachusetts would pay the $950 million cost of constructing the line. The state currently relies on natural gas, a fossil fuel, for nearly 70 percent of its electricity, a figure that helps explain natural gas companies' opposition to the project.

A panel of experts recently warned that humanity has 12 years to keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius and prevent the worst effects of climate change, which include floods, droughts and extreme heat.

The line could lower New England's annual carbon emissions by as much as 3 million metric tons, an amount roughly equal to Washington D.C.'s annual emissions. Opponents worry that reduction could be mostly offset by increases in other markets.

But while both sides have claimed they are fighting for the environment, much of the debate features giant corporations with headquarters outside of New England fighting over the future of the region's electricity market, echoing customer backlash seen in other utility takeovers.

Hydro-Quebec is owned by the people of Quebec, and CMP is owned by Avangrid, which is in turn owned by Spanish energy giant Iberdrola. Leading the charge against the line are several energy companies in the Fortune 500, including Houston-based Calpine and Florida-based NextEra Energy.

However, only one side of the debate counts environmental groups as part of its coalition, and, curiously enough, that's the side with fossil fuel companies.

Some environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Environment Maine, have come out against the line, while others, including the Acadia Center and the Conservation Law Foundation, are still deciding whether to support or oppose the project. So far, none have endorsed the line.

"It is discouraging that some of the environmental groups are so opposed, but it seems the best is the enemy of the good," said CMP's Carroll in an email. "They seem to have no sense of urgency; and they treat HQ with nothing but distrust."

Much of the environmentally minded opposition to the project focuses on the impact the line would have on local wildlife and tourism.

Sandi Howard administers the Say NO To NECEC Facebook page and lives in Caratunk, one of the communities along the proposed path of the line. She said opposition to the line might change if it was proven to reduce emissions.

"If it were going to truly reduce global CO2 emissions, I think it would be be a different conversation," Howard said.

Not the first choice

Before Maine, New Hampshire had its own debate over whether it should serve as a conduit between Quebec and Massachusetts. The proposed Northern Pass transmission line would have run the length of the state. It was Massachusetts' first choice to bring Quebec hydropower to its residents.

But New Hampshire's Site Evaluation Committee unanimously voted to reject the Northern Pass project in February 2018 on the grounds that the project's sponsor, Eversource, had failed to prove the project would not interfere with local business and tourism. Though it was the source of the electricity that would have traveled over the line, Hydro-Quebec was not a party to the proceedings.

In its decision, the committee noted the project would not reduce emissions if it was not coupled with a "new source of hydropower" and the power delivered across the line was "diverted from Ontario and New York." The committee added that it was unclear if the power would be new or diverted.

The next month, Massachusetts replaced Northern Pass by selecting CMP's proposed line. As the project came before Maine regulators, questions about Hydro-Quebec and emissions persisted. Two different analyses of CMP's proposed line, including one by the Maine Public Utility Commission's independent consultant, found the line would greatly reduce New England's emissions.

But neither of those studies took into account the line's impact on emissions outside of New England. A study by Calpine's consultant, Energyzt, found New England's emissions reduction could be mostly offset by increased emissions in other areas, including New Brunswick and New York, that would see hydroelectricity imports shrink as energy was redirected to fulfill the contract with Massachusetts.

'They failed in any way to back up those spillage claims'

Hydro-Quebec seemed content to let CMP fight for the project alone before regulators for much of 2018. But at the end of the year, the utility took a more proactive approach, meeting with editorial boards and providing a two-page letter detailing its "spillage" issues to CMP, which entered it into the record at the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

The letter provided figures on the amount of water the utility spilled that could have been converted into sellable energy, if only Hydro-Quebec had a way to get it to market. Instead, by "spilling" the water, the company essentially wasted it.

Instead of sending water through turbines or storing it in reservoirs, hydroelectric operators sometimes discharge water held behind dams down spillways. This can be done for environmental reasons. Other times it is done because the operator has so much water it cannot convert it into electricity or store it, which is usually a seasonal issue: Reservoirs often contain the most water in the spring as temperatures warm and ice melts.

Hydro-Quebec said that, in 2017, it spilled water that could have produced 4.5 terawatt hours of electricity, or slightly more than half the energy needed to fulfill the Massachusetts contracts. In 2018, the letter continued, Hydro-Quebec spilled water that could have been converted into 10.4 terawatts worth of energy. The company said it didn't spill at all due to transmission constraints prior to 2017.

