Seasonal power rates could cause consumer backlash

Electric Vehicle Market Growth accelerated as EV adoption hit 2 million in 2016, per IEA, led by China, Tesla momentum, policy incentives, charging infrastructure buildout, and diesel decline under Paris Agreement goals.

Key Points

EV adoption rose to 2 million in 2016, driven by policy, China, and charging buildout, yet still only 0.2% of cars.

✅ 2M EVs on roads in 2016; 60% YoY growth

✅ China led with >40% of global EV sales

✅ Policies target 30% share by 2030 via EVI

The number of electric vehicles on the road rocketed to 2 million in 2016 as the age of electric cars accelerates after being virtually non-existent just five years ago, according to the International Energy Agency.

Registered plug-in and battery-powered vehicles on roads worldwide rose 60% from the year before, according to the Global EV Outlook 2017 report from the Paris-based IEA. Despite the rapid growth, electric vehicles still represent just 0.2% of total light-duty vehicles even as U.S. EV sales continue to soar into 2024, suggesting a turning point.

“China was by far the largest electric car market, accounting for more than 40% of the electric cars sold in the world and more than double the amount sold in the United States,” the IEA wrote in the report published Wednesday. “It is undeniable that the current electric car market uptake is largely influenced by the policy environment.”

A multi government program called the Electric Vehicle Initiative on Thursday will set a goal for 30% market share for battery power cars, buses, trucks and vans by 2030, aligning with projections that driving electric cars within a decade could become commonplace, according to IEA. The 10 governments in the initiative include China, France, Germany, the UK and US.

India, which isn’t part of the group, said last month that it plans to sell only electric cars by the end of the next decade. Countries and cities are looking to electric vehicles to help tackle their air pollution problems.

In order to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the target set by the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, the world will need 600 million electric vehicles by 2040, according to the IEA.

After struggling for consumer acceptance, Tesla Inc. has made electric vehicles cool and trendy, and is pushing into the mass market as the United States approaches a tipping point for mass adoption with the new Model 3 sedan.

Consumer interest and charging infrastructure, as well as declining demand for diesel cars in the wake of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, has spurred massive investments in plug-in cars, and across Europe the share of electric cars grew during virus lockdown months, reinforcing this momentum. An electrical vehicle “cool factor” could spur sales to 450 million by 2035, according to BP chief economist Spencer Dale.

Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, plans to roll out four affordable electric vehicles in the coming years as part of a goal to sell more than 2 million battery-powered vehicles a year by 2025. Mercedes-Benz accelerated the introduction of ten new electric vehicles by three years to 2022 to take on Tesla as the dominance of the combustion engine gradually fades. 

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Australian VRF Battery Market sees a commercial-scale solar and storage demonstration by Energy Made Clean, Sumitomo Electric, and TNG, integrating vanadium redox flow systems with microgrids for grid-scale renewable energy reliability across Australia.

Key Points

A growing sector deploying vanadium redox flow batteries for scalable, long-life energy storage across Australia.

✅ Commercial demo by EMC, Sumitomo Electric, and TNG

✅ Integrates solar PV with containerized VRF systems

✅ Targets microgrids and grid-scale renewable reliability

Carnegie Wave Energy’s 100 per cent owned subsidiary, Energy Made Clean, is set to develop and demonstrate a commercial-scale solar and battery storage plant in Australia, after entering into a joint venture targeting Australia’s vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery market.

Carnegie said on Tuesday that EMC had signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese company Sumitomo Electric Industries and ASX-listed TNG Limited to assess the potential applications of VRF batteries through an initial joint energy storage demonstration project in Australia.

The deal builds on a June 2015 MOU between EMC and emerging strategic metals company TNG, to establish the feasibility of Vanadium Redox batteries. And it comes less than two months after Carnegie took full ownership of the Perth-based EMC, which has established itself as one of the Australia’s foremost micro-grid and battery storage businesses, reflecting momentum in areas such as green hydrogen microgrids internationally.

Energy Made Clean’s main role in the partnership will be to identify commercial project site opportunities, while also designing and supplying a compatible balance of plant – likely to include solar PV – to integrate with the VRF containerised system being supplied by Sumitomo.

The demonstration will be of commercial size, to best showcase Sumitomo’s technology, the companies said; with each party contributing to their core competencies, and subsequently cooperating on the marketing and sales of VRF batteries.

As we have noted on RE before, vanadium redox flow batteries are tipped to be one of the key players in the booming global energy storage market, alongside innovations like gravity storage investment, as more and more renewable energy sources are brought onto grids around the world.

The batteries are considered uniquely suited to on- and off-grid energy storage applications, and emerging models like vehicle-to-building power, due to their scalability and long asset lives, with deep and very high cycling capability.

