This Thin-Film Turns Heat Waste From Electronics Into Electricity

Vineyard Wind I advances as BOEM issues a final environmental impact statement for the 800 MW offshore wind farm south of Martha's Vineyard, delivering clean energy, jobs, and carbon reductions to Massachusetts toward net-zero.

Key Points

An 800 MW offshore wind project near Martha's Vineyard supplying clean power to Massachusetts.

✅ 800 MW capacity; power for 400,000+ homes and businesses

✅ BOEM final EIS; record of decision pending within 30+ days

✅ 1.68M metric tons CO2 avoided annually; jobs and lower rates

Federal environmental officials have completed their review of the Vineyard Wind I offshore wind farm, moving the project that is expected to deliver clean renewable energy to Massachusetts by the end of 2023 closer to becoming a reality.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday morning that its Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed the analysis it resumed about a month ago, published the project's final environmental impact statement, and said it will officially publish notice of the impact statement in the Federal Register later this week.

"More than three years of federal review and public comment is nearing its conclusion and 2021 is poised to be a momentous year for our project and the broader offshore wind industry," Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Pedersen said. "Offshore wind is a historic opportunity to build a new industry that will lead to the creation of thousands of jobs, reduce electricity rates for consumers and contribute significantly to limiting the impacts of climate change. We look forward to reaching the final step in the federal permitting process and being able to launch an industry that has such tremendous potential for economic development in communities up and down the Eastern seaboard."

The 800-megawatt wind farm planned for 15 miles south of Martha's Vineyard was the first offshore wind project selected by Massachusetts utility companies with input from the Baker administration to fulfill part of a 2016 clean energy law. It is projected to generate cleaner electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts, produce at least 3,600 jobs, reduce costs for Massachusetts ratepayers by an estimated $1.4 billion, and eliminate 1.68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Offshore wind power, informed by the U.S. offshore wind outlook, is expected to become an increasingly significant part of Massachusetts' energy mix. The governor and Legislature agree on a goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but getting there is projected to require having about 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power. That means Massachusetts will need to hit a pace in the 2030s where it has about 1 GW of new offshore wind power on the grid coming online each year.

"I think that's why today's announcement is so historic, because it does represent that culmination of work to understand how to permit and build a cost-effective and environmentally-responsible wind farm that can deliver clean energy to Massachusetts ratepayers, but also just how to do this from start to finish," said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides. "As we move towards our goal of probably [25 GW] of offshore wind by 2050 to hit our net-zero target, this does give us confidence that we have a much clearer path in terms of permitting."

She added, "There's a huge pipeline, so getting this project out really should open the door to the many additional projects up and down the East Coast, such as Long Island proposals, that will come after it."

According to the American Wind Energy Association, there are expected to be 14 offshore projects totaling 9,112 MW of capacity in operation by 2026.

Susannah Hatch, the clean energy coalition director for the Environmental League of Massachusetts and a leader of the broad-based New England for Offshore Wind Regional group, called offshore wind farms like Vineyard Wind "the linchpin of our decarbonization efforts in New England." She said the Biden administration's quick action on Vineyard Wind is a positive sign for the burgeoning sector.

"Moving swiftly on responsibly developed offshore wind is critical to our efforts to mitigate climate change, and offshore wind also provides an enormous opportunity to grow the economy, create thousands of jobs, and drive equitable economic benefits through increased minority economic participation in New England," Hatch said.

With the final environmental impact statement published, Vineyard Wind still must secure a record of decision from BOEM, which processes wind lease requests, an air permit from the Environmental Protection Agency and sign-offs from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Marine Fisheries Service to officially clear the way for the project that is on track to be the nation's first utility-scale offshore wind farm. BOEM must wait at least 30 days from the publication of the final environmental impact statement to issue a record of decision.

