Nova Scotia Power Inc. ( ) is a power generating and delivery company in Nova Scotia. It is privately owned by Emera ( ) and regulated by the provincial government via the NSUARB.

History

The Nova Scotia Power Commission was formed in 1919 by the provincial government, following the lead of several other Canadian provinces in establishing Crown corporation electrical utilities. The commission constructed and opened its first hydro plant at Tantallon the following year.

Throughout the 1920s-1960s the commission grew as private and municipal owned hydro plants and electrical utilities went bankrupt and/or sold their assets. In 1960, Nova Scotia was connected to the New Brunswick Power Corporation in the first electrical inter-connection between provinces in Canada.

The commission underwent unprecedented expansion during the late 1960s when five new thermal generating stations were constructed to meet the growing residential and industrial demand in the province.

In 1974, the Nova Scotia Power Commission was amalgamated with Nova Scotia Light and Power Ltd. to form Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (NSPI). As a provincial Crown corporation, NSPI was often referred to as Nova Scotia Power Corporation.

In 1984 NSPI opened the world's first tidal power generating station on the Annapolis River at Annapolis Royal. This technology, similar to hydroelectric dams, did not become globally widespread.

In 1992, NSPI was privatized by the provincial government of Premier Donald Cameron in what was then the largest private equity transaction in Canadian history. Cameron's government had been under heavy pressure to control provincial deficits and debt servicing resulting from his predecessor administrations, thus the controversial decision to sell the Crown corporation.

On December 2, 1998, NSPI shareholders voted to restructure the company to create a holding company which would be shareholder-owned, with the regulated utility being a wholly owned subsidiary of the holding company. On December 9, 1998, NSPI received approval to establish NS Power Holdings Incorporated and NSPI shareholders exchanged their shares in NSPI for shares in NS Power Holdings Inc. on a one-to-one basis on January 1, 1999. Common shares in NS Power Holdings Inc. began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Montreal Stock Exchange on January 6, 1999. The NS Power Holdings Inc. name was changed to Emera Incorporated on July 17, 2000.

In 2001, Emera purchased the Bangor Hydro Electric Company of Bangor, Maine; Emera was the first Canadian company to purchase an American utility.

Concerns were raised by the Nova Scotia government regarding the future of Nova Scotia Power and the province's renewable energy strategy in the aftermath of a tentative C$ 4.8 billion deal for the sale of most assets of NB Power to Hydro-Québec, on October 29, 2009. The provincial government is concerned the deal could affect its plan to develop renewable energy sources for exports to New England

Grid investment and maintenance issue

In the wake of major winter storms in 2004,, NS Power came under increasing criticism from the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, energy-oriented public interest groups, and provincial political parties for a perceived lack of investment in the monitoring, preventive maintenance and instrumenting of its electric grid. A study was eventually commissioned from SNC-Lavelin to explore a "regional system operator" to relieve NS Power of the control of the grid itself .

NS Power grid reliability as 2009 election issue

Criticisms had intensified meanwhile; NS Power performance was an explicit campaign issue in the Nova Scotia general election, 2009, notably from Liberal leader Stephen McNeil:

"...they take $100M out of NS ... put it in California, Maine... don't re-invest... in the infrastructure of this province."

Incumbent Premier Rodney MacDonald agreed that:

"...maintenance issues have caused a lot of problems, a lot of outages... when there's no need. If the proper maintenance had been done, people wouldn't be faced with that situation, and it's unacceptable."

When NSP president Rob Bennett endorsed a New Democratic Party campaign plank to remove provincial sales tax from electricity bills , McNeil cited it as a reason to oppose the NDP, and accused NSP of seeking to raise rates to fill the gap, then portraying this as an overall reduction in rates due to the tax cut.

Conservation controversy

As NS implemented its climate and demand side management strategies, NSP became involved in controversies on whether the utility could be trusted to administer a province-wide conservation program designed to prevent having to build any new large power plant. Its "integrated resource plan" of 2007 "indicated that energy conservation is an important element to meet the future electricity needs of Nova Scotia. NS Power began implementing Energy Efficiency & Conservation programs (EEC) for customers in 2008."

At about the same time, Conserve Nova Scotia was formed as a supervisory body to encourage such programs and execute the province's energy strategy.

