'I can only turn the thermostat down so low': NB Power customers wait for finer details of incoming rate hike

NB Power says customers should have a better idea soon about how much more they’ll be paying on utility bills, following last week’s approval of a nearly 20 per cent increase over two years.

NB Power says it will submit an updated ‘Rates Schedules and Policies Manual’ to the province’s Energy and Utilities Board by the end of this week, and that any rate changes would be communicated to customers.

Last Friday, the regulator approved nearly everything NB Power was asking for in its rate request but exact details still need to be approved.

“You don’t really know how to budget anymore, in a way, because you’re not sure what it’s going to look like down the road,” said NB Power customer Donna Murchison. “I can only turn the thermostat down so low.”

Saint John Energy says it’s waiting for a written EUB response to determine the impact on its customers. Saint John Energy purchases electricity from NB Power.

“Certainly, as a result of the ruling our costs to purchase power will increase by 9.8 per cent as of last April,” says Shelley Wood, the executive director of finance, people, and community at Saint John Energy. “But thanks to our low cost energy from Burchill (Wind Project) we were able to limit the increase to our customers. Residential rates went up by 9.27 per cent while general service customer rates increased by 6.9 per cent.”

The New Brunswick Coalition of Persons with Disabilities had intervenor status at regulatory hearings held earlier this year. Coalition chair Shelley Petit says there’s a few things NB Power could do immediately to help make the upcoming hike more manageable.

“We brought this up multiple times, Ontario has a program to help low-income workers and persons with disabilities and it brings down their power rates,” says Petit. “There are lots of programs out there. There were multiple specialists that talked about this. The utility claims they cannot do this unless the government mandates them to open the utility act.”

Petit says the coalition has sent a letter to the provincial government asking for amendments to be made.

The Saint John-based Human Development Council was the second non-profit organization with intervenor status at regulatory hearing, and presented data showing “energy poverty” within the province.

“We found that 80 per cent of low income ratepayers were in fact paying more than six per cent of their income on electricity,” says council executive director Randy Hatfield. “That’s a huge burden in an atmosphere where affordability is at almost crisis proportions for folks with low wages, precariously employed, or on fixed incomes.”

“Our findings were that New Brunswick had some of the highest rates of energy poverty in the country.”

Hatfield says he’s encouraged the EUB is ordering NB Power to separate affordability initiatives that until now have been shared between low and mid-income earners.

“I think that will be helpful going forward to acknowledging that low income rate payers may require targeted interventions and arguably preferential treatment when it comes to programs and benefits that are meant to make energy more efficient and more affordable,” says Hatfield.

Premier Susan Holt and her Liberal government are promising to remove the PST on utility bills.

NB Power says the rate hike is needed to address aging infrastructure and a debt of more than $5 billion at the utility, with unplanned outages at the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station being another contributing factor.

A shutdown this year at Point Lepreau (initially planned for between April and July) remains ongoing today. Each day Point Lepreau is offline costs the utility nearly $1 million in power replacement costs. NB Power now says it expects Point Lepreau to be back online in December.

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