Opposition
energy critic Kris Austin says allowing N.B. Power a say in choosing
who would review it 'torpedoes' the effort's credibility. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)From a number of candidates whose names are redacted in the documents, the committee settled on former N.B. Power board member Anne Bertrand, utility financial expert Michael Bernstein and former Ontario utility and nuclear executive Duncan Hawthorne.
Bertrand, a former New Brunswick Information and Privacy Commissioner, was a member of N.B. Power's board of directors between 2018 and 2024, serving alongside MacGillivray.
According to various N.B. Power annual reports, Bertrand sat on a number of board committees with the now chair and was a member of the board in 2023 when it named Lori Clark to become N.B. Power president
Bernstein was also a familiar figure to the utility.
Although not detailed in the online biography the province initially released about him, Bernstein was involved as a consultant in the effort to sell N.B. Power to Hydro Quebec in 2009.
More recently, he had been on a financial retainer to N.B. Power to advise it on what might be done with the troubled Point Lepreau nuclear generating station and the structurally challenged Mactaquac hydroelectric dam.
In an interview, Bernstein said he terminated his financial relationship with N.B. Power in the spring before he formally signed on to help conduct the review of N.B. Power.
"Once it was in early May, saying, 'Look, we'd like to move forward with you,' then I had the conversation with the company about terminating my agreement," Bernstein said.
In his statement to CBC News, Legacy acknowledged both Lori Clark and Andrew MacGillivray were involved in "the identification and selection" of Bertrand, Bernstein and Hawthorne to lead the review but insisted nothing the steering committee has done or will do affects the group's ability to evaluate N.B. Power "independently and objectively."
He also said Bernstein's biography on the N.B. Power review website is being updated to include information about his past involvement with the utility "to ensure full transparency."
Hearing - Matter EL-002-2025
NBEUB / CESPNBHearing - Matter EL-002-2025
NBEUB / CESPNBHearing - Matter EL-002-2025
NBEUB / CESPNBHearing - Matter EL-002-2025
NBEUB / CESPNB5 days of EUB hearings bring out demonstrators & experts debating complicated issues
Demonstrators march against proposed gas plant in Moncton on Thursday. Photo: Juliette Bulmer
About 30 demonstrators marched Thursday outside the Moncton hotel where the Energy & Utilities Board was holding hearings on NB Power’s plan for a 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village.
Midgic resident Juliette Bulmer says the demonstrators also spent about an hour inside the hearing room.
“Hotel staff tried to calmly stop us, but we just left all our signs outside the room and quietly and respectfully walked in and sat down,” she says.
“We knew we had a right to be there.”
On Friday, NB Power lawyer John Furey questioned witnesses Jeffrey Palermo and Dustin Madsen, both of whom were hired by Public Intervener Alain Chiasson.
Palermo, an energy consultant based in Boca Raton, Florida, has filed EUB testimony suggesting that NB Power’s forecasts are wrong and the utility does not need electricity from the gas/diesel plant.
In his evidence, Madsen, an accountant based in Calgary, questions whether NB Power’s decision to invest in a gas plant, owned and operated by an American company, is financially prudent.
Closing arguments
The EUB will meet again on Thursday, February 19th in Saint John to hear closing arguments from NB Power and various interveners.
The EUB has also scheduled additional hearing days from March 31 to April 2 to consider NB Power’s tentative agreement to sell 100 MW of gas-plant power to Nova Scotia.
Demonstrators chanted “No gas plant, No gas plant” as they marched in Moncton on Thursday. Photo: Juliette Bulmer
Two technical issues
(1) Many of the arguments this week in Moncton revolved around complicated technical issues about how much electricity NB Power needs to meet customer demand and how best to supply it.
The EUB heard that NB Power adheres to North American standards for the expected risk of days per year in which available generation may not meet demand.
That standard, called Loss of Load Expectation or LOLE, is set at 0.1 days per year — about 2.4 hours annually, or one day in 10 years. LOLE is a planning benchmark used to determine how much dependable capacity the system must have.
NB Power argues that to stay within that standard, it needs 400 MW of power from the proposed gas/diesel plant, particularly during winter peak periods.
Critics, including the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB), contend that if NB Power needs that electricity, grid-scale battery energy storage systems combined with wind and solar would be a cheaper way to supply it.
(2) This brings in a second technical issue known as Effective Load Carrying Capacity, or ELCC.
