Old Edison mine to get a makeover

Canada Electricity Supply Crunch underscores grid reliability risks, aging infrastructure, and rising demand, pushing upgrades in transmission, energy storage, smart grid technology, and renewable energy integration to protect industry, consumers, and climate goals.

Key Points

A nationwide power capacity shortfall stressing the grid, raising outage risks and slowing the renewable transition.

✅ Demand growth and aging infrastructure strain transmission capacity

✅ Smart grid, storage, and interties improve reliability and flexibility

✅ Accelerated renewables and efficiency reduce fossil fuel reliance

Canada, known for its vast natural resources and robust energy sector, is now confronting a significant challenge: a crunch in electrical supply. A recent report from EnergyNow.ca highlights the growing concerns over Canada’s electricity infrastructure, revealing that the country is facing a critical shortage that could impact both consumers and industries alike. This development raises pressing questions about the future of Canada’s energy landscape and its implications for the nation’s economy and environmental goals.

The Current Electrical Supply Dilemma

According to EnergyNow.ca, Canada’s electrical supply is under unprecedented strain due to several converging factors. One major issue is the rapid pace of economic and population growth, particularly in urban centers. This expansion has increased demand for electricity, putting additional pressure on an already strained grid. Compounding this issue are aging infrastructure and a lack of sufficient investment in modernizing the electrical grid to meet current and future needs, with interprovincial frictions such as the B.C. challenge to Alberta's export restrictions further complicating coordination.

The report also points out that Canada’s reliance on certain types of energy sources, including fossil fuels, exacerbates the problem. While the country has made strides in renewable energy, including developments in clean grids and batteries across provinces, the transition has not kept pace with the rising demand for electricity. This imbalance highlights a crucial gap in Canada’s energy strategy that needs urgent attention.

Economic and Social Implications

The shortage in electrical supply has significant economic and social implications. For businesses, particularly those in energy-intensive sectors such as manufacturing and technology, the risk of power outages or unreliable service can lead to operational disruptions and financial losses. Increased energy costs due to supply constraints could also affect profit margins and competitiveness on both domestic and international fronts, with electricity exports at risk amid trade tensions.

Consumers are not immune to the impact of this electrical supply crunch. The potential for rolling blackouts or increased energy prices, as debates over electricity rates and innovation continue nationwide, can strain household budgets and affect overall quality of life. Additionally, inconsistent power supply can affect essential services, including healthcare facilities and emergency services, highlighting the critical nature of reliable electricity for public safety and well-being.

Investment and Infrastructure Upgrades

Addressing the electrical supply crunch requires significant investment in infrastructure and technology, and recent tariff threats have boosted support for Canadian energy projects that could accelerate these efforts. The EnergyNow.ca report underscores the need for modernizing the electrical grid to enhance capacity and resilience. This includes upgrading transmission lines, improving energy storage solutions, and expanding the integration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Investing in smart grid technology is also essential. Smart grids use digital communication and advanced analytics to optimize electricity distribution, detect outages, and manage demand more effectively. By adopting these technologies, Canada can better balance supply and demand, reduce the risk of blackouts, and improve overall efficiency in energy use.

Renewable Energy Transition

Transitioning to renewable energy sources is a critical component of addressing the electrical supply crunch. While Canada has made progress in this area, the pace of change needs to accelerate under the new Clean Electricity Regulations for 2050 that set long-term targets. Expanding the deployment of wind, solar, and hydroelectric power can help diversify the energy mix and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Additionally, supporting innovations in energy storage and grid management will enhance the reliability and sustainability of renewable energy.

The EnergyNow.ca report highlights several ongoing initiatives and projects aimed at increasing renewable energy capacity. However, these efforts must be scaled up and supported by both public policy and private investment to ensure that Canada can meet its energy needs and climate goals.

Policy and Strategic Planning

Effective policy and strategic planning are crucial for addressing the electrical supply challenges, with an anticipated electricity market reshuffle in at least one province signaling change ahead. Government action is needed to support infrastructure investment, incentivize renewable energy adoption, and promote energy efficiency measures. Collaborative efforts between federal, provincial, and municipal governments, along with private sector stakeholders, will be key to developing a comprehensive strategy for managing Canada’s electrical supply.

Public awareness and engagement are also important. Educating consumers about energy conservation practices and encouraging the adoption of energy-efficient technologies can contribute to reducing overall demand and alleviating some of the pressure on the electrical grid.

Conclusion

Canada’s electrical supply crunch is a pressing issue that demands immediate and sustained action. The growing demand for electricity, coupled with aging infrastructure and a lagging transition to renewable energy, poses significant challenges for the country’s economy and daily life. Addressing this issue will require substantial investment in infrastructure, advancements in technology, and effective policy measures. By taking a proactive and collaborative approach, Canada can navigate this crisis and build a more resilient and sustainable energy future.