Australia, as well as being a key market for battery storage uptake, has seen a recent grid rule change that could impact big batteries, and has been noted for its potential to become a top global producer of vanadium – a metal found in a range of mineral deposits.

A number of Australian companies are already active in the local vanadium redox flow battery market, including miner Australian Vanadium – which recently inked a deal with Germany battery maker Gildemeister Energy Storage to sell its CellCube range of VRF batteries – and Brisbane based battery maker Redflow.

Energy Made Clean CEO John Davidson said the signing of the MOU would bring key industry innovators together to help revolutionise the vanadium redox flow battery market in Australia.

“This strategic MoU represents a compelling three-way tie-up of an emerging miner, a manufacturer and an integrator to accelerate the development of a major new energy growth market,” Davidson said.  

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Ontario Hydro Rate Cuts address soaring electricity prices, lowering hydro bills via refinancing, FAO-reviewed costs, and long-term infrastructure investment, balancing ratepayer relief with a projected $21 billion net expense over 30 years.

Key Points

Ontario electricity bill relief spreading infrastructure and green energy costs over 30 years via refinancing.

✅ 25% average bill cut; $156 to $123 per month

✅ FAO projects $21B net cost over 30 years

✅ Costs shifted to long-term debt, infrastructure, green energy

Premier Kathleen Wynne is making no apologies for the Liberals’ 25 per cent hydro rate cuts, legislation to lower electricity rates that a legislative watchdog warns will cost at least $21 billion over three decades.

In the wake of Financial Accountability Officer Stephen LeClair’s report on the “Fair Hydro Plan,” Wynne emphasized that Ontario electricity consumers demanded and deserved relief.

“You all read the newspaper, you listen to the radio and you watch television — you know the problems that families are having around the province paying for their electricity costs,” the premier told reporters Thursday in Timmins.

That’s why the government moved forward with a rate cut, with recent Hydro One reconnections underscoring the stakes, that will see the average household’s monthly hydro bill drop from $156 to $123 once it fully takes effect next month.

In a 15-page report released Wednesday, the financial accountability officer estimated the initiative would cost the province $45 billion over the next 29 years amid a cabinet warning on prices that electricity costs could soar, while saving ratepayers $24 billion for a next expense of $21 billion.

Both the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats oppose the Liberal rate cut, arguing that a deal with Quebec would not lower hydro bills.

But Wynne said the government has in effect renegotiated a mortgage so it will bankroll hydro infrastructure improvements over a longer time period, though some have urged the next government to scrap the Fair Hydro Plan and review options, in order to give customers a break now.

“We’re talking about a 30-year window here. It took at least 30 years, probably 40 years, to let the electricity system degrade to the stage that it had in 2003,” she said, noting “we were having blackouts and brownouts around the province” before her party took office that year.

“There were thousands of kilometres of line that needed to be rebuilt . . . that work hadn’t been done over those generations, so electricity costs were low over that period of time but the work wasn’t being done.”

When her predecessor Dalton McGuinty came to power in 2003, Wynne said Queen’s Park began spending billions on infrastructure improvements, including expensive subsidies for green energy, such as wind turbines and solar panels.

“There’s a lot of work that has been done since then. Literally thousands of kilometres of line have been rebuilt. The coal-fired plants have been shut down. The air is cleaner. There’s less pollution in the air. The system is reliable and renewable,” she said.

“So there’s a cost associated with that and what was happening was that was work that had to be done — and all of those costs were on the shoulders of people today.”

Wynne noted “this electricity grid is an asset that is going to be used for generations to come.”

“My grandchildren are going to benefit from this asset, so I think it’s fair that we spread the cost of that over that 30-year period,” she said.

“That’s how we made this decision.”

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National Electricity Market review calls for clear coal-fired closure schedules to safeguard energy security, backing a technology-agnostic clean energy and low emissions target with tradeable certificates to stabilise prices and support a smoother transition.

Key Points

A review proposing orderly coal closures and a technology-agnostic clean energy target to protect grid reliability.

✅ Mandates advance notice of coal plant closure schedules

✅ Supports clean energy and low emissions target with certificates

✅ Aims to stabilise prices and ensure system security

THE Latrobe Valley’s coal-fired power stations could be forced to give details of planned closures well in advance to help governments avoid major threats to electricity supply, amid an AEMO warning on reduced reserves across the grid.

The much-anticipated review of the national electricity market, to be released on Friday, will outline the need for clear schedules for the closure of coal-fired power stations to avoid rushed decisions on ­energy security.

It is believed the Turnbull government, which has ruled out taxpayer-funded power plants in the current energy debate, will move toward either a clean-energy or a low-emissions target that aims to bolster power security while reducing household bills and emissions.

