NB Power reviving vexed smart meter plan less than a year after EUB rejection

NB Power is ready to take a second run at gaining permission to install smart meters with its 300,000 customers and the plan, which already foundered once at the Energy and Utilities Board, is stirring up controversy again.

"This will be no great surprise to the board, NB Power has indicated that it intends to bring a further application for approval of AMI — late summer, early fall as a rough time frame," said NB Power lawyer John Furey in addressing the EUB earlier this week.

AMI, which stands for Advanced Metering Infrastructure, is a collection of physical and digital upgrades to the electrical grid, including the installation of smart meters that will allow NB Power to collect individual consumption data electronically in real time from customers instead of once a month by a meter reader.

The utility said that will allow for all sorts of pricing and service innovations that the current electrical grid cannot deliver, like offering different electricity prices at different times of the day to match periods of low and high demand.

The conversion is estimated to cost more than $100 million, an amount that requires EUB approval before NB Power can proceed.

Although it has not yet filed an application — or explained why the EUB would agree to a project it rejected less than a year ago — NB Power has already indicated it is planning around a positive decision on smart meters from the EUB by next January.

Based on that expected approval, it asked at this year's rate hearing for permission to spend $1.1 million in preparations for the program.

New Brunswick public intervenor Heather Black found that presumptuous and asked the EUB to reject the $1.1-million smart meter request when it sets NB Power's rates for the year next month.

"There is still no assurance that the approval (for smart meters) will be given at all, let alone whether it will be given by January 2020," said Black.

Fatal acknowledgement

NB Power's first attempt to win approval for its smart meter plan was rejected by the EUB last July. It ruled the utility had not presented a convincing case to justify the project's large expense.

"The Board is not satisfied of the prudence of the AMI (smart meter) capital project," read the EUB's 39-page decision.

"Consequently, it is not in the public interest. The fundamental reason behind this conclusion is the Board's finding that no positive business case was established in the evidence."

NB Power's original business case showed the costs of smart meters would outweigh benefits by a little over $1 million, a misstep in the application that placed it in immediate trouble.

During hearings in February 2018, NB Power tried to amend its calculations to boost the benefits of adopting the technology while NB Power president Gaëtan Thomas gave interviews urging its approval.

But in its decision, the board was unconvinced by the rescue attempt and said all the evidence supported the original application's fatal acknowledgement that the cost of adopting smart meters would be higher than the benefits it would generate.

"The demonstrated benefits to ratepayers must outweigh the expected costs that ratepayers will bear," it ruled.

Some critics also argued the meters posed a health hazard because they communicate wirelessly, but the EUB said it could find no evidence of a risk to the public.

NB Power promised to prepare a stronger case for the meters and return to the EUB within 18 months but will likely have to apply by August at the latest to leave enough time for a January decision.  

"We won't file until we are ready," said NB Power vice-president Darren Murphy. "If there is some reason we get delayed in that, we will wait until we are ready to file, but certainly we would like to see an application made this year."