The contracts Hydro-Quebec signed with the Massachusetts utilities are for 9.45 terawatt hours annually for 20 years. In its letter, the utility essentially showed it had only one year of data to show it could cover the terms of the contract with "spilled" energy.

"Reservoir levels have been increasing in the last 15 years. Having reached their maximum levels, spillage maneuvers became necessary in 2017 and 2018," said Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Lynn St. Laurent.

By providing the letter through CMP, Hydro-Quebec did not have to subject its spillage figures to cross examination.

Dr. Shaleen Jain, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Maine, said that, while spilled water could be converted into power generation in some circumstances, spills happen for many different reasons. Knowing whether spillage can be translated into energy requires a great deal of analysis.

"Not all of it can be repurposed or used for hydropower," Jain said.

In December, one of the Maine Public Utility Commission's independent consultants, Gabrielle Roumy, told the commission that there's "no way" to "predict how much water would be spilled each and every year." Roumy, who previously worked for Hydro-Quebec, added that even after seeing the utility's spillage figures, he believed it would need to divert energy from other markets to fulfill its commitment to Massachusetts.

"I think at this point we're still comfortable with our assumptions that, you know, energy would generally be redirected from other markets to NECEC if it were built," Roumy said.

In January, Tanya Bodell, the founder and executive director of consultant Energyzt, testified before the commission on behalf of Calpine that it was impossible to know why Hydro-Quebec was spilling without more data.

"There's a lot of details you'd have to look at in order to properly assess what the reason for the spillage is," Bodell said. "And you have to go into an hourly level because the flows vary across the year, within the month, the week, the days. ...And, frankly, it would have been nice if Hydro-Quebec was here and brought their model and allowed us to see how this could help them to sell more."

Even though CMP and Hydro-Quebec's path to securing approval of the project does not go through the Legislature, and despite a Maine court ruling that energized Hydro-Quebec's export bid, lawmakers have taken notice of Hydro-Quebec's absence. Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, the House chairman of the Joint Committee On Energy Utilities and Technology and a frequent critic of CMP, said he would like to see Hydro-Quebec "show up and subject their proposal to examination and full analysis and public examination by the regulators and the people of Maine."

"They're trying to sell an incredibly lucrative proposal, and they failed in any way to back up those spillage claims with defensible numbers and defensible analysis," Berry said.

Berry was part of a bipartisan group of Maine lawmakers that wrote a letter to Massachusetts regulators last year expressing concerns about the project, which included doubts about whether the line would actually reduce global gas emissions. On Monday, he announced legislation that would direct the state to create an independent entity to buy out CMP from its foreign investors.

'No benefit to remaining quiet'

Hydro-Quebec would like to provide answers, but "there is always a commercially sensitive information concern when we do these things," said spokesperson Abergel.

"There might be stuff we can do, having an independent study that looks at all of this. I'm not worried about the conclusion," Abergel said. "I'm worried about how long it takes."

Instead of asking Hydro-Quebec questions directly, participants in both Maine and Massachusetts regulatory proceedings have had to direct questions for Hydro-Quebec to CMP. That arrangement may be part of Hydro-Quebec's strategy to control its information, said former Maine Public Utilities Commissioner David Littell.

"From a tactical point of view, it may be more beneficial for the evidence to be put through Avangrid and CMP, which actually doesn't have that back-up info, so can't provide it," Littell said.

Getting information about the line from CMP, and its parent company Avangrid, has at times been difficult, opponents say.

In August 2018, the commission's staff warned CMP in a legal filing that it was concerned "about what appears to be a lack of completeness and timeliness by CMP/Avangrid in responding to data requests in this proceeding."

The trouble in getting information from Hydro-Quebec and CMP only creates more questions for Hydro-Quebec, said Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, which opposes the line in favor of Maine-based renewables.

"There's a few questions that should have relatively simple answers. But not answering a couple of those questions creates more questions," Payne said. "Why didn't you intervene in the docket? Why are you not a party to the case? Why won't you respond to these concerns? Why wouldn't you open yourself up to discovery?"

