Low-emissions sources are set to cover almost all the growth in global electricity demand in the next three years

SEA Electric school bus conversions bring EV electrification to Type A and Type C fleets, adding V2G, smart charging, battery packs, and zero-emissions performance while extending service life with cost-effective retrofits across US school districts.

Key Points

Retrofit EV drivetrains for Type A and C buses, adding V2G and smart charging to cut emissions and costs.

✅ Converts 10,000 Type A and C school buses over five years

✅ Adds V2G, smart charging, and fleet battery management

✅ Cuts diesel fumes, maintenance, and total cost of ownership

Converting a Porsche 356C to electric power is a challenge. There’s precious little room for batteries, converters, and such. But converting a school bus? That’s as easy as falling off a log, even if adoption challenges persist in the sector today. A bus has acres of space for batteries and the electronics need to power an electric motor.

One of the dumbest ideas human beings ever came up with was sealing school children inside a diesel powered bus for the trip to and from school. Check out our recent article on the impact of fossil fuel pollution on the human body. Among other things, fine particulates in the exhaust gases of an internal combustion engine have been shown to lower cognitive function. Whose bright idea was it to make school kids walk through a cloud of diesel fumes twice a day when those same fumes make it harder for them to learn?

Help may be on the way, as lessons from the largest e-bus fleet offer guidance for scaling. SEA Electric, a provider of electric commercial vehicles originally from Australia and now based in Los Angeles has stuck a deal with Midwest Transit Equipment to convert 10,000 existing school buses to electric vehicles over the next five years. Midwest will provide the buses to be converted to the SEA Drive propulsion system. SEA Electric will complete the conversions using its “extensive network of up-fitting partners,” Nick Casas, vice president of sales and marketing for SEA Electric, says in a press release.

After the conversions are completed, the electric buses will have vehicle to grid (V2G) capability that will allow them to help balance the local electrical grid, where state power grids face new demands, and “smart charge” when electricity prices are lowest. The school buses to be converted are of the US school bus class Type A  or Type C. Type A is the smallest US school bus with a length of 6 to 7.5 metres and is based on a van chassis. The traditional Type C school buses are built on truck architectures.

SEA Electric says that the conversion will extend the life of the buses by more than ten years, with early deployments like B.C. electric school buses demonstrating real-world performance, and that two to three converted buses can be had for the price of one new electric bus. Mike Menyhart, chief strategy officer at SEA Electric says, “The secondary use of school buses fitted with all-electric drivetrains makes a lot of sense. It keeps costs down, opens up considerable availability, creates green jobs right here in the US, all while making a difference in the environment and the health of the communities we serve.”

According to John McKinney, CEO of Midwest Transport Equipment, the partnership with SEA Electric will ensure that it can respond more quickly to customers’ needs as policies like California's 2035 school-bus mandate accelerate demand in key markets. “As the industry moves towards zero emissions we are positioned well with our SEA Electric partnership to be a leader of the electrification movement.”

According to Nick Casas, SEA Electric will plans to expand it operations to the UK soon, and intends to do business in six countries in Europe, including Germany, in the years to come. SEA says it will have delivered more than 500 electric commercial vehicles in 2021 and plans to put more than 15,000 electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2023. Just a few weeks ago, SEA Electric announced an order for 1,150 electric trucks based on the Toyota Hino cargo van for the GATR company of California, highlighting truck fleet power needs that utilities must plan for today.

Electric school buses make so much sense. No fumes to fog young brains, lower maintenance costs, and lower fuel costs are all pluses, especially as bus depot charging hubs scale across markets, adding resilience. Extending the service life of an existing bus by a decade will obviously pay big dividends for school bus fleet operators like MTE. It’s a win/win/win situation for all concerned, with the possible exception of diesel mechanics. But the upside there is they can be retrained in how to maintain electric vehicles, a skill that will be in increasing demand as the EV revolution picks up speed.

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Ontario Renewable Energy Procurement 2024 will see the IESO secure wind, solar, and hydro power to meet rising electricity demand, support transit electrification, bolster grid reliability, and serve manufacturing growth across the province.

Key Points

A provincial IESO initiative to add 2,000 MW of clean power and plan 3,000 MW more to meet rising demand.

✅ IESO to procure 2,000 MW from wind, solar, hydro

✅ Exploring 3,000 MW via upgrades and expansions

✅ Demand growth ~2% yearly; electrification and industry

After the Ford government terminated renewable energy contracts five years ago, despite warnings about wind project cancellation costs that year, Ontario's electricity operator, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), is now planning to once again incorporate wind and solar initiatives to address the province's increasing power demands.

