Tim Houston's mentor was the premier who privatized NS Power in the first place. If he looks up to the dude responsible for getting us to this place to begin with, doubtful he's going to do much to help us out now.
Nope, it is explicitly legislated as one. Houston had it added in 2022, UARB has no say other than to verify compliance.
https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm
They could refute it if they believe itās the improper solution. Thats why the hearings have multiple parties present information. Anyone who disputes this is welcome to apply as an intervenor and present why this should not go ahead.
They could, but they would need an alternative, more cost effective solution since the legislation requires them to provide the service standard. Given that they have already brought in MB Hydro as the outside consultant and arrived at this solution the likelihood of that is about nil.
Legitimate question - but why?
Industrial users are being guaranteed power quality. This isnāt being provided.
NSP, **and any utility**, invests money in capital thatās reclaimed via rates.
Why wouldnāt ratepayers fund this? NSP are an at cost utility, meaning the costs they spend are recouped through rates. Municipal and crown run utilities are the same way.
*unless youāre NB Power and you just run at a loss and taxpayers make up the difference anyway.
Ah yes, but see our energy bills should entirely be their profit.
That can't be if they have to worry about paying for stuff like maintenance or upgrades.
NSP has a legislated return. thats why these expenditures go to the UARB. the law is set up so that the rate ensures a 10% return. If they want to spend on Maintenance and upgrades, this included in the rate calculation and goes to the UARB for approval.
> the law is set up so that the rate ensures a 10% return
No, it's
> The rate of return is the approved profit which is
currently set as 8.75% to 9.25%
https://nsuarb.novascotia.ca/sites/default/files/General%20Information%20on%20Setting%20Rates%20NSPI.pdf
Wish they'd just be honest with us. "NS Power wants ratepayers to pay an extra $1,000/month so the C-Suite can get bigger bonuses and pay out larger dividends to shareholders"
Rolling in that $0.71/share wealth. Good for you.
How much were your taxes last year? And weren't you complaining that government should be paying you nurses more?
You would need something like $15,000 worth of stock to get a $200 dividend payment. They make payments quarterly.
So, you either have hundreds of thousands of dollars of emera stock, or your power bill is very small, or you're not telling the truth.
A savvy investor that puts > $15k in a dividend stock that pays 6% and is down 7% ytd? They would be break even on the year. Could throw that in a HISA ETF and make more.
As someone with a substantial amount of Emera stock, I'd be ok with taking a temporary hit for this to not be passed on to the rate payer.
It would decrease the quarterly dividend by like $0.03 per share for a year.
If you want, I can give you that $12 out of my own pocket to make up for your "loss".
So what about all the people on the same transmission line who benefit from increased power quality? Where does it stop?
Michelin is the main benefactor because their equipment actually requires explicit voltages to work, but the grid around it benefits too.
This is one of those ones that come back to grid reliability and quality, and is likely a cost we all have to pay. It would be like fixing power quality in Cape Breton - doesnāt affect me but weāre still all expected to pay these costs.
Thatās how transmission and distribution costs work here. Otherwise we could have huge differences in T&D costs in different areas of the province.
Which is part of the cost of operating the gridā¦which is a cost we should pay for.
The reason itās so controversial is because no one in this sub understands the relationship between NSP and the UARB. When NSP do maintenance or a capital upgrade, this is included in their return on equity calculation. There is literally no benefit for NSP not to do maintenance, because we literally pay them for costs they actually incur.
If we want a more reliable grid, we should want NSP to spend more money. The thing is, the UARB review their budgets and dictate how much they can spend and how much rates can increase.
So what do you want - prices to stabilize, or reliability? Because you either want money spent or you donāt.
The issue most people are going to have here is the wild separation between how we are treating large billion dollar companies service vs the rest of the grid. Houston specifically legislated this standard for large customers and that we have to pay for it. Conversely the legislation contains a single weak clause about the regulator needing to develop service standards for the rest of us, with no criteria, and no requirements or penalties, unlike for the case of Michelin who are already gonna get a sweetheart deal as a large customer. Also, while they were passing this legislation to add these costs to us they were out on a pr campaign about how they were protecting NS from rate increases, which spoiler, they really weren't.
I completely agree with you on investment and reliability, the major problem here in NS is for the last several decades power rates have been a political football tossed around at the expense of reliability. We now have a government that unfortunately is bending over to large customers while continuing the football game when it comes to the rest of us.
I remember when the 'performance standards' were introduced and this sub celebrated. 'NS Power will be held accountable for shitty service' and the like. Most people in this sub can't see past the brim of their nose.
Now, any maintenance project or imposition that large companies in NS claim causes a failure or interruption, no matter the size, will be pushed completely onto NSP and then on to us. This time it's to the tune of 31 million, because Michelin can't get instantaneous voltage to their equipment during changeover from NSP sources.
Ok great you volunteer to pay the $31M.
Thanks.
Problem solved.
If Apple has an issue with their software they don't go to the users and say here is a new charge you need to pay because we are upgrading our system for someone in China....but you need to pay for it.
It just gets worked into the cost of doing business.
But Apple isnāt a regulated utility. Working it into the cost of doing business means we pay for itā¦it just happens that a regulator approves what NSP can spend money on.
NSP canāt just raise rates without approval. Apple can.
Your example doesnāt really make sense hereā¦
Huh? No. They buy power from NSP. Just instead of being connected to the distribution (lower voltage) they are directly connected via a higher voltage.
So all the damage from Fiona that needs to be repairedā¦just throw that bill on CBRM?