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DOE GOPHURRS Grid Undergrounding accelerates ARPA-E innovations to modernize the power grid, boosting reliability, resilience, and security via underground power lines, AI-driven surveying, robotic tunneling, and safer cable splicing for clean energy transmission and distribution.

Key Points

A DOE-ARPA-E program funding undergrounding tech to modernize the grid and improve reliability and security.

✅ $34M for 12 ARPA-E projects across 11 states

✅ Underground power lines to boost reliability and resilience

✅ Robotics, AI, and safer splicing to cut costs and risks

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has earmarked $34 million for 12 innovative projects across 11 states to bolster and modernize the nation’s power grid, complementing efforts like a Washington state infrastructure grant announced to strengthen resilience.

Under the Grid Overhaul with Proactive, High-speed Undergrounding for Reliability, Resilience, and Security (GOPHURRS) program, this funding is focused on developing efficient and secure undergrounding technologies. The initiative is aligned with President Biden’s vision to strengthen America's energy infrastructure and advance smarter electricity infrastructure priorities, thereby creating jobs, enhancing energy and national security, and advancing towards a 100% clean electricity grid by 2035.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm emphasized the criticality of modernizing the power grid to facilitate a future powered by clean energy, including efforts to integrate more solar into the grid nationwide, thus reducing energy costs and bolstering national security. This development, she noted, is pivotal in bringing the grid into the 21st Century.

The U.S. electric power distribution system, comprising over 5.5 million line miles and over 180 million power poles, is increasingly vulnerable to weather-related damage, contributing to a majority of annual power outages. Extreme weather events, intensified by climate change impacts across the nation, exacerbate the frequency and severity of these outages. Undergrounding power lines is an effective measure to enhance system reliability for transmission and distribution grids.

Managed by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the newly announced projects include contributions from small and large businesses, national labs, and universities. These initiatives are geared towards developing technologies that will lower costs, expedite undergrounding operations, and enhance safety. Notable projects involve innovations like Arizona State University’s water-jet construction tool for deploying electrical cables underground, GE Vernova Advanced Research’s robotic worm tunnelling construction tool, and Melni Technologies’ redesigned medium-voltage power cable splice kits.

Other significant projects include Oceanit’s subsurface sensor system for avoiding utility damage during undergrounding and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s AI system for processing geophysical survey data. Prysmian Cables and Systems USA’s project focuses on a hands-free power cable splicing machine to improve network reliability and workforce safety, complementing state efforts like California's $500 million grid investment to upgrade infrastructure.

Complete descriptions of these projects can be found on the ARPA-E website, while a recent grid report card highlights challenges these efforts aim to address.

ARPA-E’s mission is to advance clean energy technologies with high potential and impact, playing a strategic role in America’s energy security, including military preparedness for grid cyberattacks as a priority. This commitment ensures the U.S. remains a global leader in developing and deploying advanced clean energy technologies.

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ACCC energy underwriting guarantee proposes government-backed certainty for new generation, cutting electricity prices and supporting gas, pumped hydro, renewables, batteries, and potentially coal-fired power, addressing market failure without direct subsidies.

Key Points

A tech-neutral, government-backed plan underwriting new generation revenue to increase certainty and cut power prices.

✅ Government guarantee provides a revenue floor for new generators.

✅ Technology neutral: coal, gas, renewables, pumped hydro, batteries.

✅ Intended to reduce bills by up to $400 and address market failure.

Australian Taxpayers won't directly fund any new power plants despite some Coalition MPs seizing on a new report to call for a coal-fired power station.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recommended the government give financial certainty to new power plants, guaranteeing energy will be bought at a cheap price if it can't be sold, as part of an electricity market plan to avoid threats to supply.

It's part of a bid to cut up to $400 a year from average household power prices.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the finance proposal had merit, but he ruled out directly funding specific types of power generation.

"We are not in the business of subsidising one technology or another," he told reporters in Queensland today.

"We've done enough of that. Frankly, there's been too much of that."

Renewable subsidies, designed in the 1990s to make solar and wind technology more affordable, have worked and will end in 2020.

Some Coalition MPs claim the ACCC's recommendation to underwrite power generation is vindication for their push to build new coal-fired power plants.

But ACCC chair Rod Sims said no companies had proposed building new coal plants - instead they're trying to build new gas projects, pumped hydro or renewable projects.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Mr Turnbull was offering solutions years away, having overseen a rise in power prices over the past year.