"I don't understand why they won't put it to bed," Payne said. "If you've got the proof to back it up, then there's no benefit to remaining quiet."

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Ontario Electricity Transition faces surging demand, GHG targets, and federal regulations, balancing natural gas, renewables, battery storage, and grid reliability while pursuing net-zero by 2035 and cost-effective decarbonization for industry, EVs, and growing populations.

Key Points

Ontario Electricity Transition is the province's shift to a reliable, low-GHG grid via renewables, storage, and policy.

✅ Demand up 75% by 2050; procurement adds 4,000 MW capacity.

✅ Gas use rises to 25% by 2030, challenging GHG goals.

✅ Tripling wind and solar with storage can cut costs and emissions.

Ontario's electricity sector stands at a pivotal crossroads. Once a leader in clean energy, the province now faces the dual challenge of meeting surging demand while adhering to stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. Recent developments, including the expansion of natural gas infrastructure and proposed federal regulations, have intensified debates about the future of Ontario's energy landscape, as this analysis explains in detail.

Rising Demand and the Need for Expansion

Ontario's electricity demand is projected to increase by 75% by 2050, equivalent to adding four and a half cities the size of Toronto to the grid. This surge is driven by factors such as industrial electrification, population growth, and the transition to electric vehicles. In response, as Ontario confronts a looming shortfall in the coming years, the provincial government has initiated its most ambitious energy procurement plan to date, aiming to secure an additional 4,000 megawatts of capacity by 2030. This includes investments in battery storage and natural gas generation to ensure grid reliability during peak demand periods.

The Role of Natural Gas: A Controversial Bridge

Natural gas has become a cornerstone of Ontario's strategy to meet immediate energy needs. However, this reliance comes with environmental costs. The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) projects that by 2030, natural gas will account for 25% of Ontario's electricity supply, up from 4% in 2017. This shift raises concerns about the province's ability to meet its GHG reduction targets and to embrace clean power in practice. 

The expansion of gas-fired plants, including broader plans for new gas capacity, such as the Portlands Energy Centre in Toronto, has sparked public outcry. Environmental groups argue that these expansions could undermine local emissions reduction goals and exacerbate health issues related to air quality. For instance, emissions from the Portlands plant have surged from 188,000 tonnes in 2017 to over 600,000 tonnes in 2021, with projections indicating a potential increase to 1.65 million tonnes if the expansion proceeds as planned. 

Federal Regulations and Economic Implications

The federal government's proposed clean electricity regulations aim to achieve a net-zero electricity sector by 2035. However, Ontario's government has expressed concerns that these regulations could impose significant financial burdens. An analysis by the IESO suggests that complying with the new rules would require doubling the province's electricity generation capacity, potentially adding $35 billion in costs by 2050, while other estimates suggest that greening Ontario's grid could cost $400 billion over time. This could result in higher residential electricity bills, ranging from $132 to $168 annually starting in 2033.

Pathways to a Sustainable Future

Experts advocate for a diversified approach to decarbonization that balances environmental goals with economic feasibility. Investments in renewable energy sources, such as new wind and solar resources, along with advancements in energy storage technologies, are seen as critical components of a sustainable energy strategy. Additionally, implementing energy efficiency measures and modernizing grid infrastructure can enhance system resilience and reduce emissions. 

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance proposes phasing out gas power by 2035 through a combination of tripling wind and solar capacity and investing in energy efficiency and storage solutions. This approach not only aims to reduce emissions but also offers potential cost savings compared to continued reliance on gas-fired generation. 

Ontario's journey toward a decarbonized electricity grid is fraught with challenges, including balancing reliability, clean, affordable electricity, and environmental sustainability. While natural gas currently plays a significant role in meeting the province's energy needs, its long-term viability as a bridge fuel remains contentious. The path forward will require careful consideration of technological innovations, regulatory frameworks, and public engagement to ensure a clean, reliable, and economically viable energy future for all Ontarians.

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Proton Conducting Fuel Cells enable reversible hydrogen energy storage, coupling electrolyzers and fuel cells with ceramic catalysts and proton-conducting membranes to convert wind and solar electricity into fuel and back to reliable grid power.

Key Points

Proton conducting fuel cells store renewable power as hydrogen and generate electricity using reversible catalysts.