The system, believed to be also favoured by industry, would likely provide a more stable transition to clean energy by engaging with the just transition concept seen in other markets, because coal-fired power would not be driven out of the market as quickly.

Sources said that would lead to greater investment in the energy sector, a surplus of production and, as seen in Alberta's shift to gas and price cap debate driving market changes, a cut in prices.

It is likely most coal-fired power stations, such as Yallourn and Loy Yang in the Latrobe Valley, would see out their “natural lives” under the government’s favoured system, rather than be forced out of business by an EIS.

The new target would be separate from the Renewable Energy Target which have come under fire because of ad hoc federal and state targets.

The Herald Sun has been told the policy would provide tradeable clean-energy certificates for low-emissions generation, such as wind, solar and gas and coal which used carbon capture and storage technology.

Energy retailers and large industrial users would then be ­required to source a mandated amount of certified clean power.

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has repeatedly said any solution must be “technology agnostic” including gas, renewable energy and coal, amid ongoing debates over whether to save or close nuclear plants such as the Three Mile Island debate in other markets.

Energy Networks Australia’s submission to the review, chaired by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, acknowledged the challenges in identifying potential generation closures, particularly with uncertain and poorly integrated state and national carbon policy settings.

The group said given the likelihood of further closures of coal fired generation units a new mechanism was needed to better manage changes in the generation mix, well in advance of the closure of the plant.

It said the implications for system stability were “too significant” to rely on the past short-term closures, such as Hazelwood, particularly when the amount of power generated could drive energy security to “tipping point”.

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CrashOverride malware is a Russian-linked ICS cyberweapon targeting power grids, SCADA systems, and utility networks; linked to Electrum/Sandworm, it threatens U.S. transmission and distribution with modular attacks and time-bomb payloads across critical infrastructure.

Key Points

A modular ICS malware linked to Russian actors that disrupts power grids via SCADA abuse and forced breaker outages.

✅ Targets breakers and substation devices to sustain outages

✅ Modular payloads adapt to ICS protocols and vendors

✅ Enables timed, multi-site attacks against transmission and distribution

Hackers allied with the Russian government have devised a cyberweapon that has the potential to be the most disruptive yet against electric systems that Americans depend on for daily life, according to U.S. researchers.

The malware, which researchers have dubbed CrashOverride, is known to have disrupted only one energy system — in Ukraine in December. In that incident, the hackers briefly shut down one-fifth of the electric power generated in Kiev.

But with modifications, it could be deployed against U.S. electric transmission and distribution systems to devastating effect, said Sergio Caltagirone, director of threat intelligence for Dragos, a cybersecurity firm that studied the malware and issued a recent report.

And Russian government hackers have shown their interest in targeting U.S. energy and other utility systems, with reports of suspected breaches at U.S. power plants in recent years, researchers said.

“It’s the culmination of over a decade of theory and attack scenarios,” Caltagirone warned. “It’s a game changer.”

The revelation comes as the U.S. government is investigating a wide-ranging, ambitious effort by the Russian government last year to disrupt the U.S. presidential election and influence its outcome, and has issued a condemnation of Russian power grid hacking as well. That campaign employed a variety of methods, including hacking hundreds of political and other organizations, and leveraging social media, U.S. officials said.

Dragos has named the group that created the new malware Electrum, and it has determined with high confidence that Electrum used the same computer systems as the hackers who attacked the Ukraine electric grid in 2015. That attack, which left 225,000 customers without power, was carried out by Russian government hackers, other U.S. researchers concluded. U.S. government officials have not officially attributed that attack to the Russian government, but some privately say they concur with the private-sector analysis.

“The same Russian group that targeted U.S. [industrial control] systems in 2014, including the Dragonfly campaign documented by Symantec, turned out the lights in Ukraine in 2015,” said John Hultquist, who analyzed both incidents while at iSight Partners, a cyber-intelligence firm now owned by FireEye, where he is director of intelligence analysis. Hultquist’s team had dubbed the group Sandworm.

“We believe that Sandworm is tied in some way to the Russian government — whether they’re contractors or actual government officials, we’re not sure,” he said. “We believe they are linked to the security services.”

Sandworm and Electrum may be the same group or two separate groups working within the same organization, but the forensic evidence shows they are related, said Robert M. Lee, chief executive of Dragos.

The Department of Homeland Security, which works with the owners of the nation’s critical infrastructure systems, did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Energy-sector experts said that the new malware is cause for concern, but that the industry is seeking to develop ways to disrupt attackers who breach their systems, including documented access to U.S. utility control rooms in prior incidents.