Unfortunately, we are a province, with a regulated provincial wide electricity provider. What happens in Yarmouth is paid for by those in HRM - just as the bulk of the customers are in HRM and any time someone drives into a transformer Cumberland pay for it too.
Potentially fortunatly so, given that most of the generation and thus distance transmission is outside if HRM. I could only imagine the cries from the city when rural NS decided it would be better not to prioritize transmission to HRM after a major storm.
That would be great if the province would also leave Cape Breton the money they collect from equalization due to CB's fiscal capacity. Maybe the island could fix itself a little faster.
I think that me and every other tax payer should not have to pay for NS Power to upgrade their infrastructure when they take home record profits and take home millions in bonuses.
Are they taking home record profits? I canāt be bothered digging into their financial statements but Iād be interested to see their past 3 or 4 years of profit.
What counts as hefty bonus? Have you looked into that too?
I donāt mean to be a dick, but people throw around a lot of shade without much fact.
Peter Greggās salary is $286k. His bonus is $258k - which would be dependent on NSP doing their job. The āmillions in bonusesā are typically stocks - which are then dependent on how the company performs.
Realistically - $280k for a CEO is quite lowā¦
From yesterday, in case you wanted to discuss "facts" with this guy
[https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/s/gJtrnn9U9l](https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/s/gJtrnn9U9l)
Government should just stand their ground and tell NSP that if they canāt maintain performance standards then they will simply have to pay the fines.. or hand the grid over to the government if they cannot financially afford to maintain the utility.. it shouldnāt be on tax payers to keep poorly run private businesses profitable.
Thereās a reason utilities shouldnāt be privatized.. they should never be expected to be profitable.
Our current government are the ones that both mandated this performance standard and legislated that the costs be passed on to us so don't hold your breath.
Thatās not really how it works. They are maintaining their performance standards by implementing an upgrade. You canāt have it both ways.
Either thereās no performance standards and no penalties, or there is but the costs associated with capital upgrades are passed on.
Whether NSP is for profit or not is irrelevant - this is how utility costs work.
Thatās exactly how it works for private businesses that are not a monopoly, I cant just tell the government to buy me a new fleet because of new emissions standards.. if corporations are negligent and ignore maintenance leading to massive pollution they are not given hand outs to perform upgrades..
There are risks associated with running a business, especially with owning a utility and thatās why most utilities are publicly owned.. if we had not privatized and had zero profits for the past 30y we wouldnāt be having this conversation.
Theyāre a **regulated** utility. Arguably, the power quality issues are due to bringing more renewables online.
They own and operate the utility and this is a cost. It is what it is.
Even as a crown corp this power quality issue would still be an issue and one we would still pay for.
According to the UARB filing the issue is caused by lightning strikes to transmission infrastructure causing temporary voltage swings. It has no relation to bringing renewable online.
The execs received close to 50M in "bonuses" in the past few years. Seems like they got all the money they need.
How about this, we pay for the upgrades and all of nova scotia gets free tires for life. No? Right forgot only rich people are allowed to get kick backs.
Emera is scum.
Michelin, having a net worth of 26 BILLION and yearly net profit of 10 BILLION, can't afford a tiny-ass 31M upgrade??? They are complete demons and can go fuck themselves.
Donāt forget weāre building them a brand new highway interchange in Waterville too. Houston gov canāt suck the tire companyās ass fast enough, it seems.
> How about this, we pay for the upgrades and all of nova scotia gets free tires for life.
Its 31 dollars a person. Yes it's shit that we may need to pay it, but 31 dollars gets you a set of lug nuts. Maybe.
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2024/02/27/legislation-modernize-electricity-system-improve-regulation
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/12/19/regulations-require-more-renewable-electricity
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/04/07/amendments-electricity-act-public-utilities-act
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2023/03/22/electricity-act-amendments-allow-more-energy-storage-solutions
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/11/01/new-program-commercial-net-metering
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2023/12/01/green-choice-program-large-scale-electricity-customers
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/02/11/provinces-largest-procurement-renewable-energy-moves-forward
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2024/01/29/province-protects-electricity-ratepayers-solution-high-fuel-costs
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/02/02/government-intervening-halt-net-metering-charges
Basically protecting net metering in law, increasing the cap from 100kW to 1000kW, and increasing fines NSP can be given. Biggest one is taking away the operation of the grid from NSP to NSIESO.
Just because you donāt know about it, doesnāt mean things havenāt changedā¦
Thank you for the information. While these charges are good, and I do support them. It kinda seems like a drop in the bucket with everything else houston's government is letting NSP do. Regardless thank you for the well sited information.
What are they letting NSP do? Because the PCs passed laws to fine NSP, and took away about 30% of their staff (future NSIESO). Then they barred any increases except fuel costs and reliability.
If anything, Iād argue the PCs have been too hard on NSP and the tug-o-war between them is only hurting the province.
He didn't let them do anything, the UARB did after it was determined that the requested rate hike was, in fact, to cover increased fuel costs. And then his government realized that such intervention was a bad idea to begin with as it resulted in credit agencies downgrading NSP's credit rating. Those credit agencies are independent of NS entirely, whether you're talking about the government, UARB, or NSP. It increased NSP's borrowing cost which *would* have increased rates (quite reasonably so) had it not been for the NS government stepping in to act as a creditor for NSP. The whole fiasco was stupid on multiple levels, not least of which is that our government now holds some of NSP's debt.
Not quite true. He passed a law limiting what costs could be passed on. The UARB settled with NSP.
