Nova ScotiaNova Scotia Power is facing a $1-million penalty after failing to meet performance standards for the eighth year in a row.Utility fined $1 million, which will be credited to customersCBC News · Posted: Sep 11, 2025 1:50 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoNova Scotia Power cannot recover the $1-million penalty from ratepayers and instead now has to credit the amount to customers by Oct. 31. (Mark Crosby/CBC)Nova Scotia Power is facing a $1-million penalty after failing to meet performance standards for the eighth year in a row.The Nova Scotia Energy Board announced the measure in a letter on Wednesday following a public hearing in June.It found the utility failed to meet two of its 14 reliability performance targets for 2024.Its letter shows as an established standard that an average customer should not be without power for more than four hours and 17 minutes through the year.But the average last year was five hours and 16 minutes.The other metric relates to circuits that bring power to communities. Individual circuits should not be down for more than 19 hours throughout the year.That wasn’t the case in the community of Middlefield, in southwest Nova Scotia, where customers on average experienced more than 31 hours of outages through the year.The board noted the utility’s performance in 2024 was better than in 2023 but said improvements need to happen faster and customers “are entitled to receive an appropriate level of service for the rates and fees they are charged.”Last year, Nova Scotia Power was also fined $1 million by the province’s utility regulator for failing to meet certain performance standards in 2023. The company had previously been fined for failing to meet 2019, 2021 and 2022 targets.In its letter the energy board also raised concerns about Nova Scotia Power’s continued reference “to changing weather conditions as reasons for failure to satisfy long-standing performance targets.”Nova Scotia Power’s chief operating officer, Dave Pickles, released a statement to CBC News explaining the utility is working on a long-term plan that includes making significant investments.$1M fine cannot be recovered through power rates”We know there is more work to do and our team is committed to continuing to improve service for our customers. We are executing on our 5-year reliability plan to ensure customers have service they can count on,” the statement said.Nova Scotia Power also continues to meet with customers, stakeholders and elected officials to hear their feedback, it said.The plan Pickles referred to includes $1.3 billion in spending over the next five years in work to improve reliability for customers and continue to strengthen the electricity grid, the utility said.Nova Scotia Power and parent company Emera announced in late April that they were dealing with a cybersecurity incident discovered on April 25. In May, the utility confirmed it was the victim of a ransomware attack and more than half of its customers’ data had been published on the dark web.The energy board said the $1-million penalty was not being imposed for punitive purpose but to promote future compliance.Nova Scotia Power cannot recover the cost of the penalty from ratepayers and instead has to credit the amount to customers by Oct. 31.
Nova Scotia Power fails to meet performance standards for 8th consecutive year