Project officials have said they expect the final impact statement and then a record of decision "sometime in the first half of 2021." That would allow the project to hit its financial close milestone in the second half of this year, begin on-shore work quickly thereafter, start offshore construction in 2022, begin installing turbines in 2023 and begin exporting power to the grid, marking Vineyard Wind first power, by late 2023, Pedersen said in January.

"Offshore energy development provides an opportunity for us to work with Tribal nations, communities, and other ocean users to ensure all decisions are transparent and utilize the best available science," BOEM Director Amanda Lefton said.

The commercial fishing industry has been among the most vocal opponents of aspects of the Vineyard Wind project and the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) has repeatedly urged the new administration to ensure the voices of the industry are heard throughout the licensing and permitting process.

In comments submitted earlier this month in response to a BOEM review of an offshore wind project that is expected to deliver power to New York, including the recent New York offshore wind approval, RODA said the present is "a time of significant confusion and change in the U.S. approach to offshore wind energy (OSW) planning" and detailed mitigation measures it wants to see incorporated into all projects.

"To be clear, none of these requests are new -- nor hardly radical. They have simply been ignored again, and again, and again in a political push/pull between multinational energy companies and the U.S. government, leaving world-famous seafood, and the communities founded around its harvest, off the table," the group said in a press release last week. Some of RODA's suggestions were analyzed as part of BOEM's Vineyard Wind review.

Vineyard Wind has certainly taken a circuitous path to get to this point. The timeline for the project was upended in August 2019 when the Trump administration decided to conduct a much broader assessment of potential offshore wind projects up and down the East Coast, which delayed the project by almost a year.

When the Trump administration delayed its action on a final environmental impact statement last year, Vineyard Wind on Dec. 1 announced that it was pulling its project out of the federal review pipeline in order to complete an internal study on whether the decision to use a certain type of turbine would warrant changes to construction and operations plan. The Trump administration declared the federal review of the project "terminated."

Within two weeks of President Joe Biden being inaugurated, Vineyard Wind said its review determined no changes were necessary and the company resubmitted its plans for review. BOEM agreed to pick up where the Trump administration had left off despite the agency previously declaring its review terminated.

"It would appear that fishing communities are the only ones screaming into a void while public resources are sold to the highest bidder, as BOEM has reversed its decision to terminate a project after receiving a single letter from Vineyard Wind," RODA said.

The final environmental impact statement that BOEM published Monday showed that the federal regulators believe the Vineyard Wind I development as proposed will have "moderate" impacts on commercial fisheries and for-hire recreational fishing outfits, and that the project combined with other factors not related to wind energy development will have "major" impacts on commercial and recreational fishing ventures.

Vineyard Wind pointed Monday to the fishery mitigation agreements it has entered into with Massachusetts and Rhode Island, a fishery science collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's School of Marine Science and Technology, and an agreement with leading environmental organizations around the protection of the endangered right whale.

Responding to concerns about safe navigation among RODA and others in the fishing sector, Vineyard Wind and the four other developers holding leases for offshore wind sites off New England agreed to orient their turbines in fixed east-to-west rows and north-to-south columns spaced one nautical mile apart. Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard concluded that the grid layout was the best way to maintain maritime safety and ease of navigation in the offshore wind development areas south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

Since a 2016 clean energy law kicked off the state's foray into the offshore wind world, Massachusetts utilities have contracted for a total of about 1,600 MW between two projects, Vineyard Wind I and Mayflower Wind.

A joint venture of Shell and Ocean Winds North America, Mayflower Wind was picked unanimously in 2019 by utility executives to build and operate a wind farm approximately 26 nautical miles south of Martha's Vineyard and 20 nautical miles south of Nantucket, with South Coast construction activity expected as the project progresses. The 804-megawatt project is expected to be operational by December 2025.

Massachusetts and its utilities are expected to go out to bid for up to another 1,600 MW of offshore wind generation capacity later this year using authorization granted by the Legislature in 2018.

The climate policy bill that Gov. Charlie Baker returned to the Legislature with amendments more than a month ago would require that the executive branch direct Massachusetts utilities to buy an additional 2,400 MW of offshore wind power.

