- Nova Scotia Power
-
Nova Scotia Power Inc. 
Type Subsidiary Industry Energy Predecessor Nova Scotia Power Commission, Nova Scotia Light and Power Ltd. Founded (1919) Headquarters Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Area served Nova Scotia Key people Robert Bennett, President & CEO[1] Products Electricity Owner(s) Publicly traded (TSE, MSE) Employees 1900 (approx.) Parent Emera Inc. Website www.nspower.ca Nova Scotia Power Inc. (TSX: NSI.PR.D) is a power generating and delivery company in Nova Scotia. It is privately owned by Emera (TSX: EMA) and regulated by the provincial government via the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (NSUARB).[2]
Contents
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 acquired Nova Scotia Light and Power Ltd., a private company, to form the Nova Scotia Power Corporation (NSPC).
In 1984, NSPC 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, NSPC 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. This privatization created Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (NSPI).
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.[citation needed]
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.[3] This New Brunswick deal has since been rescinded, due to public pressure in NB.
Grid investment and maintenance issue
In the wake of major winter storms in 2004,[4] 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-Lavalin to explore a "regional system operator" to relieve NS Power of the control of the grid itself.[5]
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." [6]
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,[7] 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.[8]
Conservation programs
As NS implemented its climate and demand side management strategies, lobbyists question 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."[9]
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.[10] 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.
Chair of NS Union of Municipalities Bill Zimmerman, critics of NSP and other special interest groups had previously taken issue with a model under which the utility managed programs that would reduce their revenue, arguing that the utility would be in conflict of interest.[citation needed] The proposal however was for a small $12/year charge and was approved by the regulator.
Conservation programs for large commercial and industrial electricity users were the first to be launched by NSPI, in May of 2008.[11] Although electric utilities across Canada commonly administer similar programs,[12][13][14] lobbyists accused NSP of potential conflicts of interest,[citation needed] being both the vendor of electricity and also administrator of programs that, if successful, would result in selling less energy.
The perceived conflict appears not to have been an impediment to performance, as NSP's energy conservation efforts have been very successful, with 2008-09 programs substantially exceeding energy savings targets (per third party verification) and remaining below budget.[15]
Richardson claimed that $1/month would cover the cost of the conservation programs.
- "...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.[16]Template:Citation incomplete
By 2009, the publicly owned electrical utilities in the neighbouring provinces of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador (NB Power and Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro) had significantly upgraded their facilities to so-called "smart grids" with 100-megabit networks. These supported real time testing [2] and, in Newfoundland and Labrador, let that province's utility also deliver voice and data services to customers. Aliant XWave, IT contractor to both, touted its achievements in these other Atlantic provinces[17] 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.[citation needed]
Generating facilities
Lingan Generating Station
Point Tupper Generating Station.NSPI has a generating capacity of 2,368 megawatts and produces 13,000 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.[18] It operates a variety of generating stations using various sources of energy including coal, natural gas and renewables:
Thermal
Coal
- Lingan Generating Station
- Point Aconi Generating Station
- Point Tupper Generating Station
- Trenton Generating Station
Oil/natural gas
Combustion turbines
- Burnside Combustion Turbine
- Tusket Combustion Turbine
- Victoria Junction Combustion Turbine
Tidal
Annapolis Royal Generating StationWind
- Grand Etang
- Little Brook
- Nutby Mountain
- Digby Neck
Hydroelectric
- Avon River System
- Bear River System
- Black River System
- Dickey Brook
- Fall River
- Lequille
- Mersey System
- Nictaux Falls
- Paradise
- St. Margaret's Bay System
- Sheet Harbour System
- Roseway
- Tusket Falls
- Wreck Cove
Purchased power
NSPI also purchases energy from independent power producers who generate electricity using wind, hydro, and biomass (including landfill gas). Notable examples include wind farms at Pubnico Point, Lingan, and Dalhousie Mountain.