The IESO, responsible for managing the provincial power supply, is set to secure 2,000 megawatts of electricity from clean sources, which include wind, solar, and hydro power, as wind power competitiveness increases across Canada. Additionally, the IESO is exploring the possibilities of reacquiring, upgrading, or expanding existing facilities to generate an additional 3,000 MW of electricity in the future.

These new power procurement efforts in Ontario aim to meet the rising energy demand driven by transit electrification and large-scale manufacturing projects, even as national renewable growth projections were scaled back after Ontario scrapped its clean energy program, which are expected to exert greater pressure on the provincial grid.

The IESO projects a consistent growth in demand of approximately two percent per year over the next two decades. This growth has prompted the Ford government, amid debate over Ontario's electricity future in the province, to take proactive measures to prevent potential blackouts or disruptions for both residential and commercial consumers.

This renewed commitment to renewable energy represents a significant policy shift for Premier Doug Ford, reflecting his new stance on wind power over time, who had previously voiced strong opposition to wind turbines and pledged to dismantle all windmills in the province. In 2018, shortly after taking office, the government terminated 750 renewable energy contracts that had been signed by the previous Liberal government, incurring fees of $230 million for taxpayers.

At the time, the government cited reasons such as surplus electricity supply and increased costs for ratepayers as grounds for contract cancellations. Premier Ford expressed pride in the decision, echoing a proud of cancelling contracts stance, claiming that it saved taxpayers $790 million and eliminated what he viewed as detrimental wind turbines that had negatively impacted the province's energy landscape for 15 years.

The Ontario government's new wind and solar energy procurement initiatives are scheduled to commence in 2024, following a court ruling on a Cornwall wind farm that spotlighted cancellation decisions.

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Ukraine Wind Energy Resilience shields the grid with wind power along the Black Sea, dispersing turbines to withstand missile attacks, accelerate clean energy transition, aid EU integration, and strengthen energy security and rapid recovery.

Key Points

A strategy in Ukraine using wind farms to harden the grid, ensure clean power, and speed recovery from missile strikes.

✅ Distributed turbines reduce single-point-of-failure risk

✅ Faster repair of substations and lines than power plants

✅ Supports EU-aligned clean energy and grid security goals

The giants catch the wind with their huge arms, helping to keep the lights on in Ukraine — newly built windmills, on plains along the Black Sea.

In 15 months of war, Russia has launched countless missiles and exploding drones at power plants, hydroelectric dams and substations, trying to black out as much of Ukraine as it can, as often as it can, even amid talk of limiting attacks on energy sites that has surfaced, in its campaign to pound the country into submission.

The new Tyligulska wind farm stands only a few dozen miles from Russian artillery, but Ukrainians say it has a crucial advantage over most of the country’s grid, helping stabilize the system even as electricity exports have occasionally resumed under fire.

A single, well-placed missile can damage a power plant severely enough to take it out of action, but Ukrainian officials say that doing the same to a set of windmills — each one tens of meters apart from any other — would require dozens of missiles. A wind farm can be temporarily disabled by striking a transformer substation or transmission lines, but these are much easier to repair than power plants.

“It is our response to Russians,” said Maksym Timchenko, CEO of DTEK Group, the company that built the turbines in the southern Mykolaiv region — the first phase of what is planned as Eastern Europe’s largest wind farm. “It is the most profitable and, as we know now, most secure form of energy.”

Ukraine has had laws in place since 2014 to promote a transition to renewable energy, both to lower dependence on Russian energy imports, with periods when electricity exports resumed to neighbors, and because it was profitable. But that transition still has a long way to go, and the war makes its prospects, like everything else about Ukraine’s future, murky.

In 2020, 12% of Ukraine’s electricity came from renewable sources — barely half the percentage for the European Union. Plans for the Tyligulska project call for 85 turbines producing up to 500 megawatts of electricity. That’s enough for 500,000 apartments — an impressive output for a wind farm, but less than 1% of the country’s prewar generating capacity.

After the Kremlin began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the need for new power sources became acute, prompting deliveries such as a mobile gas turbine power plant to bolster capacity. Russia has bombarded Ukraine’s power plants and cut off delivery of the natural gas that fueled some of them.

