Industry must remain with NB Power: CEO

NB Power industrial exit fees face scrutiny as New Brunswick manufacturers weigh grid defection and cheaper electricity rates in New England after Hydro-Québec talks, under Energy and Utilities Board oversight in Saint John.

NB Power ratepayers would see higher power prices if some of the province's largest power users abandoned the Crown corporation, according to its president.

Gaetan Thomas, the acting NB Power president and chief executive officer, was a keynote speaker to an energy forum in Saint John where he took direct aim at some of New Brunswick's biggest industries, citing ongoing NB Power reform efforts as context for the discussion.

The six largest power customers consume 15 per cent of the electricity generated by NB Power.

Thomas said he is concerned that those industries are looking for ways to get their power elsewhere and was frank in his assessment of what that would mean for the utility's remaining customers.

"What would happen to us if we would lose these half dozen customers? And I know some people shaking heads. Some of these are right at the front table here. Fifteen per cent of our revenue would go, somewhere in that vicinity," Thomas said.

"You don't make up for that. It actually gets applied to every other customer."

Thomas said NB Power will work closely with power companies in other provinces to ensure customers in New Brunswick get the best deal possible.

The NB Power president's speech comes a week after David Plante, the vice-president of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters in New Brunswick, said large manufacturing companies want to know how much it will cost to leave NB Power, amid moves to open the electricity market in New Brunswick, so they can buy cheaper electricity rates in New England or by generating their own electricity.

Any company interested in leaving NB Power must pay an exit fee, which would cover the Crown corporation's original costs in setting up transmission lines to the company.

The New Brunswick government gave the province's largest industrial players the option of leaving the grid in 2004 when it restructured the energy sector under a new Electricity Act in the province.

The Energy and Utilities Board, the province's energy regulatory body, has not been given a request to study exit fees since the law came into force so the amount it would cost to leave the grid is unknown.

Electricity rates paid by large industrial companies have been a heated political issue in recent months after the New Brunswick government's botched attempt to sell parts of NB Power to Hydro-Québec.

In that power deal, tied to Hydro-Québec's corridor bid at the time, the province's biggest power users would have seen their rates cut by roughly 23 per cent.

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