"You don't just go down to K-Mart and get a coal-fired power station off the shelf," Mr Shorten told reporters, admitting he had not read the ACCC report.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the recommendation to underwrite new power generators had a lot of merit, as it would address a market failure highlighted by AEMO warnings about reduced reserves.

"What they're saying is the government needs to step in here to provide some sort of assurance," Mr Frydenberg told 9NEWS today.

He said that could include coal, gas, renewable energy or battery storage.

Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie said science should determine which technology would get the best outcomes for power bills, with a scrapping coal report suggesting it can be costly.

Mr Turnbull said there was strong support for the vast majority of the ACCC's 56 recommendations, but the government would carefully consider the report, which sets out a blueprint to cut electricity bills by 25 percent.

Acting Greens leader Adam Bandt said Australia should exit coal-fired power in favour of renewable energy to cut pollution.

In contrast, Canada has seen the Stop the Shock campaign advocate a return to coal power in some provinces.

The Australian Energy Council, which represents 21 major energy companies, said the government should consult on changes to avoid "unintended consequences".

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National Grid power supply warning highlights electricity shortage risks amid low wind output, generator outages, and cold weather, reducing capacity margins and grid stability; considering demand response and reserve power to avoid blackout risk.

Key Points

An alert that reduced capacity from low wind and outages requires actions to maintain UK grid stability.

✅ Low wind output and generator outages reduce capacity margins

✅ ESO exploring demand response and reserve generation options

✅ Aim: maintain grid stability and avoid blackout risk

National Grid has warned that Britain’s electricity will be in short supply over the next few days after a string of unplanned power plant outages and unusually low wind speeds this week, as cheap wind power wanes across the system.

The electricity system operator said it will take action to “make sure there is enough generation” during the cold weather spell, including virtual power plants and other demand-side measures, to prevent a second major blackout in as many years.

“Unusually low wind output coinciding with a number of generator outages means the cushion of spare capacity we operate the system with has been reduced,” the company told its Twitter followers.

“We’re exploring measures and actions to make sure there is enough generation available to increase our buffer of capacity.”

A spokeswoman for National Grid said the latest electricity supply squeeze was not expected to be as severe as recorded last month, following reports that the government’s emergency energy plan was not going ahead, and added that the company did not expect to issue an official warning in the next 24 hours.

“We’re monitoring how the situation develops,” she said.

The warning is the second from the electricity system operator in recent weeks. In mid-September the company issued an official warning to the electricity market as peak power prices climbed, that its ‘buffer’ of power reserves had fallen below 500MW and it may need to call on more power plants to help prevent a blackout. The notice was later withdrawn.

Concerns over National Grid’s electricity supplies have been relatively rare in recent years. It was forced in November 2015 to ask businesses to cut their demand as a “last resort” measure to keep the lights on after a string of coal plant breakdowns.

But since then, National Grid’s greater challenge has been an oversupply of electricity, partly due to record wind generation, which has threatened to overwhelm the grid during times of low electricity demand.

National Grid has already spent almost £1bn on extra measures to prevent blackouts over the first half of the year by paying generators to produce less electricity during the coronavirus lockdown, as daily demand fell.

The company paid wind farms to turn off, and EDF Energy to halve the nuclear generation from its Sizewell B nuclear plant, to avoid overwhelming the grid when demand for electricity fell by almost a quarter from last year.

The electricity supply squeeze comes a little over a year after National Grid left large parts of England and Wales without electricity after the biggest blackout in a decade left a million homes in the dark. National Grid blamed a lightning strike for the widespread power failure.

Similar supply strains have recently caused power cuts in China, underscoring how weather and generation mix can trigger blackouts.

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Clean Electricity Standard (CES) sets utility emissions targets, uses tradable credits, and advances decarbonization via technology-agnostic benchmarks, carbon capture, renewable portfolio standards, upstream methane accounting, and cap-and-trade alternatives in reconciliation policy.

Key Points

CES sets utility emissions targets using tradable credits and benchmarks to drive power-sector decarbonization.

✅ Annual clean energy targets phased to 2050

✅ Tradable credits for compliance across utilities

✅ Includes upstream methane and lifecycle emissions

The Biden Administration and Democratic members of Congress have supported including a clean electricity standard (CES) in the upcoming reconciliation bill. A CES is an alternative to pricing carbon dioxide through a tax or cap-and-trade program and focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced during electricity generation by establishing targets, while early assessments show mixed results so far. In principle, it is a technology-agnostic approach. In practice, however, it pushes particular technologies out of the market.

