Nova Scotia Power's attempt to weaken customer reliability standards fails

A move by Nova Scotia Power to weaken performance standards used to assess reliability and customer service has failed.

The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board issued new five-year standards this week and it's not what the company asked for.

"If you read the performance standards decision that went out on Tuesday, the standards are either the same or they've been strengthened," says Peter Gurnham, chairperson of the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board.

Gurnham chaired a three-member panel that examined the October 2021 Nova Scotia Power application to change nine of the 13 performance targets.

It measured everything from average outage times to customer service responses.

Nova Scotia Power failed to meet targets for four years running.

Failing to meet targets

It missed nearly half in 2019, including targets for frequency and length of power outages. The next year it was fined $250,000.

The company argues severe storms drag down its scores.

Among the changes requested, it asked to exclude some weather events used to measure its reliability.

The regulator rejected Nova Scotia Power's claim it was not "seeking to lessen the standards or make them easier to attain."

"It is the board's view that N.S. Power's proposed revisions do actually dilute the current performance standards," the board said in its decision.

Consultants proved it, and Nova Scotia Power backed off some proposals, while others were rejected by regulators.

Severe weather factor

In an interview with CBC News, Gurnham acknowledged the company was trying to make it easier on itself.

"Yes, but they were not changed that way. And to their credit, they [NSP] withdrew most of that application," said Gurnham.

Most of the changes it sought involved the impact of storms:

• Excluding the impact of Hurricane Dorian from the five-year average.

• Excluding localized storms from the provincial calculations.

• Removing impacts from the second day of weather events from calculations.

• Including the use of online self-service tools as part of the requirement to answer customer calls within 30 seconds.

The company wanted to fix the thresholds for "major" and "extreme" weather events based on the average from 2015-19 (excluding Dorian) instead of updating thresholds each year to reflect the realities of increasing storm severity and frequency.

The company said it is pleased by the decision.

$100M from ratepayers spent on reliability

"In this filing we wanted to make sure we are being measured on the most important things that encourage cost-effective investments to enhance reliability for our customers," spokesperson Jackie Foster said Friday in a statement to CBC News.

"Over the past five years, we have learned a lot and gained valuable insights from the data gathered and the results of the investments we have made. We want to make sure we are making the best decisions about how, when and where we invest, in order to improve our system and reliability, for all customers."

The company spends about $100 million from ratepayers each year on reliability, which includes upgrading lines and replacing poles and transformers.

"We also clear trees and branches from 1,000 km of power lines each year. When comparing our results to performance by other Atlantic electrical utilities, we perform similarly in terms of frequency and length of outages. In 2021, these investments contributed to a 29 per cent reduction in the frequency of outages over the last five years," Foster said.