✅ Reversible electrolysis and fuel-cell operation in one device

✅ Ceramic air electrodes hit up to 98% splitting efficiency

✅ Scalable path to low-cost grid energy storage with hydrogen

If we want a shot at transitioning to renewable energy, we’ll need one crucial thing: technologies that can convert electricity from wind, sun, and even electricity from raindrops into a chemical fuel for storage and vice versa. Commercial devices that do this exist, but most are costly and perform only half of the equation. Now, researchers have created lab-scale gadgets that do both jobs. If larger versions work as well, they would help make it possible—or at least more affordable—to run the world on renewables.

The market for such technologies has grown along with renewables: In 2007, solar and wind provided just 0.8% of all power in the United States; in 2017, that number was 8%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the demand for electricity often doesn’t match the supply from solar and wind, a key reason why the U.S. grid isn't 100% renewable today. In sunny California, for example, solar panels regularly produce more power than needed in the middle of the day, but none at night, after most workers and students return home.

Some utilities are beginning to install massive banks of cheaper solar batteries in hopes of storing excess energy and evening out the balance sheet. But batteries are costly and store only enough energy to back up the grid for a few hours at most. Another option is to store the energy by converting it into hydrogen fuel. Devices called electrolyzers do this by using electricity—ideally from solar and wind power—to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas, a carbon-free fuel. A second set of devices called fuel cells can then convert that hydrogen back to electricity to power cars, trucks, and buses, or to feed it to the grid.

But commercial electrolyzers and fuel cells use different catalysts to speed up the two reactions, meaning a single device can’t do both jobs. To get around this, researchers have been experimenting with a newer type of fuel cell, called a proton conducting fuel cell (PCFC), which can make fuel or convert it back into electricity using just one set of catalysts.

PCFCs consist of two electrodes separated by a membrane that allows protons across. At the first electrode, known as the air electrode, steam and electricity are fed into a ceramic catalyst, which splits the steam’s water molecules into positively charged hydrogen ions (protons), electrons, and oxygen molecules. The electrons travel through an external wire to the second electrode—the fuel electrode—where they meet up with the protons that crossed through the membrane. There, a nickel-based catalyst stitches them together to make hydrogen gas (H2). In previous PCFCs, the nickel catalysts performed well, but the ceramic catalysts were inefficient, using less than 70% of the electricity to split the water molecules. Much of the energy was lost as heat.

Now, two research teams have made key strides in improving this efficiency, and a new fuel cell concept brings biological design ideas into the mix. They both focused on making improvements to the air electrode, because the nickel-based fuel electrode did a good enough job. In January, researchers led by chemist Sossina Haile at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, reported in Energy & Environmental Science that they came up with a fuel electrode made from a ceramic alloy containing six elements that harnessed 76% of its electricity to split water molecules. And in today’s issue of Nature Energy, Ryan O’Hayre, a chemist at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, reports that his team has done one better. Their ceramic alloy electrode, made up of five elements, harnesses as much as 98% of the energy it’s fed to split water.

When both teams run their setups in reverse, the fuel electrode splits H2 molecules into protons and electrons. The electrons travel through an external wire to the air electrode—providing electricity to power devices. When they reach the electrode, they combine with oxygen from the air and protons that crossed back over the membrane to produce water.

The O’Hayre group’s latest work is “impressive,” Haile says. “The electricity you are putting in is making H2 and not heating up your system. They did a really good job with that.” Still, she cautions, both her new device and the one from the O’Hayre lab are small laboratory demonstrations. For the technology to have a societal impact, researchers will need to scale up the button-size devices, a process that typically reduces performance. If engineers can make that happen, the cost of storing renewable energy could drop precipitously, thereby moving us closer to cheap abundant electricity at scale, helping utilities do away with their dependence on fossil fuels.

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COP24 Climate Talks in Poland gather nearly 200 nations to finalize the Paris Agreement rulebook, advance the Talanoa Dialogue, strengthen emissions reporting and transparency, and align finance, technology transfer, and IPCC science for urgent mitigation.

Key Points

UNFCCC summit in Katowice to finalize Paris rules, enhance transparency, and drive stronger emissions cuts.

✅ Paris rulebook on reporting, transparency, markets, and timelines

✅ Talanoa Dialogue to assess gaps and raise ambition by 2020

✅ Finance and tech transfer for developing countries under UNFCCC

Delegates from nearly 200 countries have assembled this month in Katowice, Poland — the heart of coal country — to try to move the ball forward on battling climate change.

