Nova Scotia Power is looking to increase rates by an average of 11.6 per cent by 2024, up from their original proposed increase of nearly 10 per cent.
“There’s never an easy time, we recognize that and know it’s unprecedented times,” said president and CEO of the utility, Peter Gregg.
“But we need to decarbonize the grid in this province. We’ve got legislation at the provincial level, regulations at the federal level that require us to do that.”
As part of the application the utility is also proposing it maintains its return on common equity of 9 per cent, but increase the approved range of earnings from 8.5 per cent to 9.5 per cent (currently 8.75 per cent to 9.2 per cent).
NS Power is also looked to increase it’s common equity component from 37.5 per cent towards 45 per cent.
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“We are in a time of rapidly rising costs of everything and Nova Scotia Power is incredibly profitable, in this application they’re trying to become more profitable,” said NS NDP Leader Claudia Chender.
Her party is one of many interveners in the hearing.
“We applied to intervene in this hearing on behalf of ordinary Nova Scotians to talk about why people just can’t bear the cost of the proposed increase,” she said.
When pressed on why now was a time for higher profits, Gregg would not respond to reporters, only saying that there’s lots of opportunity in the coming weeks to get into that during the hearing process.
The process is scheduled until Sept. 29.
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