In May 2009 the Nova Scotia government sought also to establish an independent body to oversee conservation programs, curtailed by the call of the 2009 election.

In June 2009 NSP proposed a fixed charge to pay for conservation programs to raise $23M it could spend on reducing electricity demand. According to Alan Richardson, VP of commercial operations, 80 million kilowatt-hours and 60,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent would be removed, and ordinary customers would see paybacks for the fixed fees within three years due to fuel savings alone.

The province had put the conservation programs to tender via Conserve NS. This came under criticism as an increased charge that would affect conservers and wasters both equally, and thus discourage conservation. Chair of NS Union of Municipalities Bill Zimmerman and other critics of NSP had previously taken some issue with this model, as high fixed charges to pay for power utility infrastructure had not generally encouraged conservation in Ontario, and utilities were in conflict of interest. The proposal however was for a small $12/year charge and received no opposition.

Receiving more attention was the postponement of conservation programs for large commercial electricity users. NSP was accused of explicit conflicts of interest, being both the vendor of electricity and also administrator of programs that, if successful, would result in selling fewer watts. Richardson claimed that $1/month would cover this loss, but John Merrick, a consumer advocate, questioned whether estimates of lost revenues should be the basis for fixed charges.

"...the company seems to want to set up automatic price adjustment mechanism to operate yearly, with annual programs cranking up prices."

Merrick proposed that "cost of equipment, facilities, structure, staffing" must be recovered "through application for higher rates" and that NSP shareholders not ratepayers must bear the risk of company decisions of what to invest in.

Grid operations and maintenance; related communications services

By 2009, neighboring public utilities NB Power and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro significantly upgraded their facilities to so-called "smart grids" with 100-megabit networks. These supported real time testing [274109] and, in Newfoundland, let the utility also deliver voice and data services to customers. Aliant XWave, IT contractor to both, touted its achievements in these other Atlantic provinces as being more advanced than the many other utilities it worked with. NS Power by contrast had no such over-arching plan and fell under increasing criticism especially during the 2009 election for that.

In Newfoundland, charges for voice and data services were to pay for grid upgrades. In New Brunswick, the upgrade was paid for by maintenance cost savings. These models were cited as alternatives to fixed fees per customer in the June 2009 NSP hearings, and by critics of NSP in the last days of the 2009 election campaign.

Generating facilities

NSPI has a generating capacity of 2,293 megawatts and produces 13,000 gigawatt hours of electricity each year. It operates a variety of generating stations using various sources of energy:

Thermal

Coal

• Lingan Generating Station
• Point Aconi Generating Station
• Point Tupper Generating Station
• Trenton Generating Station

Oil/natural gas

• Tuft's Cove Generating Station

Tidal

• Annapolis Royal Generating Station

Wind

• Grand Etang
• Little Brook

Hydroelectric

• Wreck Cove
• Paradise
• Nictaux Falls
• Mersey
• Bear River
• Hell's Gate
• Fall River
• Tantallon
• Sheet Harbour
• 24 other hydro plants

Combustion turbines

• Victoria Junction
• Tuft's Cove
• Tusket

Independent

NSPI also purchases energy from independent power producers who generate electricity using wind, hydro and biomass. Most notably the wind farm at Pubnico Point.

MajorCustomers

Industrial

• Bowater, Liverpool
• Michelin, Bridgewater, Granton and Waterville
• Neenah Paper (formerly Kimberly Clark), Abercrombie point
• Intertape Polymer Group/Engineered Coated Products

Municipal utilities

There are six municipal utilities in the province:

• Antigonish Electric Utility
• Berwick Electric Light Commission
• Canso Electric Light Commission
• Lunenburg Electric Utility
• Mahone Bay Electric Utility
• Riverport Electric Light Commission

Public opinion

NS Power Inc. enjoys a tenuous relationship with its customers after coming under fire for rate increases that the public views as unfair, especially in times of economic turmoil. Justification for the rate increases was presented to the NSUARB in mid-2008, and accepted a few months later. Other issues of contention are the frequency and duration of outages during storms and otherwise, especially in the metro Halifax region.

References

External links

• History of Electric Companies in Nova Scotia
• Nova Scotia Power
• NS Power Conservation and Energy Efficiency Programs
• Emera Inc