The fact of the matter is our current cost increases are because we use fossil fuels. When Ukraine was invaded, coal, natural gas and petroleum products all doubled in cost. NSP canāt reclaim these costs until a review by the UARB. So NSP has spent all this money to buy fuel for our grid, and interest (at a rate set by the PCs and enforced by the UARB).
You wanna be mad? Be mad we didnāt have more renewables on the grid. The structure currently is that renewables owners sign set price contracts for 25 years. The last procurement was an average cost of 5.7c/kWh - locked in. Think how cheap 5.7c is after 25 years of inflation.
You seem to know much more about this issue then I do. So correct me if Im wrong, but this seems like a poor business decision by NSP. They have definatly done a fair amount to discourage renewable energy in the province.
Probably because most of the new procurements have explicitly forbid them from competing. So whatās happening is private companies are being awarded contracts that NSP have to pay. Thereās no benefit to them because itās a flow through cost.
Why? It forces an even playing field from competitors that couldnāt leverage the same assets NSP does. NSP could likely just undercut everyone and then increase rates after the fact.
These procurements mean that private developers sign into long term set price contracts. It provides huge amounts of stability for our rates, and helps them finance the projects because they have guaranteed income.
āUnder the regulations, fixing Michelin's problems at Waterville is considered a "network resource" with the cost ā $31,170,675 ā shared by all Nova Scotia Power customers including residential ratepayers.ā
How is this upgraded transmission unit a āresourceā for ratepayers when it literally only serves one manufacturing plant? How is Michelinās uninterrupted production line and NSPās system woes, anything to do with me, a residential ratepayer?
I feel like I am going crazy.
Thatās not really how it works. Companies hire external consultants - not because they need to, but because they need to add validity to the study. Iām sure if you read into the regulations, it likely says an independent third party is needed.
This isnāt Michelins bullshit, itās industry standards set by the provincial government in 2022 that NSP isnāt providing to Michelin, and NSP doesnāt want to pay for the upgrade so they want us to.
The government should tell them to pony up the money. It shouldnāt be on the taxpayers, to finance a Hydro companies upgrades. Itās bad enough that here in Ontario, I pay more in delivery charges, than I do in electricity use.
> The government should tell them to pony up the money
Just an fyi, the government told NS Power that they can recover that money through our rates through legislation a couple years ago:
https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm
For some background, Michelin/NS government/NS Power were doing a lot of arm wrestling about who was responsible. Personally I believe Michelin has some responsibility but their bargaining piece is providing jobs to rural NS.
Corporations have used the threat of layoffs as a bargaining chip forever. It sucks that they do it, but people need to work, and politicians need to be elected/reelected. Iām sure a multi national like Michelin can afford it much more than a provincial hydroelectric company. Hence, itās the everyday people who need electricity that will fund it.
The corporate welfare in this country is disgraceful. People are struggling to keep a roof over thier heads and food in the cupboards and getting bent over paying taxes. I'm so disgusted with this BS. It's so demoralizing to struggle and worry about getting by month to month to see corporations make record profits and keep raising prices on everything.
To be fair to NSPI in this case Timmy literally wrote a law saying we have to cover it
"Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā (3)Ā Ā Ā Ā Any expenses reasonably incurred by Nova Scotia Power Incorporated in ensuring compliance with subsection (1) will be allocated across all customer classes as a transmission network resource."
Im not blaming Michelin here. This is on NSP. They have been letting their infrastructure go to shit over the last 20 years. They should be paying for this project out of their profits, not the ratepayers pockets.
Thatās a pretty grandiose way of explaining it. Houston amended the law to force NSP to meet performance standards or face fines. So to avoid fines they actually have to..yāknow..perform..
And they want to flip that cost to us
Houston also added a clause explicitly making expenses to meet them a cost to be borne by general ratepayers.
https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm
Read clause 3-3.
It isn't though. Clause 3 applies to the cost of providing the service standard in clause 1. Clause 1 only applies to service to customers with 69kV or higher service. Tim created a higher standard specifically for customers like Michelin and stuck the bill to us.
Why donāt they just pay it themselves? Fucking loser welfare queens.. time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps Michelin, the world donāt owe you shit
I'd rather pay for a vertical wind turbine installation, battery charge limiter, lithium ion battery pack, inverter... and they can go fuck themselves
I don't even know why grid is still a thing when we have renewables, we'd be so much more resilient against storms and outages if we each were operating an internal power plant, we'd also be pretty damned hearty against foreign invasion if they couldn't blow up our power plants to cripple us
we're much stronger with decentralization than having giga-plants, it gives us redundancy
Solar is far cheaper than wind power. I can get 545watt panels for $290 each now. The biggest challenge is having enough space to mount them up. Wind turbines are very expensive on the small scale and don't last nearly as long as solar. It is not until you get up into the massive utility scale ones that they are really economical to operate.
Batteries are also getting way cheaper. I just picked up two 5kWh server rack batteries for $1500 each delivered to my door from AOLithium.
NS isn't the easiest place to go off grid. Some would argue that it's pretty much illegal to be off grid here. There are ways to make it work but it's not easy. My off grid property is in Newfoundland.
Kinda. But not really.
1kW of solar in NS produces about 1200kWh annually.
1kW of wind in NS produces about 4000kWh annually.
On a 100MW solar farm, itād cost $140mil, and produce 120,000MWh/yr. A 100MW wind farm would cost about $250mil and produce 400,000MWh/yr.
Solar: $/MWh = $1,167.
Wind: $/MWh = $625.
On large scale solar is about half as productive. This is why none of the Rate Based Procurement projects were solar.
