That is a complex set of issues, which I could see you dipping into even more in your follow-up conversation. You're very right when you say that electrification is a major topic of focus, not just in Canada, but around the world. Maybe I could attempt to give you some nuggets of answers, and then you can tell me if I did a good enough job.
Starting in the area of transportation and the government and country as a whole, we have strong support from the Provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and B.C. Many provinces are seeing the importance of looking at electrification of transportation as a key area of focus, whether it's for buses or vehicles or in having the proper infrastructure in place, the charging infrastructure, which we've invested in over the past year, as have the provinces.
We think it's really important to address the issue around range anxiety, which is one of the key elements why consumers are a bit hesitant to pull the trigger in buying those vehicles. Also, it's about developing the proper technologies to manage potentially hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the grid. That's a big draw on the power systems. The utilities are scratching their heads in trying to figure out how they will respond to this. We've been working with them to develop software solutions and practical solutions to do it progressively but to be ready to respond.
You mentioned other domains. I would mention mining. We have electrically powered mining equipment underground. It's one area that some leading companies are looking to actively pursue, including here in Ontario. That did raise interesting issues, as we found out in our discussions, around some regulations that actually make it basically impossible to do that, unless they're changed. They are not federal regs, but it doesn't matter from the firm's perspective. Someone has to help them address those; otherwise, they won't be picked up. The manufacturers are prepared to play ball and the companies are prepared to play ball, but now we have to make sure the regs catch up to that industry development. That's one domain that we've been pursuing actively.
More generally, as we move toward adopting more and more renewable power in our grid—and Canada is fortunate to have quite a bit of it—especially those sources of energy that are intermittent, such as wind or solar, we note that the energy output fluctuates based on the time of day or the amount of wind. When you have 5% to 10% of that in your energy grid, it's probably manageable, but as you increase such percentages into the teens or twenties, or even higher, it does create added challenges for the operators. We've been working quite actively on forecasting techniques and on how we can manage bigger areas of production so as to deal with this.
One very promising area that Canada and the world are investing a lot in is energy storage. Again, this is to make sure that the source of energy is more stable. That's true for overall networks, but it's also true especially for smaller or more remote communities. Whether they're first nations, remote communities, or off-the-grid systems, having renewable solutions, along with energy storage, is really important. In our view, it's one of the early opportunities, as was referenced in the PCF, on which the federal and provincial governments want to place a particular emphasis, because those communities pay a lot for their energy. In those communities, 50¢ to 60¢ per kilowatt is fairly commonplace. We think there are solutions that could be implemented in short order.
That's a longish answer, but....