and Scott Balfour, CEO of Emera, yearly com- pensation is nearly $8 million. I guess they are looking for more to make ends meet by charging people who are struggling to survive the finan - cial effects of more than two years of being in a pandemic with an extra 10 percent for their electricity, because that sounds fair. Plus, in wanting to be fair to customers, NSP gave those in the solar industry less than a weeks notice of the pending “System Access Charge” with most only finding out that NSP looking for this additional fee as part of the power utility asking for an average general rate increase for residential customers of 9.9 percent over three years, with possible additional allowances for costs due to severe weather and energy efficien - cy costs. Nova Scotia Power didn’t stop at increases for residential customers, they are also asking for increases for large industrial customers, which would be slightly over 10 percent plus increases for small and medium business increases go up
between 11 and just over 12 per cent over the same three-year time period. The application submitted to the province’s Utility and Review Board also includes a request that the board create a mechanism to spread out the $370 million costs of the province’s phasing out of coal-fired generation by 2030, which is about the same as the net YOY net profit increase for Emera. Let’s be honest, NSP nor its parent company Emera Inc, care about a fair solution for their customers, they are looking for ways to build on their energy monopoly and continue to hold Nova Scotian businesses and customer prison- ers to power utility. Well, the power customers of Nova Scotia, along with the members of the solar industry and their supporting advocacy groups have spoken and have put NSP on notice that they will not be bullied, strong armed or forced to pay more as NSP continues to put maximizing profit ahead of the people of Nova Scotia. What had started
as a campaign by NSP to put one customer against the other has now built into a strong movement that is calling for more accountability for Emera and for the Government to take the reins back on the essential utility because no one private company should have monopoly on energy especially energy that is created from the wind and the sun. In response to mounting concerns from those in the solar industry and their customers Premier Tim Houston stepped in with a public letter, and also took to social media saying, “We’re working now to introduce the necessary legislative and regulatory framework to deny the net metering system access charge requested by NS Power.” What followed was a statement from NSP President and CEO, Peter Gregg saying that the utility would withdraw their application for the new system access fee for one year. However, most Nova Scotians are calling for it to be withdraw permanently along with other proposed increase to customer residential and commercial as the province and the economy contin- ues to recover from the effect the pandemic. Time will only tell how this will all work out as we feel that the solar industry might have won this battle for the time being, but you can be assured that Gregg and his team at NSP are preparing to up their efforts to provide more profits for their shareholders, after all their bonuses are based on it.
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
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