Storing The Sun’s Energy Just Got A Whole Lot Cheaper

With prices dropping rapidly for both renewables and battery storage, the economics of decarbonizing the grid are changing faster than most policymakers, journalists, and others realize. So, as part of my ongoing series, “Almost Everything You Know About Climate Change Solutions Is Outdated,” I will highlight individual case studies of this real-time revolution.

My Monday post discussed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) report that in the first quarter, the U.S. grid added 18 megawatts of new natural gas generating capacity, but 1,291 MW of new renewables. But one of FERC’s “Electric Generation Highlights” for March deserves special attention as a leading indicator of the revolutionary new economics of solar plus storage:

    Half Moon Ventures LLC’s 4.2 MW Minster Solar Project in Auglaise County, OH is online. This project includes an energy storage capacity.

Canadian Retail Prices See Biggest Jump In A Decade, And Worst Is Yet To Come

Retail prices are rising at their fastest rate in at least a decade and there will be more price pressure ahead thanks to a falling loonie, analysts say.

Sticker prices in Canada have been rising at an annual rate of 6.3 per cent over the past six months, the fastest rate in records going back to 2004.

Condo Prices ‘Will Take A Serious Hit' If Maintenance Fees Unchecked

For many urban Canadians, the condo has become the only affordable housing option. But with condos come maintenance fees, and the people behind a new analysis say rising fees could threaten the value of many condo owners’ homes.

Average maintenance fees in Toronto, the country’s largest condo market, have been growing at 3.4 per cent per year over the last decade, well above the overall rate of inflation, meaning condo fees are eating an ever-larger portion of household income.

Canadian Inflation Spikes As Natural Gas, Meat Prices Soar

OTTAWA - The country's annual inflation rate climbed higher than economists' expectations last month, accelerating to 2.4 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The October increase follows a 2.0 per cent rise in September.

The federal agency says the consumer price index climbed as prices rose in all of the categories it tracks in the 12 months leading up to October, with both food and shelter costs adding 2.8 per cent to lead the way.

Generic Drug Prices In Canada Nearly Double Those In Other Countries

OTTAWA - A new study has found that Canadians are still paying far more than other industrialized countries for generic drugs, despite recent efforts by the provinces and territories to bulk buy six particularly costly medications.

The study by the University of Ottawa and the Bruyere Research Institute says the price of the six drugs — which include medications used to treat high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels — remains much higher in Canada than it is elsewhere.

$83.49 For A Case Of Water? Welcome To Nunavut

If you think the price of bacon is getting outrageous, just consider what you have to pay for food and beverages in Nunavut.

This picture of cases of Nestle water on sale in a Northmart in Iqaluit on Baffin Island was posted to imgur earlier this week:

More Proof That American Health Care Prices Are Sky-High

As anyone who's ever paid a health insurance premium or a hospital bill knows, medical care is expensive. What Americans may not know is that residents of other countries don't pay nearly as much for the same things.

The latest data from the International Federation of Health Plans, an industry group representing health insurers from 28 countries including the United States, once again illustrates that American patients pay the highest prices in the world for a variety of prescription drugs and common procedures like childbirth and hospital stays.

Solar Power Is Now Just As Cheap As Conventional Electricity In Italy And Germany

Once all its costs are accounted for, the price of commercial solar power has pulled even with retail electricity rates in Italy and Germany, according to a new report.

The analysis is the third installment in a regular report by the consulting firm Eclareon, done on behalf of an international group of sustainable energy interests. This installment was also the first to look at solar power in the commercial sector rather than the residential sector. It looked at a standard 30 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system for your average commercial building, and the built a methodology to assess its “leveled cost of energy” (LCOE) in seven different countries: Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Spain.

Wireless Price Hikes: Tories Failing To Live Up To Promises, Analysts Say

MONTREAL - Canada's big three wireless carriers have put up prices on some of their voice and data plans since January, showing Ottawa is unable to live up to its promises of overall lower prices and increased competition, according to analysts.

Rogers, Bell and Telus have been able to increase prices because of their market dominance with smaller, new players like Wind Mobile and financially struggling Mobilicity up for sale, analysts said Wednesday.

Researchers Suggest Banks Might Be Rigging Gold Prices

Gold has drawn glowing praise in the last six years or so, since the onset of the recent recession—and now, according to a duo of researchers, it ought to be the subject of a different kind of attention that calls into question the way its price is set.

The London gold fix is the focus of a draft paper by Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, as the Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this week:

Unusual trading patterns around 3 pm in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behaviour and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.