ELCC measures how much dependable capacity a specific power resource or asset contributes toward meeting the LOLE standard. In other words, it estimates how much that resource reduces the risk of supply shortfalls during peak demand.
NB Power argues that batteries and renewables provide less ELCC than firm gas generation, especially during prolonged winter peak conditions.
The utility contends that the province’s highest electricity demand typically occurs on frigid winter mornings, when solar output is minimal and wind generation can be variable, making dependable capacity during those hours especially critical for meeting the LOLE standard.
Critics, such as the CCNB, argue that rapid improvements in technology have made battery energy storage systems backed up by wind and solar a more cost-effective way of providing peak power quickly when needed.
To read Erica Butler’s CBC coverage, click here.
Photo: Juliette Bulmer
N.B. Power review panel hears affordability concerns, shows alignment with gas plant plans
Recommendations coming in March will be high-level not ‘micro-management’, says panellist
The three-person panel tasked with a full review of N.B. Power says affordability was the top concern of respondents to an online survey about planning the future of the utility.
The panel released a summary report, titled "What We Heard," on Friday afternoon after wrapping up public consultations in December.
The 25-page document includes feedback organized into six themed areas, as well as input directly from the panel which shows alignment with N.B. Power's rationale behind plans for a 500-megawatt gas and diesel plant in rural Tantramar.
When will the increases end?
About three quarters of 3,200 respondents to the survey ranked “maintaining affordable rates” as their highest priority, above a list of other factors including reliability, energy security, financial health and the transition to clean electricity.
The report noted “widespread anxiety about long-term affordability” among participants, with a common question from the public being “when will the increases end?”
The utility is asking for a 4.75 per cent rate increase this April after two consecutive years of nearly 10 per cent hikes.
“Many of those engaged called for stronger protections and income-based billing options,” the report stated.
Participants also commented on the benefits of efficiency programs offered by N.B. Power, but noted issues such as long wait times to access those programs.
N.B. Power’s rollout of smart meters, which could be used to enable things like variable time of day rates, “prompted opposing opinions," according to the panel report.
N.B. Power said in October the number of customers rejecting smart meters had ballooned to 10 times more than it had predicted.
Panel also heard misconceptions
In a phone interview Friday, panelist Michael Bernstein said although the group was in “listening mode” throughout the six-month consultation, “we did try engaging and educating as best as we could.”
Bernstein said there were several misconceptions the panel heard repeatedly.
There was a “very strong view” that NB Power was paying bonuses to executives, even in light of “underperformance,” said Bernstein.
“As far as we can tell,” he said, N.B. Power is “the only utility in North America that does not pay bonuses. There is no compensation that's linked to performance.”
Alignment with N.B. Power on gas plant
Bernstein also said the panel heard a “perspective held by many” that with the cost of renewables dropping, “why can't we just put all solar and all wind and maybe supplement that with batteries? And therefore we don't need nuclear, or we certainly don't need gas plants.”
But, said Bernstein, the panel is working from the assumption that “wind and solar with batteries are not sufficient,” because of New Brunswick’s high winter peak power usage. He referred to N.B. Power’s reasoning behind its decision to hire ProEnergy to build a 500-megawatt gas and diesel plant in Tantramar.
“We need something that can be available, that can ramp up quickly,” said Bernstein, and be available for up to 72 hours.
Opponents to the Tantramar gas plant, including some energy system experts, have asserted the plant is not necessary, and N.B. Power’s peaks could indeed be served by renewables coupled with large-scale battery storage.
“Battery technologies keep on getting better,” he said, “and the duration and the cost keeps on improving, but we're not in the science project mode either of saying, in five or 10 years, let's cross our fingers and hope that something happens.
“The company has to deal with what they know now and make plans around that.”
High-level recommendations
Bernstein said the "What We Heard" document does include some hints as to what may eventually be included in the panel’s recommendations, but the panel will not be “getting into micro-management.”
“That's not up to us to say where facilities, or what type of facilities, or how many megawatts are required,” said Bernstein.
Instead, the panel will mainly focus on “some very high-level policy, regulatory, legislative, governance recommendations,” while also potentially highlighting some specific things “that can be done differently or better.”
The
independent panel reviewing what to do about N.B. Power has published a
What We Heard report. Final recommendations are expected in March. (Robert Jones/CBC)A streamlined focus for the Crown corporation could also be on the menu, said Bernstein.
“You'll see that we do want the company to focus on its core business, on operational excellence, on doing things better,” he said.