It’s now the 24th annual meeting, or “COP” — conference of the parties — under the landmark U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the United States signed under then-President George H.W. Bush in 1992. More significantly, it’s the third such meeting since nations adopted the Paris climate agreement in 2015, widely seen at the time as a landmark moment in which, at last, developed and developing countries would share a path toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions, as Obama's clean energy push sought to lock in momentum.

But the surge of optimism that came with Paris has faded lately. The United States, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter, said it would withdraw from the agreement, though it has not formally done so yet. Many other countries are off target when it comes to meeting their initial round of Paris promises — promises that are widely acknowledged to be too weak to begin with. And emissions have begun to rise after a brief hiatus that had lent some hope of progress.

The latest science, meanwhile, is pointing toward increasingly dire outcomes. The amount of global warming that the world already has seen — 1 degree Celsius, 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit — has upended the Arctic, is killing coral reefs and may have begun to destabilize a massive part of Antarctica. A new report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), requested by the countries that assembled in Paris to be timed for this year’s meeting, finds a variety of increasingly severe effects as soon as a rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius arrives — an outcome that can’t be avoided without emissions cuts so steep that they would require societal transformations without any known historical parallel, the panel found.

It’s in this context that countries are meeting in Poland, with expectations and stakes high.

So what’s on the agenda in Poland?

The answer starts with the Paris agreement, which was negotiated three years ago, has been signed by 197 countries and is a mere 27 pages long. It covers a lot, laying out a huge new regime not only for the world as a whole to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, but for each individual country to regularly make new emissions-cutting pledges, strengthen them over time, report emissions to the rest of the world and much more. It also addresses financial obligations that developed countries have to developing countries, including how to achieve clean and universal electricity at scale, and how technologies will be transferred to help that.

But those 27 pages leave open to interpretation many fine points for how it will all work. So in Poland, countries are performing a detailed annotation of the Paris agreement, drafting a “rule book” that will span hundreds of pages.

That may sound bureaucratic, but it’s key to addressing many of the flash points. For instance, it will be hard for countries to trust that their fellow nations are cutting emissions without clear standards for reporting and vetting. Not everybody is ready to accept a process like the one followed in the United States, which not only publishes its emissions totals but also has an independent review of the findings.

“A number of the developing countries are resisting that kind of model for themselves. They see it as an intrusion on their sovereignty,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the many participants in Poland this week. “That’s going to be a pretty tough issue at the end of the day.”

It’s hardly the only one. Also unclear is what countries will do after the time frames on their current emissions-cutting promises are up, which for many is 2025 or 2030. Will all countries then start reporting newer and more ambitious promises every five years? Every 10 years?

That really matters when five years of greenhouse gas emissions — currently about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually — are capable of directly affecting the planet’s temperature.

What can we expect each day?

The conference is in its second week, when higher-level players — basically, the equivalent of cabinet-level leaders in the United States — are in Katowice to advance the negotiations.

As this happens, several big events are on the agenda. On Tuesday and Wednesday is the “Talanoa Dialogue,” which will bring together world leaders in a series of group meetings to discuss these key questions: “Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?”

Friday is the last day of the conference, but pros know these events tend to run long. On Friday — or after — we will be waiting for an overall statement or decision from the meeting which may signal how much has been achieved.

What is the “Talanoa Dialogue”?

“Talanoa” is a word used in Fiji and in many other Pacific islands to refer to “the sharing of ideas, skills and experience through storytelling.” This is the process that organizers settled on to fulfill a plan formed in Paris in 2015.

That year, along with signing the Paris agreement, nations released a decision that in 2018 there should be a “facilitative dialogue" among the countries “to take stock” of where their efforts stood to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This was important because going into that Paris meeting, it was already clear that countries' promises were not strong enough to hold global warming below a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures.

This dialogue, in the Talanoa process, was meant to prompt reflection and maybe even soul searching about what more would have to be done. Throughout the year, “inputs” to the Talanoa dialogue — most prominently, the recent report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the meaning and consequences of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming —have been compiled and synthesized. Now, over two days in Poland, countries' ministers will assemble to share stories in small groups about what is working and what is not and to assess where the world as a whole is on achieving the required greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

What remains to be seen is whether this process will culminate in any kind of product or statement that calls clearly for immediate, strong ramping up of climate change promises across the world.