Verizon CEO Wants To Charge You More If You Use Too Much Internet

Netflix streamer? File sharer? If Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam gets his way, you may soon start paying more for broadband.

At an investor's meeting on Monday, McAdam used his closing comments to clarify Verizon's position on net neutrality, or the rule that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all types of web traffic equally.

"I think it is only natural that the heavy users help contribute to the investment to keep the web healthy," McAdam said. Those "users" could be companies that use a lot of bandwidth -- like Netflix -- or even individual consumers -- like people who stream a lot of Netflix. Essentially, McAdam's saying that if you're using too much Internet, you should pay up.

Alberta Electricity Prices: Calgary, Edmonton Prices Among Highest In Canada, Study Finds

Albertans are paying some of the highest rates for power in the nation, according to a new study.

An annual survey conducted by Hydro-Quebec, which compared power prices across 22 North American cities on April 1, 2013, found Calgary residents pay the third highest power bills in Canada and Edmonton the fourth highest.

Soaring Farmland Prices A Crisis In The Making: Don Pittis

If you knew there was a very safe Canadian investment that skyrocketed by 20 per cent last year, you'd probably say that was a good thing.

But when the thing that's going up in value is farmland, Christie Young says it's a crisis in the making.

The latest survey by Farm Credit Canada shows the price of farmland in Quebec rose by a staggering 19.4 per cent last year. Nationally, Canadian farmland from coast to coast has risen by an average of 12 per cent a year since 2008. That's more than five times the rate of inflation.

Energy firms raised prices despite drop in wholesale costs

Some of Britain's big six energy companies have seen their wholesale electricity costs fall over the last three years while still putting up prices for millions of households.

The figures will put yet more pressure on the firms to explain why bills and UK profits have been going up, as they appear before a influential House of Commons committee of MPs.

According to Ofgem, Npower paid an average of £59.61 per megawatt-hour for electricity in 2010. The average wholesale price fell by 4% to £57.32 in 2011 and rose by less than 2% to £58.39 in 2012. The company increased retail prices by 5.1%, 7.2% and 9.1% respectively in those years.

Wireless Prices: Canadians Would Pay $419 More Per Year, Industry Group Study Suggests

HuffPost Canada readers got what they most wanted from the CRTC Monday — an effective end to three-year cellphone contracts, in the form of an early escape clause allowing wireless customers to end their contracts after two years.

But they didn’t get something else that wireless customers apparently want: Higher prices for cellphone service.

That’s the implication of a new poll carried out for the main lobby group of Canada’s telecom industry, which shows Canadians willing to pay up to $11.5 billion more for telecom services than they are currently paying.

Hospital Pricing Revelations Unlikely To Change Wildly Disparate System

The high and wildly varying prices for hospital services revealed by President Barack Obama's administration last week likely aren't going away any time soon because the antiquated system that generates them is intricately threaded throughout the health care system, according to industry representatives.

Canada Wireless Customer Satisfaction Survey: J.D. Power Says Prices Spiking

Canadians saw their cellphone bills jump by an average of more than 13 per cent in the past year, according to a survey from J.D. Power & Associates.

The survey also found Koodo Mobile has the highest level of customer satisfaction among Canadian wireless carriers, followed by Virgin Mobile in second place.

At the bottom of the list? Rogers Wireless, which has the distinction of having the lowest customer satisfaction ranking.

Target Canada ‘grand opening’ set for April 5

Target fans can mark their calendars for the grand opening of 24 new stores in Ontario, but they will have to stay tuned for any special deals or door prizes.

The April 5 event will be focused on distributing the company’s first flyer, said Target Canada president Tony Fisher in a speech Tuesday.

“That’s a big event for us, so we can continue to communicate that value message to our guests,” he said.

Canada-U.S. Price Gap: Budget's Tariff Changes Could Mean Higher Prices For Consumers

OTTAWA - Canadians will be paying hundreds of millions of dollars more on everything from food to bicycles because of a little-noticed change in tariffs Ottawa places on imports from emerging nations like China and India, say analysts.

The change comes from a notice in Thursday's federal budget that starting in 2015, Canada is "graduating" 72 countries previously classified as developing to full developed status for the purpose of tariffs.

'Country pricing' a cause of Canada-U.S. price gaps

Canadians are paying far more than Americans for the same products because of a systemic and unjustifiable markup scheme by many manufacturers, a retail expert says.

A Marketplace report on Canada-U.S. price gaps found Canadians paying higher prices — more than double in some cases — for the same retail goods because of an industry phenomenon called "country pricing."