But N.B. Power is now in a position where “what was already a complicated world of running an electricity system … is getting more complicated as you have to refurbish, revitalize and build new generation and upgrade the system.”
He said the panel has a “broad mandate” and will look at “all the potential tools and levers that can be utilized for a better outcome in the future for New Brunswickers.”
A final report with recommendations is due out in March.
“After that, it's up to New Brunswickers and the government to decide how far and how fast they want to push on them," he said.
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Holt government defends N.B. Power involvement in selecting group to review N.B. Power
Utility president and board chair played role in the 'identification and selection' of candidates
Internal government records show senior N.B. Power officials were given a say in selecting the three-person committee set up to advise the New Brunswick government on what to do about the utility.
The selection process resulted in at least two reviewers with strong connections to N.B. Power being chosen, but New Brunswick Finance and Energy Minister René Legacy says the utility has not been unduly influencing the review exercise by its sometimes behind-the-scenes involvement.
"N.B. Power representatives provide valuable perspective but do not have veto power over any decision regarding the review," Legacy said in a statement issued to CBC News.
A request to interview the minister about the review and N.B. Power's role in choosing those conducting it was not granted.
N.B. Power had hand in picking who would independently review its operationsN.B. Power's involvement in the selection process surfaced in documents sent to New Brunswick's opposition Progressive Conservative Party following a freedom of information request.
The documents have been reviewed by CBC News.
PC Kris Austin, the opposition energy critic, said allowing the utility a say in who was picked to evaluate the utility undermines the credibility of the exercise.
N.B.
Power president Lori Clark was one of two senior officials from the
utility allowed a say in who would run an in-depth review of the Crown
corporation. (Frédéric Cammarano/Radio-Canada)"It absolutely torpedoes the thought of an independent outside committee," Austin said in an interview. "I think that kind of blows all that out of the water."
In mid-April, Legacy and New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt jointly announced what they called a "comprehensive review" of N.B. Power that would be at arms length from the company.
Holt said major changes were needed at the utility because of rapidly rising power rates and bulging debt levels and she wanted a fresh look by outside experts who could evaluate what is wrong and propose solutions.
"Transformative change is required," Holt said. "Everything is on the table because the status quo is no longer an option."
Holt also made the point that the review process needed to be "independent and transparent" to earn public trust.
A news release issued at the time said, "three people independent from N.B. Power" would be picked to lead the review but didn't detail how they would be chosen.
Documents since released by the province show that selecting the three people was delegated to a "steering committee" that was empowered to provide "strategic direction" to the project
New
Brunswick Finance and Energy Minister René Legacy says nothing about
the selection process for the review group will affect its independence.
(Ed Hunter/CBC)Five of the seven members of the steering committee represent the province, including Legacy, deputy energy minister Jeff Hoyt, the clerk of the executive council, Judy Wagner, and two senior officials from Susan Holt's office — chief of staff Katie Davey and director of communications Brit Mockler.
The remaining two members are N.B. Power president Lori Clark and N.B. Power chair Andrew MacGillivray.
In the days after the review was announced the steering committee assembled to choose the three people who would run it.
From a number of candidates whose names are redacted in the documents, the committee settled on former N.B. Power board member Anne Bertrand, utility financial expert Michael Bernstein and former Ontario utility and nuclear executive Duncan Hawthorne.
Bertrand, a former New Brunswick Information and Privacy Commissioner, was a member of N.B. Power's board of directors between 2018 and 2024, serving alongside MacGillivray.
According to various N.B. Power annual reports, Bertrand sat on a number of board committees with the now chair and was a member of the board in 2023 when it named Lori Clark to become N.B. Power president
Bernstein was also a familiar figure to the utility.
Opposition
energy critic Kris Austin says allowing N.B. Power a say in choosing
who would review it 'torpedoes' the effort's credibility. (Jacques Poitras/CBC)Although not detailed in the online biography the province initially released about him, Bernstein was involved as a consultant in the effort to sell N.B. Power to Hydro Quebec in 2009.
More recently, he had been on a financial retainer to N.B. Power to advise it on what might be done with the troubled Point Lepreau nuclear generating station and the structurally challenged Mactaquac hydroelectric dam.
In an interview, Bernstein said he terminated his financial relationship with N.B. Power in the spring before he formally signed on to help conduct the review of N.B. Power.
"Once it was in early May, saying, 'Look, we'd like to move forward with you,' then I had the conversation with the company about terminating my agreement," Bernstein said.
