P.E.I.'s power company says Fiona-like storms are too expensive to handle frequently

Hurricane Fiona changed the way many Islanders are thinking about future storms.

Prince Edward Island MLAs were eager to get more information Thursday on how Maritime Electric was going to deal with severe storms moving forward.

This comes just ahead of the release of the electric utility's full Fiona report, which is expected at the end of January.

“Vegetation management, I would argue, has probably been a failure from Dorian to today,” said Robert Henderson, a Liberal MLA. “Yet, we still see, you're only talking about $4 million, doubling it by 2025.”

Maritime Electric says its goal is $4-5 million, which would create a seven to 10-year cycle on tree clearing around power poles.

“We believe that it will be enough, we just believe that we have to stage it to manage the impact on rates,” said Enrique Riveroll, Maritime Electric customer service vice president.

The full cost of Maritime Electric’s Fiona cleanup is still unknown, but it’s estimated to be around $35 million.

The company is still working with insurers and government to determine how much of that cost the utility will have to absorb.

“What we’ve applied to the regulator is a deferral account from the storm costs from Fiona, and as has been mentioned publicly, the government is also looking to the federal government for assistance,” said Kim Griffin, the communications manager Maritime Electric.

Griffin said Hurricane Fiona was clearly a disaster, and if they had to pay the full cost of the cleanup work for a storm like Fiona out of pocket, it would be a challenge.

“Yes, there would be a rate impact to our customers,” said Griffin. “We’re always trying to smooth that out over time, so it’s still a bit early for us at this stage until we know if there may be that funding component.”

As it stands now, storms of Fiona's magnitude are simply beyond the scope of P.E.I.'s electric utility to deal with on a regular basis, and one which would be considerably more expensive.