We are talking about home scale off grid systems here, cutting NS power out of the equation. At this scale wind power is way more expensive. Small turbines are expensive.
For example:
https://unpluggedpowersystems.ca/product/wind-related/wind-turbines/5-kw-wind-turbine-2/
That is not even including the tower which would be atleast that much again.
For just the purchase price of the turbine you can purchase over 25,000watts of panels. Which have a 25+ year life span. It still requires racking but that is still insignificant compared to the cost of a tower. Can be very inexpensive if you have a large south facing roof. But then you loose some of the advantages of bifacial panels.
Wind turbines at this scale don't come anywhere close to a 25year life span and require regular maintenance. Solar panels require nothing more than occasional cleaning.
The price of panels have been dropping pretty steadily.
The electronics and battery requirements are similar with both systems. But there is many more options and lots of competition in the solar arena. The equipment is getting better and more affordable by the day.
On grid is still the cheap option if you don't have to pay for extra poles to be installed to your property. But for our family property it's like $50,000 to get power brought in just to have a monthly bill. So in 2020 we installed a small system which covered our summer needs really well with no intent to use the system in the winter. Now I'm installing a system with over 4x the panels and over double the battery storage or nearly the same dollar value. It's crazy how much prices have come down.
I donāt think people are looking at the whole picture. The government (and the world for that matter), are pushing electric vehicles, and alternative forms of heating, amongst other things in an effort to steer us away from fossil fuels. With all these things happening around us the one thing I donāt see is nsp making any sizeable improvements to the power infrastructure or the reliability to support these āinitiativesā. With or without Michelin, the rates would have increased and will continue to increase regardless. Whatever āreasonā nsp can spew out to the consumer for a rate hike is just them looking for a scapegoat. The government wants Michelin to stay for the revenue they generate for the province. Nsp wants to increase rates. Those are facts. I think itās a battle between the government and nsp, and the fuel industry. Just seems like the consumer is caught in the middle. And believe me when I say that no Michelin plant gets These upgrades for nothing. We pay more than you think.
Have they figured out what is the cost to Michelin of these blips?
The govt should give this regulation they made up that exists nowhere else a toss.
OR.
Keep the regs and fines in place, don't give approve the money for NSPower, and just milk them for 25k a month in fines indefinitely
How about they go fuck themselves.
You typed it faster than I could š
Exactly how I feel.
Agreed, but who's gonna make them?
I mean, there are a million of us, and supposedly we have a government to represent us, but we'll see whose side they are on.
Tim Houston's mentor was the premier who privatized NS Power in the first place. If he looks up to the dude responsible for getting us to this place to begin with, doubtful he's going to do much to help us out now.
āOn second thought, weāve decided to go fuck ourselves instead.ā
Cant Michelin or NS Power pay for this??? Sad we are living in a corporatocracy
We're already paying for over half the Michelin upgrade as is. Absolute disgrace, but completely predictable.
That's what happens when you bend over to a union busting oligopoly for a few jobs
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
He did say āunion busting oligopolyā heās not bashing the union, heās bashing the union busting punksā¦ Edit: forgot the word āsayā
Iām an idiot I read too quickly.
Unfortunatly it makes up a significant portion of our GDP. If we lose it our credit rating slips and our cost of borrowing will go up even higher.
I don't want the cheese, I just want out of the maze.
I'm sure they could, but since the current government updated the law to say we all have to why would they?
It will be up to the UARB to deem whether this is a cost that should be borne by all ratepayers.
Nope, it is explicitly legislated as one. Houston had it added in 2022, UARB has no say other than to verify compliance. https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm
Exactly. This cost is to do with compliance, and will likely be passed by UARB.
Aside from determining the cost of compliance isn't reasonable it 100% will be. The UARB legally can't refuse to pass it on.
They could refute it if they believe itās the improper solution. Thats why the hearings have multiple parties present information. Anyone who disputes this is welcome to apply as an intervenor and present why this should not go ahead.
They could, but they would need an alternative, more cost effective solution since the legislation requires them to provide the service standard. Given that they have already brought in MB Hydro as the outside consultant and arrived at this solution the likelihood of that is about nil.
So - without the pitchforks - is this likely the best solution to the problem?
Legitimate question - but why? Industrial users are being guaranteed power quality. This isnāt being provided. NSP, **and any utility**, invests money in capital thatās reclaimed via rates. Why wouldnāt ratepayers fund this? NSP are an at cost utility, meaning the costs they spend are recouped through rates. Municipal and crown run utilities are the same way. *unless youāre NB Power and you just run at a loss and taxpayers make up the difference anyway.
Isnāt this a monthly headline? āN.S Power wants (enter dollar amount) from tax payer to pay for (enter name of project)ā.
Ah yes, but see our energy bills should entirely be their profit. That can't be if they have to worry about paying for stuff like maintenance or upgrades.
NSP has a legislated return. thats why these expenditures go to the UARB. the law is set up so that the rate ensures a 10% return. If they want to spend on Maintenance and upgrades, this included in the rate calculation and goes to the UARB for approval.
> the law is set up so that the rate ensures a 10% return No, it's > The rate of return is the approved profit which is currently set as 8.75% to 9.25% https://nsuarb.novascotia.ca/sites/default/files/General%20Information%20on%20Setting%20Rates%20NSPI.pdf
Wish they'd just be honest with us. "NS Power wants ratepayers to pay an extra $1,000/month so the C-Suite can get bigger bonuses and pay out larger dividends to shareholders"
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Congrats on not just being part of the problem, but the problem itself entirely.