Russian occupation forces have seized a large part of the country’s power supply, and Russia has built power lines to reactivate the Zaporizhzhia plant in occupied territory, ensuring that its output does not reach territory still held by Ukraine. They hold the single largest generator, the 5,700-megawatt Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which has been damaged repeatedly in fighting and has stopped transmitting energy to the grid, with UN inspectors warning of mines at the site during recent visits. They also control 90% of Ukraine’s renewable energy plants, which are concentrated in the southeast.

The postwar recovery plans Ukraine has presented to supporters including the European Union, which it hopes to join, feature a major new commitment to clean energy, even as a controversial proposal on Ukraine’s nuclear plants continues to stir debate.

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Canada Solar Capacity Outlook 2022-2050 projects 500 MW new PV in 2022 and 35 GW by 2050, driven by renewables policy, grid parity, NREL analysis, IEA-PVPS data, and competitive utility-scale photovoltaic costs.

Key Points

An evidence-based forecast of Canadian PV additions to 35 GW by 2050, reflecting policy, costs, and grid parity trends.

✅ 500 MW PV expected in 2022; cumulative capacity near 5 GW

✅ NREL outlook sees 35 GW by 2050 on cost competitiveness

✅ Policy shifts, ITCs, coal retirements accelerate solar uptake

Canada is set to install 500 MW of new solar in 2022, bringing its total capacity to about 5 GW, according to data from Canmet Energy, even as the Netherlands outpaces Canada in solar power generation. The country is expected to hit 35 GW of total solar capacity by 2050.

Canada’s cumulative solar capacity is set to hit 5 GW by the end of this year, according to figures from the federal government’s Canmet Energy lab. The country is expected to add around 500 MW of new solar capacity, from 944 MW last year, according to the International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS), which recently published a report on PV applications in Canada, even as solar demand lags in Canada.

“If we look at the recent averages, Canada has installed around 500 MW annually. I expect in 2022 it will be at least 500 MW,” said Yves Poissant, research manager at Canmet Energy. “Last year it was 944 MW, mainly because of a 465 MW centralized PV power plant installed in Alberta, where the Prairie Provinces are expected to lead national renewable growth.”

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) studied renewables integration and concluded that Canada’s cumulative solar capacity will increase sevenfold to 35 GW by 2050, driven by cost competitiveness and that zero-emissions by 2035 is achievable according to complementary studies.

Canada now produces 80% of its electricity from power sources other than oil. Hydroelectricity leads the mix at 60%, followed by nuclear at 15%, wind at 7%, gas and coal at 7%, and PV at just 1%. While the government aims to increase the share of green electricity to 90% by 2030 and 100% by 2050, zero-emission electricity by 2035 is considered practical and profitable, yet it has not set any specific goals for PV. Each Canadian province and territory is left to determine its own targets.

“Without comprehensive pan-Canadian policy framework with annual capacity targets, PV installation in the coming years will likely continue to be highly variable across the provinces and territories, especially after Ontario scrapped a clean energy program, which scaled back growth projections. Further policies mechanisms are needed to allow PV to reach its full potential,” the IEA-PVPS said.

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Canada recently introduced investment tax credits for renewables to compete with the United States, but it is still far from being a solar powerhouse, with some experts calling it a solar laggard today. That said, the landscape has started to change in the past five years.

“Some laws have been put in place to retire coal plants by 2025. That led to new opportunities to install capacity,” said Poissant. “We expect the newly installed capacity will consist mostly of wind, but also solar.”

The cost of solar has become more competitive and the residential sector is now close to grid parity, according to Poissant. For utility-scale projects, old hydroelectric dams are still considerably cheaper than solar, but newly built installations are now more expensive than solar.

“Starting 2030, solar PV will be cost competitive compared to wind,” Poissant said.

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Accelerate Kootenays EV charging stations expand along Highway 3, adding DC fast charging and Level 2 plugs to cut range anxiety for electric vehicles in B.C., linking communities like Castlegar, Greenwood, and the Alberta border.

Key Points

A regional network of DC fast and Level 2 chargers along B.C.'s Highway 3 to reduce range anxiety and boost EV adoption.

✅ 13 DC fast chargers plus 40 Level 2 stations across key hubs

✅ 20-minute charging stops reduce range anxiety on Highway 3

✅ Backed by BC Hydro, FortisBC, and regional districts

The Kootenays are B.C.'s electric powerhouse, and as part of B.C.'s EV push the region is making significant advances to put electric cars on the road.