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EV Charging Infrastructure Expansion accelerates as DC fast charging, Level 2 stations, and 150-350 kW networks grow nationwide, driven by Biden's plan, ChargePoint, EVgo, and Electrify America partnerships at retailers like Walmart and 7-Eleven.

Key Points

The nationwide build-out of public EV chargers, focusing on DC fast charging, kW capacity, and retailer partnerships.

✅ DC fast chargers at 150-350 kW cut charge times

✅ Retailers add ports: Walmart and 7-Eleven expand access

✅ Investments surge via ChargePoint, EVgo, Electrify America

Today’s battery-electric vehicles deliver longer range at a lower cost, are faster and more feature-laden than earlier models. But there’s one particular challenge that still must be addressed: charging infrastructure across the U.S.

That’s a concern that President Joe Biden wants to address, with $174 billion of his proposed infrastructure bill to be used to promote the EV boom while expanding access. About 10 percent of that would help fund a nationwide network of 500,000 chargers.

However, even before a formal bill is delivered to Congress, the pace at which public charging stations are switching on is rapidly accelerating.

From Walmart to 7-Eleven, electric car owners can expect to find more and more charging stations available, as automakers strike deals with regulators, charger companies and other businesses, even as control of charging remains contested.

7-Eleven convenience chain already operates 22 charging stations and plans to grow that to 500 by the end of 2022. Walmart now lets customers charge up at 365 stores around the country and plans to more than double that over the next several years.

According to the Department of Energy, there were 20,178 public chargers available at the end of 2017. That surged to 41,400 during the first quarter of this year, as electric utilities pursue aggressive charging plans.

The vast majority of those available three years ago were “Level 2,” 240-volt AC chargers that would take as much as 12 hours to fully recharge today’s long-range BEVs, like the Tesla Model 3 or Ford Mustang Mach-E. Increasingly, new chargers are operating at 400 volts and even 800 volts, delivering anywhere from 50 to 350 kilowatts. The new Kia EV6 will be able to reach 80 percent of its full capacity in just 18 minutes.

“Going forward, unless there is a limit to the power we can access at a particular location, all our new chargers will have 150 to 350 kilowatt capacity,” Pat Romano, CEO of ChargePoint, one of the world’s largest providers of chargers, told NBC News.

ChargePoint saw its first-quarter revenues jump by 24 percent to $40.5 million this year, a surge largely driven by rapid growth in the EV market. Sales of battery cars were up 45 percent during the first quarter, compared to a year earlier. To take advantage of that growth, ChargePoint added another 6,000 active ports — the electric equivalent of a gas pump — during the quarter. It now has 112,000 active charge ports.

In March, ChargePoint became the world’s first publicly traded global EV charging network. It completed a SPAC-style merger with Switchback Energy Acquisition Corporation. Rival EVgo plans to go through a similar deal this month with the "blank check" company Climate Change Crisis Real Impact Acquisition Corporation (CRIS), which has valued the charge provider at $2.6 billion.

“We look forward to highlighting EVgo’s leadership position and its significant opportunity for long-term growth in the climate critical electrification of transport sector,” CRIS CEO David Crane said Tuesday, ahead of an investor meeting with EVgo.

Electrify America, another emerging giant, has its own deep-pocket backer. The suburban Washington, D.C.-based firm was created using $2 billion of the settlement Volkswagen agreed to pay to settle its diesel emissions scandal. It is doling that out in regular tranches and just announced $200 million in additional investments — much of that to set up new chargers.

Industry investments in BEVs will top $250 million this decade, and could even reach $500 billion. That's encouraging automakers like Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors to tie up with individual charger companies, including plans to build 30,000 chargers nationwide.

In 2019, GM set up a partnership with Bechtel to build a charger network that will stretch across the U.S.

Others are establishing networks of their own, as Tesla has done with its Supercharger network.