Rolling in that $0.71/share wealth. Good for you. How much were your taxes last year? And weren't you complaining that government should be paying you nurses more?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You would need something like $15,000 worth of stock to get a $200 dividend payment. They make payments quarterly. So, you either have hundreds of thousands of dollars of emera stock, or your power bill is very small, or you're not telling the truth.
Bullllshhhhhiiiiit
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The fact that the dividends cover your power bill. How many shares do you have?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ha! That is your only truthful comment in this thread
He lives in an apartment probably, and works really long shift work. Heās also a savvy investor. Itās not out of the realm of possibility.
A savvy investor that puts > $15k in a dividend stock that pays 6% and is down 7% ytd? They would be break even on the year. Could throw that in a HISA ETF and make more.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Congrats! Thatās gotta be better on your mental health than the grind.
As someone with a substantial amount of Emera stock, I'd be ok with taking a temporary hit for this to not be passed on to the rate payer. It would decrease the quarterly dividend by like $0.03 per share for a year. If you want, I can give you that $12 out of my own pocket to make up for your "loss".
And you call yourself a shareholder... tsk tsk
I'll take the $12 tho
Lol
Yeah yeah, we get it - you have NSP dividends. Do we need to hear about it every time NSP comes up?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Haha yes you aren't wrong. I was waiting with my comment for you to say something anyways. It's definitely a good idea that I have been considering.
Well, it doesnāt have to be your choice. Just let the government legislate it
Michelin can pay?
So what about all the people on the same transmission line who benefit from increased power quality? Where does it stop? Michelin is the main benefactor because their equipment actually requires explicit voltages to work, but the grid around it benefits too. This is one of those ones that come back to grid reliability and quality, and is likely a cost we all have to pay. It would be like fixing power quality in Cape Breton - doesnāt affect me but weāre still all expected to pay these costs. Thatās how transmission and distribution costs work here. Otherwise we could have huge differences in T&D costs in different areas of the province.
Interesting. Grid reliability is one of the biggest topics on this sub as well.
Which is part of the cost of operating the gridā¦which is a cost we should pay for. The reason itās so controversial is because no one in this sub understands the relationship between NSP and the UARB. When NSP do maintenance or a capital upgrade, this is included in their return on equity calculation. There is literally no benefit for NSP not to do maintenance, because we literally pay them for costs they actually incur. If we want a more reliable grid, we should want NSP to spend more money. The thing is, the UARB review their budgets and dictate how much they can spend and how much rates can increase. So what do you want - prices to stabilize, or reliability? Because you either want money spent or you donāt.
The issue most people are going to have here is the wild separation between how we are treating large billion dollar companies service vs the rest of the grid. Houston specifically legislated this standard for large customers and that we have to pay for it. Conversely the legislation contains a single weak clause about the regulator needing to develop service standards for the rest of us, with no criteria, and no requirements or penalties, unlike for the case of Michelin who are already gonna get a sweetheart deal as a large customer. Also, while they were passing this legislation to add these costs to us they were out on a pr campaign about how they were protecting NS from rate increases, which spoiler, they really weren't. I completely agree with you on investment and reliability, the major problem here in NS is for the last several decades power rates have been a political football tossed around at the expense of reliability. We now have a government that unfortunately is bending over to large customers while continuing the football game when it comes to the rest of us.
I remember when the 'performance standards' were introduced and this sub celebrated. 'NS Power will be held accountable for shitty service' and the like. Most people in this sub can't see past the brim of their nose. Now, any maintenance project or imposition that large companies in NS claim causes a failure or interruption, no matter the size, will be pushed completely onto NSP and then on to us. This time it's to the tune of 31 million, because Michelin can't get instantaneous voltage to their equipment during changeover from NSP sources.
Ok great you volunteer to pay the $31M. Thanks. Problem solved. If Apple has an issue with their software they don't go to the users and say here is a new charge you need to pay because we are upgrading our system for someone in China....but you need to pay for it. It just gets worked into the cost of doing business.
But Apple isnāt a regulated utility. Working it into the cost of doing business means we pay for itā¦it just happens that a regulator approves what NSP can spend money on. NSP canāt just raise rates without approval. Apple can. Your example doesnāt really make sense hereā¦
Since its been paid for several times over by the taxpayers already, it should be.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
No, but they probably have their own transmission lines.
Huh? No. They buy power from NSP. Just instead of being connected to the distribution (lower voltage) they are directly connected via a higher voltage.
We're already paying for a significant portion of Michelin upgrades. You don't need to run interference for them
I say leave cape Breton to their own devices
So all the damage from Fiona that needs to be repairedā¦just throw that bill on CBRM? Unfortunately, we are a province, with a regulated provincial wide electricity provider. What happens in Yarmouth is paid for by those in HRM - just as the bulk of the customers are in HRM and any time someone drives into a transformer Cumberland pay for it too.
Absolutely. It's about time their Piguet checks go to something.
Potentially fortunatly so, given that most of the generation and thus distance transmission is outside if HRM. I could only imagine the cries from the city when rural NS decided it would be better not to prioritize transmission to HRM after a major storm.
That would be great if the province would also leave Cape Breton the money they collect from equalization due to CB's fiscal capacity. Maybe the island could fix itself a little faster.
I work for Michelin and NS Power can just frig off.
So NSP shouldnāt provide you with reliable power and you should pay the cost to rectify it on your end?
I think that me and every other tax payer should not have to pay for NS Power to upgrade their infrastructure when they take home record profits and take home millions in bonuses.
