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Electric utility company

New Brunswick Electric Power Corporation , operating as NB Power , is the primary electric utility in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. NB Power is a vertically integrated Crown corporation by the government of New Brunswick and is responsible for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. NB Power serves all the residential and industrial power consumers in New Brunswick, with the exception of those in Saint John, Edmundston and Perth Andover who are served by Saint John Energy, Energy Edmundston, and the Perth Andover Electric Light Commission, respectively.

The development of the electricity industry in New Brunswick started the 1880s with the establishment of small private power plants in Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton. Over the next 30 years, other cities successively electrified, so much so that in 1918, more than 20 companies were active in the electricity business, which left the province with wildly differing levels of services and prices. In Saint John for instance, the rates fluctuated between 7.5 and 15 cents per kilowatt hour, depending on the location and the monthly consumption.

Recognizing the important role that electricity was about to play in economic development, Premier Walter E. Foster proposed the creation of a provincially owned electric company. The Legislative Assembly passed a bill to that effect. The New Brunswick Electric Power Commission (NBEPC) was created on April 24, 1920, under the ministry of Peter Veniot (Public Works). Immediately, the commission, headed by its first president, C. W. Robinson, launched the construction of a C$2 million hydroelectric dam at Musquash, west of Saint John. To supply the cities of Saint John, Moncton and Sussex, a 88 mile (142 km) long high voltage power line was also built. The new earth dam was completed on time, in 1922. But it could not withstand the 1923 spring flood and collapsed,

The construction of a nuclear plant in New Brunswick had been discussed since the late 1950s. For over 15 years, engineers from the NBEPC visited the Chalk River Laboratories to keep abreast of the latest trends in the field. The federal government then announced a loan program to help provinces such as New Brunswick in January 1974. Ottawa's pledge to cover half of the cost of a first nuclear plant removed the last obstacle to construction of the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. On February 5, 1974, Hatfield announced his decision to build the plant, 20 mile (32 km) west of Saint John, and even raised the possibility of constructing a second one in the future. On May 2, 1975, the Canadian Atomic Energy Commission authorized the construction of two 640 MW units within a site that can accommodate a maximum of four reactors. Inflation between 1978 and 1982 was 46%, this increased the costs for all infrastructure projects in Canada. Projects like Darlington Nuclear Generating Station and Point Lepreau had priced their estimates before the inflation. When it became operational 8 years later, on February 1, 1983, the cost had soared to C$1.4 billion. This agreement was reached after nine months of negotiations undertaken at the request of New Brunswick and would have transferred most generation, transmission and distribution assets of the New Brunswick utility to a subsidiary of the Quebec based Crown corporation, including the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station and 7 hydroelectric plants, but would have excluded fossil fuel fired plants in Dalhousie, Belledune, and Coleson Cove. The memorandum of understanding fostered a spirited public debate in New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada. Despite positive feedback from the province's business leaders, many reactions to the MOU were hostile. Opposition parties, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams, the union representing most NB Power employees, and wind energy supporters quickly condemned the agreement as detrimental to the interests of New Brunswick. Opponents in the general public used social media to show their displeasure and contest the various arguments for the deal. On Facebook, 14,000 people joined a group in opposition to the sale within five days of the announcement. A demonstration organized by the group and trade unions drew approximately 600 people outside the Legislative Assembly building on November 17, 2009. A Leger Marketing opinion poll conducted on behalf of Quebecor Media newspapers in New Brunswick and Quebec in November 2009 showed that 60% of New Brunswickers polled opposed the proposed sale, while 22% supported it. After months of controversy, New Brunswick and Quebec representatives signed a second agreement in January 2010, reducing the scope of the sale. Under the revised agreement, the sale would have transferred NB Power's hydroelectric and nuclear power plants to Hydro Quebec for C$3.4 billion. The government of New Brunswick would have retained the transmission and distribution divisions of NB Power, and the Crown corporation would have entered into a long term power purchase agreement (PPA) with Hydro Québec. The PPA would have allowed NB Power to deliver the rate freeze for residential and general customers. However, the industrial rates rollback would have been smaller than under the original MOU. On March 24, 2010, Premier Graham announced the failure of the second agreement due to Hydro Québec's concern over unanticipated risks and costs associated with matters including dam security and water levels. This interpretation was contested by analysts, who blamed the collapse of the deal on the political situation in New Brunswick.

The future of NB Power has been a concern of successive New Brunswick governments for the past 15 years. The Liberal government of Raymond Frenette published a consultation document in February 1998 to find solutions to ensure the sustainability of NB Power in the twenty first century.