The region's dams generate more than half of the province's electricity needs, but some say residents in the region have not taken to electric cars, for instance.

Trish Dehnel is a spokesperson for Accelerate Kootenays, a multi-million dollar coalition involving the regional districts of East Kootenay, Central Kootenay and Kootenay Boundary, along with a number of corporate partners including Fortis B.C. and BC Hydro.

She says one of the major problems in the region — in addition to the mountainous terrain and winter driving conditions — is "range anxiety."

That's when you're not sure your electric vehicle will be able to make it to your destination without running out of power, she explained.

Now, Accelerate Kootenays is hoping a set of new electric charging stations, part of the B.C. Electric Highway project expanding along Highway 3, will make a difference.

No more 'range anxiety'

The expansion includes 40 Level 2 stations and 13 DC Quick Charging stations, mirroring BC Hydro's expansion across southern B.C. strategically located within the region to give people more opportunities to charge up along their travel routes, Dehnel said.

"We will have DC fast-charging stations in all of the major communities along Highway 3 from Greenwood to the Alberta border. You will be able to stop at a fast-charging station and, thanks to faster EV charging technology, charge your vehicle within 20 minutes," she said.

Castlegar car salesman Terry Klapper — who sells the 2017 Chevy Bolt electric vehicle — says it's a great step for the region as sites like Nelson's new fast-charging station come online.

"I guarantee that you'll be seeing electric cars around the Kootenays," he said.

"The interest the public has shown … [I mean] as soon as people found out we had these Bolts on the lot, we've had people coming in every single day to take a look at them and say when can I finally purchase it."

The charging stations are set to open by the end of next year.

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Maxeon IBC Solar Factory USA will scale clean energy with high-efficiency interdigitated back contact panels, DOE-backed manufacturing in Albuquerque, utility-scale supply, domestic production, 3 GW capacity, reduced imports, carbon-free electricity leadership.

Key Points

DOE-backed Albuquerque plant making high-efficiency IBC panels, 3 GW yearly, for utility-scale, domestic solar supply.

✅ 3 GW annual capacity; up to 8 million panels produced

✅ IBC cell efficiency up to 24.7% for utility-scale projects

✅ Reduces U.S. reliance on imported panels via domestic manufacturing

Solar energy stands as a formidable source of carbon-free electricity, with the No. 3 renewable source in the U.S. offering a clean alternative to traditional power generation methods reliant on polluting fuels. Advancements in solar technology continue to emerge, with a U.S.-based company poised to spearhead progress from a cutting-edge factory in New Mexico.

Maxeon, initially hailing from Silicon Valley in the 1980s, recently ventured into independence after separating from its parent company, SunPower, in 2020. Over the past few years, Maxeon has been manufacturing solar panels in Mexico, Malaysia, and the Philippines, as record U.S. panel shipments underscored rising demand.

Now, with backing from the U.S. Department of Energy's Loans Programs Office, Maxeon is preparing to commence construction on a new facility in Albuquerque in 2024, amid unprecedented growth in solar and storage nationwide. This state-of-the-art factory aims to produce up to 8 million panels annually, featuring the company's interdigitated back contact (IBC) technology, which has the capacity to generate three gigawatts of power each year. Notably, the entire U.S. solar industry completed five gigawatts of panels in 2022, making Maxeon's endeavor particularly ambitious and aligned with Biden's proposed tenfold increase in solar power goals.

Maxeon's presence in the United States holds the potential to reduce the country's reliance on imported panels, particularly from China. The primary focus will be on providing this advanced technology for utility departments, where pairing with increasingly affordable batteries can enhance grid reliability while shifting away from residential and commercial rooftops.

Maxeon has achieved a remarkable milestone in solar efficiency, with its latest IBC technology boasting an efficiency rating of 24.7%, as reported by PV Magazine.

This strategic move to the United States could be a game-changer, not only for Maxeon's success but also for clean power generation in a nation that has traditionally depended on external sources for its supply of solar panels, as energy-hungry Europe turns to U.S. solar equipment makers for solutions. Matt Dawson, Maxeon's Chief Technology Officer, emphasized the importance of achieving the lowest levelized cost of electricity with the lowest overall capital, a feat that China has accomplished in recent years due to the strength of its supply chain. As energy independence becomes a global concern, solar manufacturing is poised to expand beyond China, with Southeast Asia already showing signs of growth, and now the United States and possibly Europe, including Germany's solar boost during the energy crisis, following suit.

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