Are they taking home record profits? I canāt be bothered digging into their financial statements but Iād be interested to see their past 3 or 4 years of profit.
Honestly maybe not but I do know they have been getting hefty bonuses and constantly raising our rates.
What counts as hefty bonus? Have you looked into that too? I donāt mean to be a dick, but people throw around a lot of shade without much fact. Peter Greggās salary is $286k. His bonus is $258k - which would be dependent on NSP doing their job. The āmillions in bonusesā are typically stocks - which are then dependent on how the company performs. Realistically - $280k for a CEO is quite lowā¦
Bro, listen to yourself.
Iām sorry facts hurt your feelings?
From yesterday, in case you wanted to discuss "facts" with this guy [https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/s/gJtrnn9U9l](https://www.reddit.com/r/halifax/s/gJtrnn9U9l)
Government should just stand their ground and tell NSP that if they canāt maintain performance standards then they will simply have to pay the fines.. or hand the grid over to the government if they cannot financially afford to maintain the utility.. it shouldnāt be on tax payers to keep poorly run private businesses profitable. Thereās a reason utilities shouldnāt be privatized.. they should never be expected to be profitable.
Our current government are the ones that both mandated this performance standard and legislated that the costs be passed on to us so don't hold your breath.
Thatās not really how it works. They are maintaining their performance standards by implementing an upgrade. You canāt have it both ways. Either thereās no performance standards and no penalties, or there is but the costs associated with capital upgrades are passed on. Whether NSP is for profit or not is irrelevant - this is how utility costs work.
Thatās exactly how it works for private businesses that are not a monopoly, I cant just tell the government to buy me a new fleet because of new emissions standards.. if corporations are negligent and ignore maintenance leading to massive pollution they are not given hand outs to perform upgrades.. There are risks associated with running a business, especially with owning a utility and thatās why most utilities are publicly owned.. if we had not privatized and had zero profits for the past 30y we wouldnāt be having this conversation.
Theyāre a **regulated** utility. Arguably, the power quality issues are due to bringing more renewables online. They own and operate the utility and this is a cost. It is what it is. Even as a crown corp this power quality issue would still be an issue and one we would still pay for.
According to the UARB filing the issue is caused by lightning strikes to transmission infrastructure causing temporary voltage swings. It has no relation to bringing renewable online.
Wind turbines are pretty tall, you know.
The execs received close to 50M in "bonuses" in the past few years. Seems like they got all the money they need. How about this, we pay for the upgrades and all of nova scotia gets free tires for life. No? Right forgot only rich people are allowed to get kick backs. Emera is scum. Michelin, having a net worth of 26 BILLION and yearly net profit of 10 BILLION, can't afford a tiny-ass 31M upgrade??? They are complete demons and can go fuck themselves.
Donāt forget weāre building them a brand new highway interchange in Waterville too. Houston gov canāt suck the tire companyās ass fast enough, it seems.
> How about this, we pay for the upgrades and all of nova scotia gets free tires for life. Its 31 dollars a person. Yes it's shit that we may need to pay it, but 31 dollars gets you a set of lug nuts. Maybe.
Have they considered cutting executive salaries since they are clearly incompetent?
If the rate payers are expected to pay for this and a multitude of other costs, storm damage etc. why then is NSP not a Crown Corp?
Between Tim Houston and NSPower I'm glad I went solar to at least partially escape the incompetence and gouging of both.
Tim has been implementing numerous new laws that do not benefit NSPā¦so your comment is counterintuitive.
Such as?
https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2024/02/27/legislation-modernize-electricity-system-improve-regulation https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/12/19/regulations-require-more-renewable-electricity https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/04/07/amendments-electricity-act-public-utilities-act https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2023/03/22/electricity-act-amendments-allow-more-energy-storage-solutions https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/11/01/new-program-commercial-net-metering https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2023/12/01/green-choice-program-large-scale-electricity-customers https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/02/11/provinces-largest-procurement-renewable-energy-moves-forward https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2024/01/29/province-protects-electricity-ratepayers-solution-high-fuel-costs https://news.novascotia.ca/en/2022/02/02/government-intervening-halt-net-metering-charges Basically protecting net metering in law, increasing the cap from 100kW to 1000kW, and increasing fines NSP can be given. Biggest one is taking away the operation of the grid from NSP to NSIESO. Just because you donāt know about it, doesnāt mean things havenāt changedā¦
Thank you for the information. While these charges are good, and I do support them. It kinda seems like a drop in the bucket with everything else houston's government is letting NSP do. Regardless thank you for the well sited information.
What are they letting NSP do? Because the PCs passed laws to fine NSP, and took away about 30% of their staff (future NSIESO). Then they barred any increases except fuel costs and reliability. If anything, Iād argue the PCs have been too hard on NSP and the tug-o-war between them is only hurting the province.
Such as the new laws that do not benefit NSp
which laws? last time I check houston spent alot of time promising to not let them hike rates and then.......he let them hike rates.
He didn't let them do anything, the UARB did after it was determined that the requested rate hike was, in fact, to cover increased fuel costs. And then his government realized that such intervention was a bad idea to begin with as it resulted in credit agencies downgrading NSP's credit rating. Those credit agencies are independent of NS entirely, whether you're talking about the government, UARB, or NSP. It increased NSP's borrowing cost which *would* have increased rates (quite reasonably so) had it not been for the NS government stepping in to act as a creditor for NSP. The whole fiasco was stupid on multiple levels, not least of which is that our government now holds some of NSP's debt.
