$10M plan set to reduce P.E.I.'s electricity use
Plan being reviewed by Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission
Customer service vice-president Angus Orford says a five-year strategy has been filed with the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission.
The intent is to reduce the peak load on the power grid.
"Out of your 8,760 hours per year, there's always a couple of hours in which you have to build your entire system capacity to accommodate that peak, so if there's a way to reduce that peak, it's an economic benefit to all our customers," said Orford.
A significant part of the energy savings will come from getting homeowners to switch to LED lights. Orford said $6 million will be spent to encourage customers to do that, including offering a $5 rebate on every bulb purchased.
There are two other major parts to the plan.
"The peak used to be a week before Christmas and over the last number of years what we see is it moving into the January, February months," said Orford.
Maritime Electric says part of the reason for the new peak time is the growing popularity of heat pumps.
They are a low-cost alternative to heating with oil. With more and more being installed by homeowners each year, the peak load was pushed to 260 megawatts last winter.
Maritime Electric plans to introduce a pilot program to pay approximately 100 homeowners to install a special thermostat. When this special thermostat reaches a set point during extreme cold, the heat pump would turn off and the home would be heated with oil until the cold snap ends.
At the same time the company also plans to offer incentives to customers with resistive electric baseboard heating to switch to heat pumps.
Maritime Electric says the $10 million cost of the plan would be recovered through energy savings.
"If expenditures like this for efficiency and demand management can reduce the peak and also reduce our energy purchases, then it offsets the cost of the programs," said Orford.
Customers can comment on the plan to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission.
The company hopes the plan will be approved and introduced this year.