Each charging network is leveraging relationships to speed up installations. Ford is offering buyers of its Mustang Mach-E 250 kilowatt-hours of free energy through Electrify America stations and is also partnering with Bank of America to “let you charge where you bank,” the automaker said.

Even if Biden gets his infrastructure plan through Congress quickly, other government agencies are already getting in to the charger business, even as state power grids brace for increased loads. That includes New York State which, in May, announced plans to put 150 new ports into place by year-end.

"Expanding high-speed charging in local markets across the state is a crucial step in encouraging more drivers to choose EVs,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, adding that, "public-private partnerships enable New York to build a network of fast, affordable and reliable electric vehicle public charging stations in a nimble and affordable way."

One of the big questions is how many charging stations actually are needed. There are 168,000 gas stations in the U.S., according to the Dept. of Energy. But the goal is not a one-for-one match, stressed ChargePoint CEO Romano, because “80 percent of EV owners today charge at home, and energy storage promises added flexibility, … and we expect that to continue to be the case."

But there are still many potential owners who won’t be able to set up their own chargers, and a network will still be needed for those driving long distances. Until that happens, many motorists will be reluctant to switch.

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Canadian Electric Bus Fleet leads North America as Toronto's TTC deploys 59 battery-electric, zero-emission buses, advancing public transit decarbonization with charging infrastructure, federal funding, lower maintenance, and lifecycle cost savings for a low-carbon urban future.

Key Points

Canada's leading battery-electric transit push, led by Toronto's TTC, scaling zero-emission buses and charging.

✅ Largest battery-electric bus fleet in North America

✅ TTC trials BYD, New Flyer, Proterra for range and reliability

✅ Charging infrastructure, funding, and specs drive 2040 zero-emissions

The largest battery-powered electric bus fleet in North America is Canadian. Toronto's transit system is now running 59 electric buses from three suppliers, and Edmonton's first electric bus is now on the road as well. And Canadian pioneers such as Toronto offer lessons for other transit systems aiming to transition to greener fleets for the low-carbon economy of the future.

Diesel buses are some of the noisier, more polluting vehicles on urban roads. Going electric could have big benefits, even though 18% of Canada's 2019 electricity from fossil fuels remains a factor.

Emissions reductions are the main reason the federal government aims to add 5,000 electric buses to Canada's transit and school fleets by the end of 2024. New funding announced this week as part of the government's fall fiscal update could also give programs to electrify transit systems a boost.

"You are seeing huge movement towards all-electric," said Bem Case, the Toronto Transit Commission's head of vehicle programs. "I think all of the transit agencies are starting to see what we're seeing ... the broader benefits."

While Vancouver has been running electric trolley buses (more than 200, in fact), many cities (including Vancouver) are now switching their diesel buses to battery-electric buses in Metro Vancouver that don't require overhead wires and can run on regular bus routes.

The TTC got approval from its board to buy its first 30 battery-electric buses in November 2017. Its plan is to have a zero-emissions fleet by 2040.

That's a crucial part of Toronto's plan to meet its 2050 greenhouse gas targets, which requires 100 per cent of vehicles to transition to low-carbon energy by then.

But Case said the transition can't happen overnight. 

Finding the right bus
For one thing, just finding the right bus isn't easy.

"There's no bus, by any manufacturer, that's been in service for the entire life of a bus, which is 12 years," Case said.

"And so really, until then, we don't have enough experience, nor does anyone else in the industry, have enough experience to commit to an all-electric fleet immediately."

In fact, Case said, there are only three manufacturers that make suitable long-range buses — the kind needed in a city the size of Toronto.

Having never bought electric buses before, the city had no specifications for what it needed in an electric bus, so it decided to try all three suppliers: Winnipeg-based New Flyer; BYD, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, but built the TTC buses at its Newmarket, Ont. facility; and California-based Proterra.

They all had their strengths and weaknesses, based on their backgrounds as a traditional non-electric bus manufacturer, a battery maker and a vehicle technology and design startup, respectively.