In his statement to CBC News, Legacy acknowledged both Lori Clark and Andrew MacGillivray were involved in "the identification and selection" of Bertrand, Bernstein and Hawthorne to lead the review but insisted nothing the steering committee has done or will do affects the group's ability to evaluate N.B. Power "independently and objectively."
He also said Bernstein's biography on the N.B. Power review website is being updated to include information about his past involvement with the utility "to ensure full transparency."
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EUB accepts NB Power’s new evidence; hearings begin as scheduled next week
EUB Chair Christopher Stewart
The New Brunswick Energy & Utilities Board is allowing NB Power to submit additional evidence about its deal with Nova Scotia to sell 100 MW from its proposed 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant near Centre Village.
Board Chair Christoper Stewart made his ruling to accept the new evidence after an online hearing on Friday that lasted more than 90-minutes.
“This situation is not ideal,” Stewart said, “but we must deal with matters as they emerge.”
He was referring to NB Power’s decision to submit the additional evidence one week before EUB hearings were set to begin in Moncton.
The EUB must decide whether the gas plant would be a prudent investment for the public utility and whether it would be needed to avoid electricity shortages beginning in 2028.
Stewart said those hearings will be held next week in Moncton as planned, but the EUB will give any interveners a couple of extra days at some later date if they request additional time to deal with the new evidence.
Public Intervener Alain Chiasson had argued during Friday’s hearing that it would be unfair to allow NB Power to introduce its new evidence next week.
Chiasson, who will be opposing the proposed gas plant, said he and his experts would not have time to analyze and question the “hundreds of pages of new, complicated evidence.”
In his ruling, however, Board Chair Stewart suggested that all intervening parties could have expected the additional evidence. NB Power indicated in its original filings that it was looking for a customer to buy 100 MW from the plant.
Documents show it now has a tentative 10-year deal to sell that electricity to Nova Scotia’s Independent Energy System Operator.
The EUB hearings are set to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Monday at the Delta Beauséjour in Moncton.
To read a summary of NB Power’s new evidence, click here.
Cost could be at least $3.5B over 25 years for N.B. Power’s gas and diesel plant
As regulatory hearings continue, executive gives dire warning about risks
A natural gas and diesel plant proposed for rural Tantramar could cost New Brunswick ratepayers at least $3.5 billion over the next 25 years, according to testimony in Energy and Utilities board hearings in Moncton.
N.B. Power executives have repeatedly declined to publicly share a ballpark figure on the cost of the proposed project.
But in questioning this week, public intervener Alain Chiasson found his way to an answer anyway.
Chiasson pointed to an N.B. Power briefing note, dated April 2024, that shows the estimated “average annual revenue requirement” for the project, which was then in early planning stages.
Chiasson multiplied the $142 million annual requirement by 25 years to arrive at $3.5 billion.
Public
intervener Alain Chiasson's cross-examination of N.B. Power executives
led to a new cost estimate for the proposed gas plant: $3.5 billion over
25 years. (Ian Bonnell/CBC)Jordan Russell, N.B. Power’s manager of commercial evaluation, said the math would not be “quite that simple,” and the total would need to be calculated through a financial model.
But one economist from St. Thomas University said the result is a “solid ballpark figure,” which can help inform the public and N.B. Power ratepayers.
St. Thomas professor Andrew Secord is a registered intervener in the board hearings but has not signed any confidentiality agreements and so is not privy to the financial details of N.B. Power’s gas and diesel generation project.
Instead, Secord has been seeking public disclosure of cost estimates.
On Monday, Brad Coady, N.B. Power’s chief commercial officer, refused to answer Secord’s question, but offered that the project’s capital cost would be “more than a billion dollars.”
With the public intervener’s questions on Tuesday, it was "the first time that we've looked at the impact on ratepayers over that 25-year period,” Secord said.
N.B. Power has signed a 25-year deal with Missouri-based ProEnergy to build and operate the proposed 400- to 500-megawatt gas and diesel power plant.
Fully secure electricity system unrealistic
Chiasson started his cross-examination Wednesday asking about how N.B. Power calculates the trade-off between cost to customers and the reliability of the electricity system.
Darren Clark, N.B. Power’s director of corporate planning, acknowledged that reliability “can never be 100 per cent,” said that although N.B. Power tries to keep the likelihood of a forced outage as low as possible, to have zero risk “would be a very costly endeavour.”
Clark explained that planning standards around "loss of load expectation" call for no more than 0.1 days per year, or one forced outage event every 10 years.