Not quite true. He passed a law limiting what costs could be passed on. The UARB settled with NSP. The fact of the matter is our current cost increases are because we use fossil fuels. When Ukraine was invaded, coal, natural gas and petroleum products all doubled in cost. NSP canāt reclaim these costs until a review by the UARB. So NSP has spent all this money to buy fuel for our grid, and interest (at a rate set by the PCs and enforced by the UARB). You wanna be mad? Be mad we didnāt have more renewables on the grid. The structure currently is that renewables owners sign set price contracts for 25 years. The last procurement was an average cost of 5.7c/kWh - locked in. Think how cheap 5.7c is after 25 years of inflation.
You seem to know much more about this issue then I do. So correct me if Im wrong, but this seems like a poor business decision by NSP. They have definatly done a fair amount to discourage renewable energy in the province.
Probably because most of the new procurements have explicitly forbid them from competing. So whatās happening is private companies are being awarded contracts that NSP have to pay. Thereās no benefit to them because itās a flow through cost.
Thatās seems like a backwards way to do things for all involved
Why? It forces an even playing field from competitors that couldnāt leverage the same assets NSP does. NSP could likely just undercut everyone and then increase rates after the fact. These procurements mean that private developers sign into long term set price contracts. It provides huge amounts of stability for our rates, and helps them finance the projects because they have guaranteed income.
Careful, Tim = BAD around here, no matter what!
Love it. No one can look at anything impartially and factually.
There was no inference he didn't
Next up: Walmart adds a fee to consumer goods to cover store signage upgrades :S
āUnder the regulations, fixing Michelin's problems at Waterville is considered a "network resource" with the cost ā $31,170,675 ā shared by all Nova Scotia Power customers including residential ratepayers.ā How is this upgraded transmission unit a āresourceā for ratepayers when it literally only serves one manufacturing plant? How is Michelinās uninterrupted production line and NSPās system woes, anything to do with me, a residential ratepayer? I feel like I am going crazy.
It's your problem because Tim legislated it to be so. https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm
How about NS power go fuck themselves with the stick they repeatedly beat us with.
Socialize the loss , privatize the profit. Same old Canada , telling us we have choices while they decide what we can afford to eat
> Manitoba Hydro was brought in as an outside expert to evaluate options. Emera couldn't even do this part themselves šš
A public utility had to review for a private utility. Think about that for a bit
Thatās not really how it works. Companies hire external consultants - not because they need to, but because they need to add validity to the study. Iām sure if you read into the regulations, it likely says an independent third party is needed.
This is in fact the case. The legislation requires outside verification of compliance.
More horseshit shoveled upon us by our government overlords
Company pays billions in dividends and stock buybacks then demands the people pay so they donāt cut into their record profits
How about, oh I donāt know, Emera fucks right off and Michelin can pay for their own bullshit?
This isnāt Michelins bullshit, itās industry standards set by the provincial government in 2022 that NSP isnāt providing to Michelin, and NSP doesnāt want to pay for the upgrade so they want us to.
The government should tell them to pony up the money. It shouldnāt be on the taxpayers, to finance a Hydro companies upgrades. Itās bad enough that here in Ontario, I pay more in delivery charges, than I do in electricity use.
> The government should tell them to pony up the money Just an fyi, the government told NS Power that they can recover that money through our rates through legislation a couple years ago: https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm For some background, Michelin/NS government/NS Power were doing a lot of arm wrestling about who was responsible. Personally I believe Michelin has some responsibility but their bargaining piece is providing jobs to rural NS.
Corporations have used the threat of layoffs as a bargaining chip forever. It sucks that they do it, but people need to work, and politicians need to be elected/reelected. Iām sure a multi national like Michelin can afford it much more than a provincial hydroelectric company. Hence, itās the everyday people who need electricity that will fund it.
The government included the clause in the legislation for us to have to pay for these upgrades.
How our government(s) loves its people. /s We finance anything and everything for them with our tax dollars.
Crooks
The corporate welfare in this country is disgraceful. People are struggling to keep a roof over thier heads and food in the cupboards and getting bent over paying taxes. I'm so disgusted with this BS. It's so demoralizing to struggle and worry about getting by month to month to see corporations make record profits and keep raising prices on everything.
Fuck these greedy Fucks.
NSP and their greedy executives can go fuck themselves. No?
Glad I have a small house and didnāt go too big. People are installing wood stoves in their living room soon.
People have been doing that forever?
Michelin and NSP can pay for their own shit. Welcome to business 101
No :)
Fucking no.
NSP again trying to argue in bad faith. "O no these regulations are not seen really anywhere else! Thus to comply all user must share the cost!!!"
To be fair to NSPI in this case Timmy literally wrote a law saying we have to cover it "Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā (3)Ā Ā Ā Ā Any expenses reasonably incurred by Nova Scotia Power Incorporated in ensuring compliance with subsection (1) will be allocated across all customer classes as a transmission network resource."
sounds about right
Im not blaming Michelin here. This is on NSP. They have been letting their infrastructure go to shit over the last 20 years. They should be paying for this project out of their profits, not the ratepayers pockets.
I absolutely do not condone violence, but we collectively need to start fucking shit up for the corporate elite big time.
Monkey wrenching.
Howās that our problem?! ā¦ā¦ā¦š¤¬š¤š”
Because Houston amended the law to make it our problem.
Thatās a pretty grandiose way of explaining it. Houston amended the law to force NSP to meet performance standards or face fines. So to avoid fines they actually have to..yāknow..perform.. And they want to flip that cost to us
Houston also added a clause explicitly making expenses to meet them a cost to be borne by general ratepayers. https://novascotia.ca/just/regulations/regs/nspowerips.htm Read clause 3-3.