"Each bus type has its own potential challenges." Case said all three manufacturers are working to resolve any adoption challenges as quickly as possible.

But the biggest challenge of all, Case said, is getting the infrastructure in place. 

"There's no playbook, really, for implementing charging infrastructure," he said.

Each bus type needed their own chargers, in some cases using different types of current. Each type has been installed in a different garage in partnership with local utility Toronto Hydro.

Buying and installing them represented about $70 million, or about half the cost of acquiring Toronto's first 60 electric buses. The $140 million project was funded by the federal Public Transit Infrastructure Fund.

Case said it takes about three hours to charge a battery that has been fully depleted. To maximize use of the bus, it's typically put on a long route in the morning, covering 200 to 250 kilometres. Then it's partially charged and put on a shorter run in the late afternoon.

"That way we get as much mileage on the buses as we can."

Cost and reliability?
Besides the infrastructure cost of chargers, each electric bus can cost $200,000 to $500,000 more per bus than an average $750,000 diesel bus. 

Case acknowledges that is "significantly" more expensive, but it is offset by fuel savings over time, as electricity costs are cheaper. Because the electric buses have fewer parts than diesel buses, maintenance costs are also about 25 per cent lower and the buses are expected to be more reliable.

As with many new technologies, the cost of electric buses is also falling over time.

Case expects they will eventually get to the point where the total life-cycle cost of an electric and a diesel bus are comparable, and the electric bus may even save money in the long run.

As of this fall, all but one of the 60 new electric buses have been put into service. The last one is expected to hit the road in early December.

Summer testing showed that air conditioning the buses reduced the battery capacity by about 15 per cent. 

But the TTC needs to see how much of the battery capacity is consumed by heating in winter, at least when the temperature is above 5 C. Below that, a diesel-powered heater kicks in.

Once testing is complete, the TTC plans to develop specifications for its electric bus fleet and order 300 more in 2023, for delivery between 2023 and 2025.

Potential benefits
Even with some diesel heating, the TTC estimates electric buses reduce fuel usage by 70 to 80 per cent. If its whole fleet were switched to electric buses, it could save $50 million to $70 million in fuel a year and 150 tonnes of greenhouse gases per bus per year, or 340,000 tonnes for the entire fleet.

Other than greenhouse gases, electric buses also generate fewer emissions of other pollutants. They're also quieter, creating a more comfortable urban environment for pedestrians and cyclists.

But the benefits could potentially go far beyond the local city.

"If the public agencies start electrifying their fleet and their service is very demanding, I think they'll demonstrate to the broader transportation industry that it is possible," Case said.

"And that's where you'll get the real gains for the environment."

Alex Milovanoff, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Toronto's department of civil engineering, did a U of T EV study that suggested electrified transit has a crucial role to play in the low-carbon economy of the future.

His calculations show that 90 per cent of U.S. passenger vehicles — 300 million — would need to be electric by 2050 to reach targets under the global Paris Agreement to fight climate change.

And that would put a huge strain on resources, including both the mining of metals, such as lithium and cobalt, that are used in electric vehicle batteries and the electrical grid itself.

A better solution, he showed, was combining the transition to electric vehicles with a reduction in the number of private vehicles, and higher usage of transit, cycling and walking.

"Then that becomes a feasible picture," he said.

What's needed to make the transition
But in order to make that happen, governments need to make investments and navigate the 2035 EV mandate debate on timelines, he added.

That includes subsidies for buying electric buses and building charging stations so transit agencies don't need to make fares too high. But it also includes more general improvements to the range and reliability of transit infrastructure.

"Electrifying the bus fleet is only efficient if we have a large public transit fleet and if we have many buses on the road and if people take them," Milovanoff said.

In its fall economic update on Monday, the federal government announced $150 million over three years to speed up the installation of zero-emission vehicle infrastructure.

Josipa Petrunic, CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium, a non-profit organization focused on zero-carbon mobility and transportation, said that in the past, similar funding has paid for high-powered charging systems for transit systems in B.C. and Ontario. But that's only a small part of what's needed, she said.