When Chiasson asked how many outages resulting from insufficient generation had happened in the past decade, Jonathan Pollock, the executive director of system operations, said that while there have been none in recent history, “we are getting extremely close to having such events.”
The discussion prompted Brad Coady to give the board a dire warning about the potential for forced outages.
Brad Coady, the chief commercial officer for N.B. Power, appeared before the Energy and Utilities Board. (Ian Bonnell/CBC)“Even though the engineers have come up with planning criteria," said Coady, forced outages are something that “everybody involved in this system would like to avoid.”
“Public safety is at risk. People will die.”
Coady referred to extended outages in Newfoundland in January 2014, when health authorities reported increased incidence of carbon monoxide poisoning because people were running diesel generators in enclosed spaces.
Pollock said that his team at N.B. Power was prepared and trained for rolling outages, but it is “not something that we want to have to entertain doing.”
“Maybe the planning standard says you're allowed to take some risk,” Pollock said. But “who bears the brunt of that risk is the customer.”
Chiasson then asked if Coady and Pollock would agree that “customers bear the risk of a loss-of-load event, but also pay the cost to avoid that risk, and those costs must be reasonable?”
Coady replied by acknowledging that 100 per cent reliability “would result in an unaffordable electric system.”
“Engineers do use planning criteria to help decide, is this a prudent investment and whatnot,” said Coady. “It's a big part of the testimony that's been in front of the board these past few days.”
But even though a fully secure system is unrealistic, Coady said, “that doesn't mean we have to wait for a system to fail to justify the need for a project.”
Hearings into the proposed gas plant continue Thursday and Friday, with a second set of hearings scheduled for April.
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Former utility exec says NB Power’s proposed gas plant is 20 years out of date
Former utility manager Tim Hicks
A former senior manager with one of the largest electricity companies in the U.S. says NB Power should not be pushing a 500 MW gas plant as a solution to its energy needs.
“There are ideas for the environment that are better than building a gas, obviously carbon-based combustion power plant,” Tim Hicks said during a presentation to Tantramar Town Council on Tuesday.
“I worked as a senior manager for Southern California Edison in grid modernization. I gained a lot of knowledge there. I’d like to share a little bit of that with you,” he said.
Hicks returned home to Sackville three years ago after spending many years out of the country. He joined the local group Seniors for Climate Change – Tantramar after learning about the proposed gas plant on the Chignecto Isthmus.
He told council there are better solutions to meeting energy needs including what’s known as “time-of-use” or “time of day” power rates that would encourage NB Power customers to save money by shifting some of their electricity consumption to times when there’s less demand on the grid.
“At night, there’s very little power consumption,” he said, adding that about 20 years ago, for example, utilities in Ontario and California introduced cheaper, variable rates to encourage customers to run appliances such as dishwashers or clothes dryers during the night-time hours or very early in the morning.
“Typically, between 4 and 9 in the evening is when everybody’s consuming power,” he explained, and rates then could be more expensive, something like 28 cents per kilowatt hour while rates from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. could be around 15 to 18 cents.
The real savings could come during the night-time hours (9 p.m. to 7 a.m) when he said NB Power could charge only six cents per kilowatt hour.
NB Power out of date
Smart meter. Photo: NB Power
“My question is why is it acceptable for NB Power to be more than 20 years or almost 20 years behind in this technology, in this simple solution and now they’re rushing to build a power plant,” he said.
Hicks said he understands why New Brunswickers are reluctant to sign up for the so-called “smart meters” that are needed to implement “time of use” pricing.
“There is a history of blunder after blunder after blunder and I can understand why the public has not trusted NB Power and maybe why they’ve delayed this because they oppose smart meters because they don’t trust NB Power to implement properly,” he said.
“An electric company has a monopoly. They own the wires and they own the towers,” he added, pointing to a conflict-of-interest when utilities generate and sell their own power.
“In California, they removed the power production from the business of providing electricity. They removed that conflict of interest, plus they incentivized power production to be green.”
Council support
Councillor Allison Butcher
“I think you’re kind of preaching to the choir here,” said Allison Butcher, one of several members of council who thanked Hicks for his presentation.
“We hear you. We are with you,” she said, adding that sometimes the town feels powerless to influence NB Power and the province.
“Unfortunately, as a municipal government, we have said we don’t agree with it [the gas plant], but I’m not sure it matters to them.
“So, I thank you for continuing to beat the drum.”