With the clock ticking, will countries do anything to increase their ambition at this meeting?

If negotiating the Paris rule book sounds disappointingly technical, well, you’re not the only one feeling that way. Pressure is mounting for countries to accomplish something more than that in Poland — to at minimum give a strong signal that they understand that the science is looking worse and worse, and the world’s progress on the global energy transition isn’t matching that outlook.

“The bigger issue is how we’re going to get to an outcome on greater ambition,” said Lou Leonard, senior vice president for climate and energy at the World Wildlife Fund, who is in Poland observing the talks. “And I think the first week was not kind on moving that part of the agenda forward.”

Most countries are not likely to make new emissions-cutting promises this week. But there are two ways that the meeting could give a strong statement that countries should — or will — come up with new promises at least by 2020. That’s when extremely dramatic emissions cuts would have to start, including progress toward net-zero electricity by mid-century, according to the recent report on 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming.

The first is the aforementioned “Talanoa dialogue” (see above). It’s possible that the outcome of the dialogue could be a statement acknowledging that the world isn’t nearly far enough along and calling for much stronger steps.

There will also be a decision text released for the meeting as a whole, which could potentially send a signal. Leonard said he hopes that would include details for the next steps that will put the world on a better course.

“We have to create milestones, and the politics around it that will pressure countries to do something that quite frankly they don’t want to do,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy. That’s why we need a process that will help make it happen. And make the most of the IPCC report that was designed to come out right now so it could do this for us. That’s why we have it, and it needs to serve that role.”

The United States says it will withdraw from the agreement, so what role is it playing in Poland?

Despite President Trump’s pledge to withdraw, the United States remains in the Paris agreement (for now) and has sent a delegation of 44 people to Poland, largely from the State Department but also from the Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Department and even the White House, while domestically a historic U.S. climate law has recently passed to accelerate clean energy. Many of these career government officials remain deeply engaged in hashing out details of the agreement.

Still, the country as a whole is being cast in an antagonistic role in the talks.

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MeyGen Tidal Stream Project delivers record 13.8 GWh to Scotland's grid, showcasing renewable ocean energy. Simec Atlantis Energy's 6 MW array of tidal turbines advances EU power goals and plans an ocean-powered data center.

Key Points

A Scottish tidal energy array exporting record power, using four 1.5 MW turbines and driving renewable innovation.

✅ Delivered 13.8 GWh to the grid in 2019, a project record.

✅ Four 1.5 MW turbines in Phase 1A, 6 MW installed.

✅ Plans include an ocean-powered data center near site.

A tidal power project in waters off the north coast of Scotland, where Scotland’s wind farms also deliver significant output, sent more than 13.8 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity to the grid last year, according to an operational update issued Monday. This figure – a record – almost doubled the previous high of 7.4 GWh in 2018.

In total, the MeyGen tidal stream array has now exported more than 25.5 GWh of electricity to the grid since the start of 2017, according to owners Simec Atlantis Energy. Phase 1A of the project is made up of four 1.5 megawatt (MW) turbines.

The 13.8 GWh of electricity exported in 2019 equates to the average yearly electricity consumption of roughly 3,800 “typical” homes in the U.K., where wind power records have been set recently, according to the company, with revenue generation amounting to £3.9 million ($5.09 million).

Onshore maintenance is now set to be carried out on the AR1500 turbine used by the scheme, with Atlantis aiming to redeploy the technology in spring.

In addition to the production of electricity, Atlantis is also planning to develop an “ocean-powered data centre” near the MeyGen project.

The European Commission has described “ocean energy” as being both abundant and renewable, and milestones like the biggest offshore windfarm starting U.K. supply underscore wider momentum, too. It’s estimated that ocean energy could potentially contribute roughly 10% of the European Union’s power demand by the year 2050, according to the Commission.

While tidal power has been around for decades — EDF’s 240 MW La Rance Tidal Power Plant in France was built as far back as 1966, and the country’s first offshore wind turbine has begun producing electricity — recent years have seen a number of new projects take shape.