"Infrastructure Canada needs to come to the table with the cash for the buses and the whole rest of the system."

She said funding is needed for:

Feasibility studies to figure out how many and what kinds of buses are needed for different routes in different transit systems.

Targets and incentives to motivate transit systems to make the switch.

Incentives to encourage Canadian procurement to build the industry in Canada.

Technology to collect and share data on the performance of electric vehicles so transit systems can make the best-possible decisions to meet the needs of their riders.

Petrunic said that a positive side-effect of electrifying transit systems is that the infrastructure can support, in addition to buses, electric trucks for moving freight.

"It's not a lot given that we have 15,000 buses out there in the transit fleet," she said.

"But we should be able to get a lot further ahead if we match the city commitments to zero emissions with federal and provincial funding for jobs creating zero-emissions technologies."

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New Brunswick EV Rebates deliver stackable provincial and federal incentives for electric vehicles, used EVs, and home chargers, supporting NB Power infrastructure, lower GHG emissions, and climate goals with fast chargers across the province.

Key Points

Stackable provincial and federal incentives up to $10,000 for EV purchases, plus support for home charging.

✅ $5,000 new EVs; $2,500 used; stackable with federal $5,000

✅ 50% home charger rebate up to $750 through NB Power

✅ Supports GHG cuts, charging network growth, climate targets

New Brunswickers looking for an electric vehicle (EV) can now claim up to $10,000 in rebates from the provincial and federal governments.

The three-year provincial program was announced Thursday and will give rebates of $5,000 on new EVs and $2,500 on used ones. It closely mirrors the federal program and is stackable, meaning new owners will be able to claim up to $5,000 from the feds as well.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Gary Crossman said the move is hoped to kickstart the province’s push toward a target of having 20,000 EVs on the road by 2030.

“This incentive has to make a positive difference,” Crossman said.

“I truly believe people have been waiting for it, they’ve been asking about it, and this will make a difference from today moving forward to put new or used cars in their hands.”

The first year of the program will cost $1.95 million, which will come from the $36 million in the Climate Change Fund and will be run by NB Power, whose public charging network has been expanding across the province. The department says if the full amount is used this year it could represent a reduction of 850 tonnes of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) annually.

Both the Liberal and Green parties welcomed the move calling it long overdue, but Green MLA Kevin Arseneau said it’s not a “miracle solution.”

“Yes, we need to electrify cars, but this kind of initiative without proper funding of public transportation, urban planning for biking … without this kind of global approach this is just another swipe of a sword in water,” he said.

Liberal environment critic Francine Landry says she hopes this will make the difference for those considering the purchase of an EV and says the government should consider further methods of incentivization like waiving registration fees.

The province’s adoption of EVs has not been overly successful so far, reflecting broader Atlantic EV buying interest trends across the region. At the end of 2020, there were 646 EVs registered in the province, far short of the 2,500 target set out in the Climate Action Plan. That was up significantly from the 437 at the end of 2019, but still a long way from the goal.

New Brunswick has a fairly expansive network of charging stations across the province, claiming to be the first “fully-connected province” in the country, and had hoped that the available infrastructure, including plans for new fast-charging stations on the Trans-Canada, would push adoption of non-emitting vehicles.

“In 2017 we had 11 chargers in the province, so we’ve come a long way from an infrastructure standpoint which I think is critical to promoting or having an electric vehicle network, or a number of electric vehicles operating in the province, and neighbouring N.L.’s fast-charging network shows similar progress,” said Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Tom Macfarlane at a meeting of the standing committee on climate change and environmental stewardship in January of 2020.

There are now 172 level two chargers and 83 fast chargers, while Labrador’s EV infrastructure still lags in neighbouring N.L. today. Level two chargers take between six and eight hours to charge a vehicle, while the fast chargers take about half an hour to get to 80 per cent charge.

