N.B. Power sees 'no issues' with bills so far, but can't explain anomalies
MLAs disappointed that audit promised this week won’t be ready until April
N.B. Power says it doesn't see any flaws with its smart-meter program and billing system, but is acknowledging it still can't explain anecdotal evidence of unusually high electricity consumption in some residential bills.
CEO Lori Clark told a committee of the legislature that early indications from an audit still underway are that the fault does not lie with the new units.
"No issues have been identified," she said.
When ratepayers started complaining about shockingly high December power bills, Clark said it was likely caused by a combination of a colder month than December 2024, a longer billing period and the utility's recent rate increase.
But Clark wasn't able to explain how a family in Green Leader David Coon's riding of Fredericton Lincoln had a bill showing a 45 per cent increase in their electricity consumption compared to a year earlier.
"Their conclusion is that they simply aren't consuming the amount of power that N.B. Power says they are," Coon said.
"That's exactly why we need to do more work," Clark responded.
"I can't give a broad-brush answer. … Those are the things that we actually need to dive into deeper, to understand exactly what is happening with our customers."
MLAs from all three parties told Clark they were disappointed that the audit, ordered in January, wasn't ready in time for this week's meeting as promised.
"We are very disappointed to learn that we can't ask questions based on the audit," said Moncton East Liberal MLA Alexandre Cedric Doucet.
"New Brunswickers need answers."
N.B. Power's board chair wrote to Energy Minister René Legacy Tuesday to say the audit wouldn't be finished in time.
Clark explained to the committee that so far, the audit has only looked at 20 of the utility's new smart meters and 20 of its older meters.
While the process has found no problems with the equipment, it's too small a sample for definitive conclusions, Clark said.
Opposition Progressive Conservative Leader Glen Savoie said the committee should have been told sooner than Tuesday.
"I think it would have engendered that sort of trust and confidence that I'm talking about here."
N.B. Power has promised to have the audit finished by April and to return to the committee then to answer questions about it.
MLAs also probed other N.B. Power issues, including the utility's $5 billion debt.
Savoie said even with rate increases equal to around 13 per cent this year, the Crown corporation is making no progress toward lowering that debt.
He suggested slashing costs as the only alternative to further rate increases, but Clark pushed back.
"The challenges that the utility has with debt today, we cannot cut our way out of," she said.
Reducing spending would compromise N.B. Power's ability to operate its system, conduct maintenance and trim vegetation — all essential to remaining a reliable source of electricity for customers, she said.
Darren Murphy, the utility's chief financial officer, said those challenges will become steeper in the coming years with a need to raise capital spending from around $450 million to $500 million a year to about $1 billion.
That includes a 15-year refurbishment of the Mactaquac hydroelectric dam at a cost now pegged at $7 billion to $8.9 billion.
Clark also said N.B. Power is now "unsure" whether ARC Clean Energy's small modular nuclear reactor — originally expected to be ready by 2030 — will be available by "the late 2030s."
She later told reporters there are "some current challenges with the technical work being done on the technology."
Last year a former ARC CEO told CBC News that problems at the company suggested N.B. Power should be looking at other alternatives for new nuclear generation — a move Clark suggested Tuesday the company is preparing for.
"We're hoping there is a pathway for ARC to be successful," she said of the company, which has ambitions to develop a made-in-New-Brunswick reactor that could be piloted at Point Lepreau to supply N.B. Power with non-emitting energy.
"We will continue to work with ARC. They are looking for investors now, and we will continue to work with them, but we also have to have a Plan B in the event ARC isn't ready."
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