Shortly after taking office in 1999, the Conservative government of Bernard Lord commissioned TD Securities to conduct an assessment of the company's viability. The study, whose findings were published in 2009, suggested four scenarios: the status quo; a sale to a strategic buyer; privatization through a share offering; or splitting the utility into separate elements. The report valued the company at between $C3.6 and $C4.5 billion. This number however was very strongly contested by those familiar with the value of telecommunications rights of way and smart grid based services, energy related and otherwise, who considered the distribution network to have very much more value. These arguments were to be repeated often in the 2009 2010 NB Power controversy. Between 2001 and 2004, the Lord government spent C$3.2 million to retain the services of CIBC World Markets and Salomon Smith Barney in order to evaluate the resale value of the Point Lepreau and Coleson Cove power plants. The studies, codenamed Cartwheel and Lighthouse, have assessed the value of these assets to roughly C$4.1 billion. A similar valuation was used in the failed 2010 proposal to vend Lepreau to Hydro Quebec, and was extremely controversial.

The Lord government shuffled the company's structure in early 2003 by introducing amendments to the Electricity Act. The Act reorganized NB Power into a holding company with four divisions: NB Power Distribution and Customer Service, NB Power Generation, NB Power Nuclear, and NB Power Transmission. The Act maintained the company's distribution, transmission, and nuclear power monopolies, but opened the door to competition in the generation business. The reorganization also created the New Brunswick Electric Finance Corporation, which was responsible for issuing, managing and paying NB Power's debt through payments dividends, fees and taxes paid by the various subsidiaries, and the New Brunswick System Operator, an independent market operator that administered relationships between power generators and users.

The NB Power Group of Companies, the Electric Finance Corporation, and the New Brunswick System Operator merged on October 1, 2013, re establishing NB Power as a single, vertically integrated Crown corporation. In 2009, NB Power became the first electric utility to be recognized by the National Quality Institute by being awarded a Healthy Workplace Award. David D. Hay resigned as President in 2010, claiming he had never been consulted on the proposed sale of NB Power, the valuations or the strategies involved. He was replaced by Gaëtan Thomas, the former Vice President of NB Power's Nuclear Division, who remained the President and CEO of NB Power till May, 2020. Keith Cronkhite was appointed NB Power President and Chief Executive Officer CEO on April 1, 2020. Lori Clark was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer (Acting) on July 4, 2022.

NB Power operates 13 generating stations with a total installed capacity of 3,513 MW as of 2013. The generation facilities are spread across the province. However, the Saint John, New Brunswick area accounts for nearly half of the total NB Power owned generation capacity, with the Coleson Cove (972 MW), the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station (660 MW), and Bayside Generating Station (277 MW). Saint John is home to energy intensive industries such as the Irving Oil Refinery, JD Irving pulp and paper mills, and the Canaport liquefied natural gas terminal.

NB Power operates two thermal and three combustion turbine facilities with a combined generating capacity of 1,964 MW.

NB Power's transmission grid includes over of high voltage transmission lines ranging from 69 kV AC to 345 kV AC. The main power grid forms an O shaped loop with 345 kV lines. This power line runs through substations at Keswick, Saint André, Eel River, Belledune, Bathurst, Salisbury, Valley Waters, Coleson Cove, Point Lepreau, and back to Keswick. There is also a direct connection of a parallel 345 kV line between Coleson Cove and Keswick. NB Power supplies electricity to Maritime Electric in Prince Edward Island through a sub sea interconnection cable on the floor of the Northumberland Strait, and imports/exports from/to Nova Scotia via Canada's first electrical interconnection between two provinces. NB Power also has interconnections to Maine. Because of the asynchronous nature of Hydro Québec's electricity transmission system, interconnections between the two neighboring provinces require HVDC converters. The first one, the Eel River Converter Station, was installed in 1972 and has a 350 MW transfer capacity. The second converter, the Madawaska substation (435 MW), was built on the Quebec side of the border in 1985 and is operated by Hydro Québec TransÉnergie. The two systems are linked by two 230 kV lines between Matapédia and Eel River, and by two 315 kV lines between the Madawaska and Edmundston substations. Some of NB Power loads in these areas can be islanded and supplied as part of the Quebec grid, which increases New Brunswick's import capability to 1,080 MW, whereas export capability to Quebec is limited to 785 MW.

Beginning in 1986, NB Power operated a coal mine in Minto through its NB Coal subsidiary. The decommissioning and demolition of the Grand Lake Generating Station were completed in 2012.

In 2019, the utility was criticized for having invested $13 million in Joi Scientific, a Florida based company that promised to deliver hydrogen based power from seawater with 200% efficiency. According to critics, their promised efficiency violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. During a call with investors during the summer of 2019, Joi Scientific announced that their technology was perhaps only ~10% as efficient as previously described, meaning that their process consumes energy rather than producing it. The company also announced that they were running low on funding.