The newly announced program will also cover 50 per cent of costs for a home charging station up to $750, similar to B.C. charger rebates that support home infrastructure, to further address infrastructure needs.

The New Brunswick Lung Association is applauding the rebate plan.

President and CEO Melanie Langille said about 15,000 Canadians, including 40 people from New Brunswick, die prematurely each year from air pollution. She said vehicle emissions account for about 30 per cent of the province’s air pollution.

“Electric vehicles are critical to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions,” said Langille. “New Brunswick has one of the highest per capita GHG emissions in Canada. But, because our electricity source in New Brunswick is primarily from non-emitting sources and regional initiatives like Nova Scotia’s vehicle-to-grid pilot are advancing grid integration, switching to an EV is an effective way for New Brunswickers to lower their GHG emissions.”

Langille said the lung association has been part of an electric vehicles advisory group in the province since 2014 and its research has shown this type of program is needed.

“The major barrier that is standing in the way of New Brunswickers adopting electric vehicles is the upfront costs,” Langille said. “So today’s announcement, and that it can be stacked on top of the existing federal rebates, is a huge step forward for us.”

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Eastern Green Link 1 is a 190km HVDC subsea electricity superhighway linking Scotland to northern England, delivering renewable energy, boosting grid capacity, and enhancing energy security for National Grid and Scottish Power.

Key Points

A 190km HVDC subsea link sending Scottish renewables to northern England, boosting grid capacity and UK energy security.

✅ 190km HVDC subsea route from East Lothian to County Durham

✅ Cables by Prysmian; converter stations by GE Vernova, Mytilineos

✅ Powers the equivalent of 2 million UK households

One of Britain’s biggest power grid projects has awarded contracts worth £1.8bn for a 190km subsea electricity superhighway, akin to a hydropower line to New York in scale, to bring renewable power from Scotland to the north of England.

National Grid and Scottish Power, following a recent 2GW substation commissioning, plan to begin building the “transformative” £2.5bn high-voltage power line along the east coast of the country from East Lothian to County Durham from 2025.

The Eastern Green Link 1 (EGL1) project is one of Britain’s largest grid upgrade projects in generations and has been designed to carry enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 2 million households.

The UK is under pressure to deliver a power grid overhaul, including moves to fast-track grid connections nationwide, as it prepares to double its demand for electricity by 2040 as part of a plan to cut the use of gas and other fossil fuels.

The International Energy Agency has forecast that 600,000km of electric lines will need to be either added or upgraded across the UK by the end of the next decade to meet its climate targets, amid a global race to secure supplies of high voltage cabling and other electrical infrastructure components and to explore superconducting cables to cut losses.

The EGL1 project has awarded Prysmian Group, an international cable maker, the contract to deliver nearly 400km of power cable. The contract to supply two HVDC technology converter stations, one at each end of the cable, has been awarded to GE Vernova and Mytilineos.

The upgrades are expected to cost tens of billions of pounds, according to National Grid, which faces plans for an independent system operator overseeing Great Britain’s electricity market. The FTSE 100 energy company has warned that five times as many pylons and underground lines need to be constructed by the end of the decade than in the past 30 years, and four times more undersea cables laid than there are at present.

Britain’s power grid upgrades are also expected to emerge as an important battleground in the general election. The next government will need to balance the strong local opposition to new grid infrastructure across rural areas of the UK against the climate and economic benefits of the work.

Research undertaken by National Grid has found there will be an estimated 400,000 jobs created by 2050 due to the work needed to rewire Britain’s grid, a trend mirrored by recent cross-border transmission approvals in North America, including about 150,000 jobs anticipated in Scotland and the north of England.

Peter Roper, the project director for EGL1, said the super-cable would be “a transformative project for the UK, enhancing security of supply and helping to connect and transport green power for all customers”.

He added: “These contract announcements are big wins for the supply chain and another important milestone as we build the new network infrastructure to help the UK meet its net zero and energy security ambitions.

