Nova Scotia’s largest utility is responding to a stinging letter from Premier Tim Houston by insisting it hasn’t broken any laws.
The statement came after Houston sent a letter to the chair of the energy board, calling for an investigation into how the private utility has handled a cyberattack and saying residents should not be responsible for paying for Nova Scotia Power’s failures.
Nova Scotia Power, a subsidiary of Halifax-based Emera Inc., has said the personal and financial data belonging to 280,000 ratepayers was accessed by an unauthorized party as early as March 19. Since then, the utility has said it can no longer rely on remote meter readings and as a result is estimating electricity consumption for some customers’ billing.
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In response, Houston said customers have been dealing with inflated bills, consecutive charges within short periods, and a lack of communication about billing adjustments.
“It’s not lost on me or the board that knowingly overbilling would constitute regulatory fraud and misreporting revenue to the markets is a form of securities fraud,” Houston said in his letter.
In an emailed statement Wednesday night, a Nova Scotia Power spokesperson said the utility is complying with all securities and regulatory laws, and dismisses any suggestion to the contrary.
“In spite of everything that has transpired since the initial cyberattack we are working very hard to restore all of our system functionality. We understand and are sorry for the frustration that our customers are experiencing,” Jacqueline Foster said.
Foster said that meters have not been able to send usage information back to their billing system since the cyberattack. She said this was why the utility estimates usage on many customer bills. To date, she added that staff have been able to visit homes and manually record meters for 75 per cent of customers.
“We are committed to rebuilding trust and will do that by supporting our customers and fixing it when we make a mistake,” she added.
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