In December last year, Scottish tidal energy business Nova Innovation was issued with a permit to develop a project in Nova Scotia, Canada, aiming to harness the Bay of Fundy tides in the region further.

In an announcement at the time, the firm said a total of 15 tidal stream turbines would be installed by the year 2023. The project, according to the firm, will produce enough electricity to power 600 homes, as companies like Sustainable Marine begin delivering tidal energy to the Nova Scotia grid.

Elsewhere, a business called Orbital Marine Power is developing what it describes as the world’s most powerful tidal turbine, with grid-supplied output already demonstrated.

The company says the turbine will have a swept area of more than 600 square meters and be able to generate “over 2 MW from tidal stream resources.” It will use a 72-meter-long “floating superstructure” to support two 1 MW turbines.

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France Electricity Pricing Mechanism aligns with EU rules, leveraging nuclear energy and EDF profits, avoiding Contracts for Difference, redistributing windfalls to industry and households, targeting €70/MWh amid electricity market reform and Brussels oversight.

Key Points

A framework to keep power near €70/MWh by reclaiming EDF windfalls and redistributing them under EU market rules.

✅ Targets average price near €70/MWh from 2026

✅ Skims EDF profits above €78-80 and €110/MWh thresholds

✅ Aligns with EU rules; avoids nuclear CfDs and state aid clashes

France has unveiled a new electricity pricing mechanism, hoping to defuse months of tension over energy subsidies with Brussels and its neighbors.

The strain has included a Franco-German fight over EU electricity reform with Germany accusing France of wanting to subsidize its industry via artificially low energy prices, while Paris maintained it should have the right to make the most of its relatively cheap nuclear energy. That fight has now been settled.

On Tuesday, the French government presented a new mechanism — complex, and still-to-be-detailed — to bring the average price of electricity closer to €70 per megawatt hour (MWh) as of 2026, amid Europe's electricity market revamp efforts.

"The agreement has been defined to comply with European rules and avoid difficulties with the European Commission," said France's Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, noting that France had ruled out other "simpler" options that would have caused tension with Brussels.

For example, France has not yet envisaged the use of state-backed investment schemes called Contracts for Difference (CfD), which were the main source of discord in talks with Germany on the electricity market reform and the EU push for more fixed-price contracts in generation. The compromise agreed by EU ministers last month gives the Commission the power to monitor CfDs in the nuclear sector.

"France wanted to limit as much as possible the European Commission's nuisance power," said Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, an energy expert at the Jacques Delors Institute think tank in Paris.

The announcement came weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron promised that France would "take back control" of its electricity prices to allow its industry to make the most of the country's relatively cheap nuclear energy.

Germany, by contrast, has moved to support energy-intensive industries with an industrial electricity subsidy, underscoring the policy divergence.

“The price of electricity has always been a major competitive advantage for the French nation, and it must remain so,” Le Maire said.

Under the new mechanism, part of a broader deal on electricity prices between the state and EDF, the government will seize EDF profits above certain thresholds and redistribute them directly to industry and households to bring prices closer to the desired level. Specifically, the government will redistribute 50 percent of EDF’s additional profits if prices rise above €78-€80 per MWh, and 90 percent of extra profits if prices rise above €110 per MWh.

The move also marks a new step in the government's power grab at EDF, after the company was fully nationalized earlier this year.

For years, France has been discussing an EDF reform with the Commission in order to address concerns by Brussels regarding disguised state aid to the company. In particular, the Commission wanted assurances that any state aid given to nuclear would be kept separate from those parts of the business subject to competition, such as renewable energy development.

An economy ministry official close to Le Maire argued that the new pricing mechanism would settle matters with Brussels on that front. A Commission spokesperson said Brussels was in contact with France on the file, but declined further comment.

The mechanism will replace the existing EU-mandated energy pricing mechanism, dubbed ARENH, which was set to expire at the end of 2025, and which has forced EDF to sell some of its electricity to competitors at a fixed low price since 2010, and comes amid contested electricity market reforms at EU level.

The new system could benefit EDF because it won't be bound to sell energy at a lower price, but instead will be allowed to auction off its energy to competitors. On the other hand, the redistribution system would deprive the company of some profits when electricity prices are higher. No wonder, then, that negotiations between the government and EDF have been "difficult," as Le Maire put it.

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