NB Power Plan
Meantime, St. Thomas University Economic Professor Andrew Secord asked NB Power about introducing “time of use” rates during this week’s Energy & Utilities Board hearings in Moncton.
Vice President Brad Coady replied those rates could come “as early as April 1, 2028,” but he cautioned it would depend on several factors including EUB rulings on how electricity rates are designed and the time that would be needed to educate customers.
N.B. Power lawyer fails to get expert's battery evidence tossed
Toby Couture says N.B. Power is overestimating the size of battery it needs
Regulatory hearings into N.B. Power’s proposed Tantramar gas and diesel plant turned a corner on Thursday, as the first expert witness speaking against the project testified before the Energy and Utilities Board.
Toby Couture is a battery and renewable energy expert hired by the Conservation Council of New Brunswick to evaluate the controversial energy project.
His pre-filed evidence argues that renewables backed by battery storage are a better option to fill power capacity needs than the gas-and-diesel-fuelled power plant proposed by N.B. Power.
But before Couture could testify Thursday afternoon, N.B. Power lawyer John Furey spent about an hour trying to have Couture and his evidence disqualified.
Among other things, Furey took issue with the fact that Couture, while working for the Conservation Council in 2007, co-authored a paper with New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon.
Furey highlighted statements from the paper tying global climate targets to the energy transition and calling for a move away from dependence on fossil fuels.
Couture wouldn’t fully endorse the nearly 20-year-old statements, but the line of questioning prompted him to recall an oft-quoted statement, attributed to former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani, that, “the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones.”
Battery
and renewables expert Toby Couture was hired by the Conservation
Council of New Brunswick to evaluate the N.B. Power gas plant project. (New Brunswick Energy and Utilities board livestream)“It ended because we developed better ways of doing things,” said Couture, who spoke to the hearing from his home in Germany. “Technological change is really what drives the market forward, and in this case, we are in the midst of a technological revolution.”
Furey’s ultimate objection to Couture had to do with the allegation that he was “selectively reaching for data that supports the position he wants to take" and would not be able to provide objective and non-partisan evidence.
Furey pointed to what he said were inconsistencies or omissions in the 35-page document Couture had submitted as evidence.
Conservation Council lawyer Kostantina Northrup rejected the idea that Couture had made a “deliberate attempt to doctor evidence," and said there had been times over the past week where she had identified “errors and unintentional mischaracterizations” in other testimony.
But those, said Northrup, should affect how the board weighs the evidence, not whether it is admissible.
The board agreed with Northrup, and Couture’s evidence was accepted for consideration.
Conflicting opinions on battery size
Several times during his cross-examination, Couture referred to a previous claim made by N.B. Power that to meet its need for 400 megawatts of additional capacity, it would need a 1,000 megawatt battery.
But Couture argued that was a miscalculation of the "effective load carrying capacity" of batteries, or how much energy they can be relied on to provide at any given time.
Christopher
Stewart, the Energy and Utilities Board chair, asked Couture about his
estimate of the battery size required to meet N.B. Power's capacity
needs. (CBC)Battery systems don’t contribute their full size value to a utility’s "effective load carrying capacity" calculation. But N.B Power and Couture disagree on what number to use for that calculation.
N.B. Power says it should be a 40 per cent capacity factor, saying that it would take a 1,000 megawatt battery to get a reliable 400 megawatts of capacity for the utility.
But Couture pointed to evidence that the capacity factor should start much higher, at 80 per cent, and then would drop as the utility added more and more battery storage.
Because N.B. Power currently has “little to no installed utility scale battery storage,” Couture said the first 500 megawatts it installs will actually provide 400 megawatts of "effective load carrying capacity."
The point was of interest to Christopher Stewart, the Energy and Utilities Board chair, and to board member Kenneth McCullogh, who both asked Couture to further clarify the point.
Cross-examination of expert witnesses is expected to wrap up on Friday, after those hired by the public intervener are able to testify. Final arguments to the board will happen at a later date, which has yet to be determined.
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N.B. Power is looking at the wrong metrics to determine its needs, expert witness says
Conflicting opinions continue in final day of gas plant hearings
Five days of expert testimony concluded Friday in the Energy and Utilities Board hearing into N.B Power’s proposed gas and diesel power plant for rural Tantramar.
Over the course of the hearing, the board heard conflicting testimony on two key questions in the debate over the plant:
- Does N.B. Power need the 400 megawatts of additional power capacity the plant could provide?