The details of the CES are still being developed, but recent legislation may provide insight into how the CES could operate. In May, Senator Tina Smith and Representative Ben Ray Luján introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2019 (CESA), while Minnesota's 100% carbon-free mandate offers a state-level parallel, and in January 2020, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a discussion draft of the Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s (CLEAN) Future Act. Both bills increase the clean energy target annually until 2050 in order to phase out emissions. Both bills also create a credit system where clean sources of electricity as determined by a benchmark, carbon dioxide emitted per kilowatt-hour, receive credits. These credits may be transferred, sold, and auctioned so utilities that fail to meet targets can procure credits from others, as large energy customers push to accelerate clean energy globally.

The bills’ benchmarks vary, and while the CLEAN Future Act allows natural gas-fired generators to receive partial credits, CESA does not. Under both bills, these generators would be expected to install carbon capture technology to continue meeting increasing targets for clean electricity generation. Both bills go beyond considering the emissions resulting from generation and include upstream emissions for natural gas-fired generators. Natural gas, a greenhouse gas, that is leaked upstream of a generator during transportation is to be included among its emissions. The CLEAN Future Act also calls for newly constructed hydropower generators to account for the emissions associated with the facility’s construction despite producing clean electricity. These additional provisions demonstrate not only the CES’s inability to fully address the issue of emissions but also the slippery slope of expanding the program to include other markets, echoing cost and reliability concerns as California exports its energy policies across the West.

A majority of states have adopted clean energy, electricity, or renewable portfolio standards, with some considering revamping electricity rates to clean the grid, leaving legislators with plenty of examples to consider. As they weigh their options, legislators should consider if they are effectively addressing the problem at hand, economy-wide emissions reductions, and at what cost, drawing on examples like New Mexico's 100% clean electricity bill to inform trade-offs.

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US January power generation climbed to 373.2 TWh, EIA data shows, with coal edging natural gas, record wind output, record nuclear generation, rising hydro, and stable utility-scale solar amid higher Henry Hub prices.

Key Points

US January power generation hit 373.2 TWh; coal led gas, wind and nuclear set records, with solar edging higher.

✅ Coal 31.8% share; gas 29.4%; coal output 118.7 TWh, gas 109.6 TWh.

✅ Wind hit record 26.8 TWh; nuclear record 74.6 TWh.

✅ Total generation 373.2 TWh, highest January since 2014.

The US generated 373.2 TWh of power in January, up 7.9% from 345.9 TWh in December and 9.3% higher than the same month in 2017, Energy Information Administration data shows.

The monthly total was the highest amount in January since 377.3 TWh was generated in January 2014.

Coal generation totaled 118.7 TWh in January, up 11.4% from 106.58 TWh in December and up 2.8% from the year-ago month, consistent with projections of a coal-fired generation increase for the first time since 2014. It was also the highest amount generated in January since 132.4 TWh in 2015.

For the second straight month, more power was generated from coal than natural gas, as 109.6 TWh came from gas, up 3.3% from 106.14 TWh in December and up 19.9% on the year.

However, the 118.7 TWh generated from coal was down 9.6% from the five-year average for the month, due to the higher usage of gas and renewables and a rising share of non-fossil generation in the overall mix.

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Coal made up 31.8% of the total US power generation in January, up from 30.8% in December but down from 33.8% in January 2017.

Gas` generation share was at 29.4% in the latest month, with momentum from record gas-fired electricity earlier in the period, down from 30.7% in December but up from 26.8% in the year-ago month.

In January, the NYMEX Henry Hub gas futures price averaged $3.16/MMBtu, up 13.9% from $2.78/MMBtu averaged in December but down 4% from $3.29/MMBtu averaged in the year-ago month.

WIND, NUCLEAR GENERATION AT RECORD HIGHS

Wind generation was at a record-high 26.8 TWh in January, up 29.3% from 22.8 TWh in December and the highest amount on record, according to EIA data going back to January 2001. Wind generated 7.2% of the nation`s power in January, as an EIA summer outlook anticipates larger wind and solar contributions, up from 6.6% in December and 6.1% in the year-ago month.

Utility-scale solar generated 3.3 TWh in January, up 1.3% from 3.1 TWh in December and up 51.6% on the year. In January, utility-scale solar generation made up 0.9% of US power generation, during a period when solar and wind supplied 10% of US electricity in early 2018, flat from December but up from 0.6% in January 2017.

Nuclear generation was also at a record-high 74.6 TWh in January, up 1.3% month on month and the highest monthly total since the EIA started tracking it in January 2001, eclipsing the previous record of 74.3 TWh set in July 2008. Nuclear generation made up 20% of the US power in January, down from 21.3% in December and 21.4% in the year-ago month.

Hydro power totaled 25.4 TWh in January, making up 6.8% of US power generation during the month, up from 6.5% in December but down from 8.2% in January 2017.

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