“U.S. utilities have been enhancing their cybersecurity, but attacker tools like this one pose a very real risk to reliable operation of power systems,” said Michael J. Assante, who worked at Idaho National Labs and is a former chief security officer of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, where he oversaw the rollout of industry cybersecurity standards.

CrashOverride is only the second instance of malware specifically tailored to disrupt or destroy industrial control systems. Stuxnet, the worm created by the United States and Israel to disrupt Iran’s nuclear capability, was an advanced military-grade weapon designed to affect centrifuges that enrich uranium.

In 2015, the Russians used malware to gain access to the power supply network in western Ukraine, but it was hackers at the keyboards who remotely manipulated the control systems to cause the blackout — not the malware itself, Hultquist said.

With CrashOverride, “what is particularly alarming . . . is that it is all part of a larger framework,” said Dan Gunter, a senior threat hunter for Dragos.

The malware is like a Swiss Army knife, where you flip open the tool you need and where different tools can be added to achieve different effects, Gunter said.

Theoretically, the malware can be modified to attack different types of industrial control systems, such as water and gas. However, the adversary has not demonstrated that level of sophistication, Lee said.

Still, the attackers probably had experts and resources available not only to develop the framework but also to test it, Gunter said. “This speaks to a larger effort often associated with nation-state or highly funded team operations.”

One of the most insidious tools in CrashOverride manipulates the settings on electric power control systems. It scans for critical components that operate circuit breakers and opens the circuit breakers, which stops the flow of electricity. It continues to keep them open even if a grid operator tries to close them, creating a sustained power outage.

The malware also has a “wiper” component that erases the software on the computer system that controls the circuit breakers, forcing the grid operator to revert to manual operations, which means driving to the substation to restore power.

With this malware, the attacker can target multiple locations with a “time bomb” functionality and set the malware to trigger simultaneously, Lee said. That could create outages in different areas at the same time.

The outages would last a few hours and probably not more than a couple of days, Lee said. That is because the U.S. electric industry has trained its operators to handle disruptions caused by large storms, alongside a renewed focus on protecting the grid in response to recent alerts. “They’re used to having to restore power with manual operations,” he said.

So although the malware is “a significant leap forward in tradecraft, it’s also not a doomsday scenario,” he said.

The malware samples were first obtained by ESET, a Slovakian research firm, which shared some of them with Dragos. ESET has dubbed the malware Industroyer.

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UK EV Charging Infrastructure is accelerating as ABB and Formula E spotlight fast charging, smart grids, and public stations, preparing Britain for mass electric vehicle adoption with expanded capacity, reliable connectors, and nationwide coverage.

Key Points

The UK network of charge points, grid capacity, and services enabling secure, scalable electric vehicle adoption.

✅ ABB urges rapid rollout of fast chargers and smart grid upgrades

✅ National Grid forecasts up to 9m EVs by 2030 in the UK

✅ Government GBP 400m investment targets reliable nationwide coverage

The UK should speed up preparations for the rise of electric vehicles, according to the chief executive of ABB, the world’s largest supplier of fast-charging points.

Speaking as the Switzerland-based engineering firm became the first official sponsor of the electric street racing series Formula E, Ulrich Spiesshofer predicted a flood of consumer take-up of plug-in cars, noting how EV inquiries surged in the UK during a recent fuel supply crisis.

And he added his voice to warnings that Britain must move faster to make sure owners of electric vehicles are not stymied by a shortage of charging bays or cost concerns among consumers.

“E-mobility is unstoppable, it’s just a question of how fast and how deep it will be deployed,” he said. “The UK has a big population that really wants to contribute to a greener, more sustainable world. But there’s always a question of whether it’s quick enough. In the next couple of years, it’s in the interest of everybody to make sure the infrastructure is coming up.”

How green are electric cars?

He said this would include adding to the UK’s network of electric charging points, as well as ensuring enough energy capacity so that the grid can cope with rising demand.

There are 14,344 charging connectors in the UK, according to ZapMap, which charts the scale of the UK’s network.

Those charging points served around 132,000 plug-in vehicles at the end of 2017, but the National Grid has predicted that the number of electric cars could surge to 9m by 2030.

“In the next couple of years, it’s in the interest of everybody to make sure the infrastructure is coming up,” said Spiesshofer.

He welcomed the government’s budget pledge to spend £400m on improving the UK’s charging point network but warned that the power grid also needed to be ready to meet the increased demand, which many argue is manageable with proper management approaches.

Electric cars have been forecast to add about 18 gigawatts of power demand to the grid, the equivalent of six Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations.

Spiesshofer said he hoped ABB’s sponsorship of Formula E, which will last until 2025, would help spur interest in electric cars and lead to technological breakthroughs, even as the US EV boom tests charging capacity elsewhere.

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