- And if it does, are there more affordable alternatives to the new fossil fuel-powered plant?
Expert
witness Jeffrey Palermo, front, was hired by the public intervener to
evaluate N.B. Power's case for a gas and diesel power plant in rural
Tantramar. (Amine Salhi/Radio-Canada)The conclusion of Jeffrey Palermo, an energy system consultant based in Florida who appeared before the board Friday, is that N.B. Power does not actually need 400 megawatts of additional capacity.
And even if it did, he said, battery storage is a viable alternative to meet that need.
One of Palermo’s key criticisms of N.B. Power’s decision to pursue the gas plant was its mix of methods to determine its capacity needs.
He said the utility used shorter term “operating-type analyses” instead of relying on long-term planning standards and criteria.
He said that in calculating its need, the utility used “the method that found the largest capacity shortfall.”
N.B. Power lawyer John Furey took issue with that analysis and pointed to tables showing weeks-long periods in the winters of 2023 and 2024, when the utility had crossed into negative "net margins" and used more power than planned.
Furey asked if Palermo agreed that during those times, N.B. Power was “really potentially one generation-unit outage away from rolling blackouts.”
Palermo countered the utilities have a series of tools they can use in such situations to avoid rolling blackouts, such as lowering voltage and dipping into reserves.
“Mr. Pollock and his team, I think, are competent system operators,” said Palermo, referring to Jonathan Pollock, N.B. Power’s executive director of system operations. “It is a judgment call as to what steps you can take before you interrupt customer load.”
What about Lepreau?
Furey then asked Palermo to consider Point Lepreau, N.B. Power’s nuclear generating station, which he said was capable of producing up to 715 megawatts of power.
If Lepreau were to “trip” and lose power during such periods, Furey suggested, then a forced outage might be much more likely.
Palermo first commented that it is not ideal for a power system to rely on such a large single generator. But he also pointed out that the risk of Point Lepreau going out of service is already being considered.
“It's not being ignored,” Palermo said. “It's in there, along with a whole variety of other assumptions that you can make and that may or may not need to be adjusted based on historical experience.”
Palermo said the utility could “hypothesize a number of conditions where the system would be critically short of power,” but those would not necessarily impact long-term probabilities and planning calculations.
Ignoring the ‘flashing red?'
“You're coming very close to saying, Mr. Palermo, that, in your view, the board should ignore the operational consideration, even if it's flashing red in front of them,” said Furey.
Palermo held his position. He said perhaps there could be a “robust” debate about how long-term planning criteria are calculated, but until then there are adopted standards.
Differing opinions
Palermo’s insistence that planning standards are the right tool to determine whether a utility needs additional power generation has been challenged by others in this week’s hearings.
Consultants from the Brattle Group, hired by N.B. Power to evaluate the gas plant proposal, said in their evidence that both long and short-term time frames were important in decisions about building new generation.
And Brad Coady, the N.B. Power chief commercial officer, told the hearing that, “even though the engineers have come up with planning criteria,” power outages are something “everybody involved in this system would like to avoid.”
Board decision expected in April
Though cross-examinations of witnesses wrapped up on Friday afternoon in Moncton, a decision by the board is still months away.
Final submissions for this week’s hearing will take place next week at the board’s office in Saint John.
A second set of hearings on the case is to happen from March 31 to April 2.
Those hearings will consider a proposed expansion of the gas plant project, to include two additional turbines capable of producing an additional 100 megawatts, which N.B. Power would sell to Nova Scotia.
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Town councillors say they don’t trust US company proposing to build gas/diesel plant in Tantramar
PROENERGY Canada President John MacIsaac answering questions last night at Tantramar Town Council
About 70 people crowded into the council chamber at Tantramar Town Hall on Tuesday to hear PROENERGY Canada President John MacIsaac make a five-minute presentation and respond to questions and comments from members of council.
“We have spent considerable time with New Brunswick skilled trades in ensuring that the benefits happen here first,” MacIssac said referring to the 500 MW gas/diesel plant that PROENERGY is planning to build on the Chignecto Isthmus near Centre Village.
“We’ve taken New Brunswick skilled trade entities to both Sedalia, Missouri and to some of our plants in Houston, Texas as well,” he added.
As he spoke, MacIsaac showed a slide that also mentioned his company’s collaboration with Mi’kmaq First Nations, but he did not refer to it verbally.
Later, Councillor Allison Butcher did.