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Alberta Renewable Energy Boom highlights corporate investments, power purchase agreements, wind and solar capacity gains, grid decarbonization, and job growth, adding 2 GW and $3.7B construction since 2019 in an open electricity market.

Key Points

Alberta's PPA-driven wind and solar surge adds 2 GW, cuts grid emissions, creates jobs, and accelerates private builds.

✅ 2 GW added since 2019 via corporate PPAs

✅ Open electricity market enables direct deals

✅ Strong wind and solar resources boost output

Alberta has seen a massive increase in corporate investment in renewable energy since 2019, and capacity from those deals is set to increase output by two gigawatts —  enough to power roughly 1.5 million homes. 

“Our analysis shows $3.7 billion worth of renewables construction by 2023 and 4,500 jobs,” Nagwan Al-Guneid, the director of Business Renewables Centre Canada, says. 

The centre is an initiative of the environmental think tank Pembina Institute and provides education and guidance for companies looking to invest in renewable energy or energy offsets across Canada. Its membership is made up of renewable energy companies.

The addition of two gigawatts is over two times the amount of renewable energy added to the grid between 2010 and 2017, according to the Canadian Energy Regulator. 

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“This is driven directly by what we call power purchase agreements,” Al-Guneid says. “We have companies from across the country coming to Alberta.”

So far this year, 191 megawatts of renewable energy will be added through purchase agreements, according to the Business Renewables Centre, as diversified energy sources can make better projects overall.

Alberta’s electricity system is unique in Canada — an open market where companies can ink deals directly with private power producers to sell renewable energy and buy a set amount of electricity produced each year, either for use or for offset credits. The financial security provided by those contracts helps producers build out more renewable projects without market risks. Purchasers get cheap renewable energy or credits to meet internal or external emissions goals. 

It differs from other provinces, many of which rely on large hydro capacity and where there is a monopoly, often government-owned, on power supply. 

In those provinces, investment in renewables largely depends on whether the company with the monopoly is in a buying mood, says Blake Shaffer, an economics professor at the University of Calgary who studies electricity markets. 

That’s not the case in Alberta, where the only real regulatory hurdle is applying to connect a project to the grid.

“Once that’s approved, you can just go ahead and build it, and you can sell it,” Shaffer says.

That sort of flexibility has attracted some big investments, including two deals with Amazon in 2021 to purchase 455 megawatts worth of solar power from Calgary-based Greengate Power. There are also big investments from oil companies looking to offset emissions.

The investments are allowing Alberta to decarbonize its grid, largely with the backing of the private sector. 

Shaffer says Alberta is the “renewables capital in Canada,” a powerhouse in both green and fossil energy by many measures.

“That just shocks people because of course their association with Alberta is nothing about renewables, but oil and gas,” Shaffer says. “But it really is the investment centre for renewables in the entire country right now.”

Alberta has ‘embarrassing’ riches in wind energy and solar power
It’s not just the market that is driving Alberta’s renewables boom. According to Shaffer there are three other key factors: an embarrassment of wind and solar riches, the need to transition away from a traditionally dirty, coal-reliant grid and the current high costs of energy. 

Shaffer says the strong and seemingly non-stop winds coming off the foothills of the Rockies in the southwest of the province mean wind power is increasingly competitive and each turbine produces more energy compared to other areas. The same is true for solar, with an abundance of sunny days.

“Southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan have the best solar insolation,” he says. “You put a panel in Vancouver, or you put a panel in Medicine Hat, and you’re gonna get about 50 per cent more energy out of that panel in Medicine Hat, and they’re gonna cost you the same.”

The spark that set off the surge in investments wasn’t strictly an open-market mechanism. Under the previous NDP government, the province brought in a program that allowed private producers to compete for government contracts, with some solar facilities contracted below natural gas demonstrating cost advantages.

The government agreed to a certain price and the producers were then allowed to sell their electricity on the open market. If the price dropped below what was guaranteed, the province would pay the difference. If, however, the price was higher, the developers would pay the difference to the government. 

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