Major customers
Industrial
- Bowater Mersey Paper Company Limited (Brooklyn)
- Intertape Polymer Inc. (Truro
- Michelin (Bridgewater, Granton, Waterville)
- Northern Pulp Nova Scotia (Abercrombie)
- NewPage (Point Tupper - currently closed)
Municipal utilities
There are six municipal utilities currently operating in the province. The majority of these utilities purchase electricity through an interconnection with NSP, however, some may have supplementary generating assets such as small hydro stations:
- Antigonish Electric Utility (Town of Antigonish)
- Berwick Electric Light Commission (Town of Berwick)
- Canso Electric Light Commission (Town of Canso)
- Lunenburg Electric Utility (Town of Lunenburg)
- Mahone Bay Electric Utility (Town of Mahone Bay)
- Riverport Electric Light Commission (Village of Riverport)
Public opinion
The public have been very critical of Nova Scotia Power since it has been privatized. There have been six rate increases over the last decade, with a seventh increase currently proposed. These rate increases have been proposed with the claim to cover investments in renewable energy, grid maintenance, environmental efficiencies in its coal generating stations and increased costs of purchasing cleaner coal. [19] With each increase, however, stockholder dividends have increased and the power outage frequency has not improved. In some cases, the utility has lost power in otherwise normal seasonal weather blaming such things as "salty fog" and "wet snow" for outages, leading to further frustration among the public.[20] Infrastructure updating has been an ongoing issue since privatization leading the utility to fall behind its neighbours in New Brunswick and Newfoundland in creating a "smart grid" to allow more competition into the market, ability to offer other services and efficient method for transmitting energy. [21] Given the monopoly held by the utility on providing power, the rate increases are seen as a way to increase profit share to its stockholders at the cost of businesses and private ratepayers in the region. The utilities largest energy customer, NewPage in Cape Breton has recently laid off workers citing inability to make a profit in the current environment, specifically citing the constant power rate increases as the number one concern. [22]
References
- ^ NSP Inc., Executive team
- ^ "Electricity". NUARB website. Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board. http://www.nsuarb.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=15. Retrieved 10 February 2011.
- ^ Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (29 October 2009). "NB Power deal raises concerns in N.S.". CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2009/10/29/ns-power-minas.html. Retrieved 2009-11-19.
- ^ Nova Scotia premier calls for independent review of power grid as thousands sit in the dark, November 26, 2004
- ^ Province explores options for cleaner power grid, February 2009
- ^ Nova Scotia provincial general election leaders' televised debate, June 2, 2009
- ^ Paul McLeod,"NS: Liberals blast Nova Scotia Power for supporting NDP", Metro Halifax, June 3, 2009
- ^ first Nova Scotia provincial general election leaders' televised debate, May 2009
- ^ NSP Inc., Conservation and Energy Efficiency Plan (About page)
- ^ NS Power seeks $23M for conservation program
- ^ Nova Scotia Power launches new energy efficiency initiative
- ^ BC Hydro PowerSmart
- ^ Manitoba Hydro PowerSmart
- ^ Hydro Quebec Energy Wise
- ^ NS Power customers save money, electricity through conservation and efficiency programs [1]
- ^ CBC Mainstreet Halifax, June 3, 2009
- ^ XWave
- ^ "Quick facts about Nova Scotia Power". NSPI. http://www.nspower.ca/en/home/aboutnspi/nspiquickfacts.aspx. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
- ^ "CBC Nova Scotia". CBC News. April 20, 2011. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2011/04/20/ns-power-rate-increase.html.
- ^ "CTV Nova Scotia". CTV News. November 5 2006. http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/CTVNewsAt11/20061105/novascotia_fog_outage_061105/.
- ^ "Ernst & young". Ernst & young. August 30, 2011. http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Industries/Power---Utilities/Seeing-energy-differently---Geographical-differences---Canada--tackling-geographical-challenges-with-smart.
- ^ "Chronicle Herald". Chronicle Herald. August 24, 2011. http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1259836.html.
External links
Categories:- Companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange
- Nova Scotia Power
- Companies based in the Halifax Regional Municipality
- Former Crown corporations of Canada
- Power companies of Canada
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