Councillor Allison Butcher asked about the apparent lack of Indigenous participation
“There are no Indigenous groups backing this right now. We were told there was,” she said.
Butcher was referring to PROENERGY’s claims in documents filed with federal regulators and in community open houses last summer that the Mi’kmaq North Shore Tribal Council had invested in the gas plant project and would be co-owners of it.
“I feel like I’ve already been told things that weren’t completely true,” she added.
“So when I hear these great new things about how it will work, I can’t in good faith believe it because I’ve been told things before that weren’t true from you.”
MacIsaac responded that he stood by his former statements about Indigenous participation.
“I would invite you to fact-check me,” he told Butcher, adding that she should submit an access to information request for the supporting documents PROENERGY submitted to NB Power in response to the utility’s request for proposals (RFP) from companies interested in building and operating a gas/diesel generating plant.
“From an Indigenous participation perspective, what I said, and I stand by what I said,” MacIsaac told Butcher.
“What I said was from the outset, when we started proactively very early with Indigenous conversation back in 2024, and I would invite you to fact-check me…by going back and submitting an access to information (request) for the supporting documents that accompanied our response to the RFP.
“And then, I’m more than happy to come back and have the conversation over again,” MacIsaac said.
He gave the same “fact-check me” advice to Councillors Bruce Phinney and Michael Tower when they, too, raised what they saw as PROENERGY’s false claims about Mi’kmaq participation in the project.
Goguen questions location
Councillor Josh Goguen
Councillor Josh Goguen complained that council and the community did not receive proper notice of the gas plant project.
“We only got the notice on Facebook, of all places, before it even came out to council to say there was something coming in the area,” he said.
“For all this time, it was set up to be in Scoudouc and all of a sudden, it’s not in Scoudouc anymore.”
MacIsaac responded that NB Power looked at eight separate locations before narrowing it down to two, Scoudouc and Centre Village.
“At the end of the day, the impacts to the site were less, materially less, in Centre Village than they were in Scoudouc,” he said as members of the audience murmured in disbelief.
MacIsaac urged members of council to ask for more information from NB Power on how the sites were chosen.
“I asked them to put together an executive summary on the siting process,” he said,
“They now have that ready and it’s going through peer review internal to NB Power. So, I’d encourage you to go and ask them for it.”
Goguen also questioned whether the gas/diesel plant would burn fuel only 6-7% of the time as MacIsaac had claimed.
The councillor said he had heard that PEI and Nova Scotia had signed agreements to take some power from the plant.
MacIsaac replied that if you read what has been publicly posted, PEI is pursuing its own power solutions.
He added that as far as Nova Scotia is concerned, “that’s a question for NB Power.”
Tower questions emissions
Councillor Michael Tower
Councillor Michael Tower said he was “disheartened” at how the community learned about the project on social media.
“So, nothing there leads to trust and I’d like to be able to trust people we deal with,” he said.
“You have a lot of stairs to climb to get to where I want to have faith in you,” Tower added.
“I’m committed to that work,” MacIsaac responded.
Tower noted that PROENERGY had declared at open houses that it would be fully open and transparent, yet spokesman Chris Evans had refused to comment when Warktimes e-mailed to ask about errors in calculating greenhouse gas emissions that Professors Jean Philippe Sapinski and Patrick Faubert found in the document that the company submitted to regulators.
MacIsaac replied that in refusing to comment, Evans was trying not to interfere in the ongoing environmental review and consultation process.
“Us commenting could be seen as us influencing or attempting to influence what is supposed to be an independent process,” he said.
MacIsaac then promised to get a response from Evans, adding that NB Power is also working on a detailed response.
Mitton unimpressed
MLA Megan Mitton
Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton, who attended last night’s council meeting, said she was “kind of floored” by how little information MacIsaac provided.
She pointed out, for example, that he had not seemed willing to comment on mistakes found in the PROENERGY environmental impact assessment document.
“I’ve been arguing that there are problems with the EIA submission, so it should be disqualified,” Mitton said.
“It’s really frustrating to see the lack of transparency when that’s one of the key things the community is demanding,” she added.
“It’s really disappointing to have elected officials asking questions on behalf of the people who elected them and to get such non-answers that barely tell us anything.”
Note: Warktimes has asked NB Power for the RFP documents that MacIsaac suggested would support his claims about Indigenous participation in the gas plant project.
Warktimes has also asked NB Power for the executive summary that MacIsaac said would provide information on how the Centre Village site was chosen.
So far, NB Power has not responded.
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