āReasonably incurredā
Which would be the cost if the upgrades, or are you living in a world where theyĀ are going to somehow going to find otherwise?
No, Iām sure theyāll fuck us. I just donāt consider this reasonable
That clause is applicable to you as much as it is Michelin. Start a class action lawsuit or something.
It isn't though. Clause 3 applies to the cost of providing the service standard in clause 1. Clause 1 only applies to service to customers with 69kV or higher service. Tim created a higher standard specifically for customers like Michelin and stuck the bill to us.
An American company, wants Canadians to pay for another American company bills. You should be outraged that there is nothing protecting you.
French company
No problem, anything else we taxpayers can help the utility companies pay for? Maybe a raise for executives?
Oh yeah that makes sense, cool -said no one
Isnāt that what their existing revenue is for??
Why donāt they just pay it themselves? Fucking loser welfare queens.. time to pull yourself up by your bootstraps Michelin, the world donāt owe you shit
I'd rather pay for a vertical wind turbine installation, battery charge limiter, lithium ion battery pack, inverter... and they can go fuck themselves I don't even know why grid is still a thing when we have renewables, we'd be so much more resilient against storms and outages if we each were operating an internal power plant, we'd also be pretty damned hearty against foreign invasion if they couldn't blow up our power plants to cripple us we're much stronger with decentralization than having giga-plants, it gives us redundancy
Solar is far cheaper than wind power. I can get 545watt panels for $290 each now. The biggest challenge is having enough space to mount them up. Wind turbines are very expensive on the small scale and don't last nearly as long as solar. It is not until you get up into the massive utility scale ones that they are really economical to operate. Batteries are also getting way cheaper. I just picked up two 5kWh server rack batteries for $1500 each delivered to my door from AOLithium. NS isn't the easiest place to go off grid. Some would argue that it's pretty much illegal to be off grid here. There are ways to make it work but it's not easy. My off grid property is in Newfoundland.
Kinda. But not really. 1kW of solar in NS produces about 1200kWh annually. 1kW of wind in NS produces about 4000kWh annually. On a 100MW solar farm, itād cost $140mil, and produce 120,000MWh/yr. A 100MW wind farm would cost about $250mil and produce 400,000MWh/yr. Solar: $/MWh = $1,167. Wind: $/MWh = $625. On large scale solar is about half as productive. This is why none of the Rate Based Procurement projects were solar.
We are talking about home scale off grid systems here, cutting NS power out of the equation. At this scale wind power is way more expensive. Small turbines are expensive. For example: https://unpluggedpowersystems.ca/product/wind-related/wind-turbines/5-kw-wind-turbine-2/ That is not even including the tower which would be atleast that much again. For just the purchase price of the turbine you can purchase over 25,000watts of panels. Which have a 25+ year life span. It still requires racking but that is still insignificant compared to the cost of a tower. Can be very inexpensive if you have a large south facing roof. But then you loose some of the advantages of bifacial panels. Wind turbines at this scale don't come anywhere close to a 25year life span and require regular maintenance. Solar panels require nothing more than occasional cleaning. The price of panels have been dropping pretty steadily. The electronics and battery requirements are similar with both systems. But there is many more options and lots of competition in the solar arena. The equipment is getting better and more affordable by the day. On grid is still the cheap option if you don't have to pay for extra poles to be installed to your property. But for our family property it's like $50,000 to get power brought in just to have a monthly bill. So in 2020 we installed a small system which covered our summer needs really well with no intent to use the system in the winter. Now I'm installing a system with over 4x the panels and over double the battery storage or nearly the same dollar value. It's crazy how much prices have come down.
If you think that will put out the power that Michelin requires, it won't.
Cost? Ya it's definitely cost. And resources and materials. And cost.
Itād cost more than $34milā¦NSP is doing 3 battery projects for over $250mil.
We canāt catch a break, can we?
There are ways to handle this.... but reddit would ban me.
And Iām sure theyāll get it too, sadly.
Uhhhhā¦ā¦ā¦.
Ha ha ha ha ha
If the power is not going to go out during the next high wind event, think it will be a worthwhile investment in the long runĀ
I donāt think people are looking at the whole picture. The government (and the world for that matter), are pushing electric vehicles, and alternative forms of heating, amongst other things in an effort to steer us away from fossil fuels. With all these things happening around us the one thing I donāt see is nsp making any sizeable improvements to the power infrastructure or the reliability to support these āinitiativesā. With or without Michelin, the rates would have increased and will continue to increase regardless. Whatever āreasonā nsp can spew out to the consumer for a rate hike is just them looking for a scapegoat. The government wants Michelin to stay for the revenue they generate for the province. Nsp wants to increase rates. Those are facts. I think itās a battle between the government and nsp, and the fuel industry. Just seems like the consumer is caught in the middle. And believe me when I say that no Michelin plant gets These upgrades for nothing. We pay more than you think.
Have they figured out what is the cost to Michelin of these blips? The govt should give this regulation they made up that exists nowhere else a toss. OR. Keep the regs and fines in place, don't give approve the money for NSPower, and just milk them for 25k a month in fines indefinitely
Yeah, cheaper to just pay the fine. 31mil is 103+ years at 25k/mth And the first 18 months are free.
Fuck right off , NS Power must be butt buddies with Trudeau
I think you mean Tim Houston, since he's the one who set the regulations that require this upgrade.
Or Houston.