An analysis of energy interruption data shows that there was at least one unplanned interruption in New Scotland almost every day in 2024.
During the year, there were more than 4,700 interruptions, registering only one day without an unplanned interruption.
CBC News reviewed the New Power Scotland Energy Interruption Map every day for 2024 to track the reported interruptions. Parts of urban centers such as Halifax and Sydney experienced dozens of interruptions during the year, although rural and remote parts of the province also dealt with inconsistent power.
The typical reliability standard is less than two interruptions per person per year, said Energy Economics professor at Calgary University, Lucija Muehlenbachs.
“So I would say that it sounds like a lot of interruptions in terms of frequency.”
Last year, the Public Services Regulator of the Province of Nueva Scotia was fined by the Public Services Regulator of the Province for not again complying with certain performance standards, with its average client interruptions in 2.18 in 2023, above the Objective of 2.05 for that year.
The company has also been previously fined for not meeting the 2019, 2021 and 2022 objectives.
“We take these performance standards very seriously,” said Matt Drover, senior director of Energy Delivery of New Scotland Power. “We know we need to do more.”
He said that the public services company is investing $ 1.3 billion for reliability updates in the next five years. This includes plans to spend $ 45 million every year to cut trees, almost double what the company was spending a few years ago.
That is a key part of the new Five -year reliability planA complete version of which was launched in December.
According to the usefulness, trees that come into contact with electric lines is the main cause of interruptions during storms.
This was also one of the main explanations reported throughout 2024 on the online energy interruption map of Nova Scotia Power, which lists the reasons for interruptions.
The trees in the electric lines is also a superior cause in other jurisdictions, especially during the storms, said Muehlenbachs, and added that the interruptions have generally become more common in North America thanks to climate change and the severity of the storms.
“It has been tremendously expensive [for power utilities] Due to the need to … invest in climate change resistance, “he said.
He added that the demand for electricity is only increasing as more people adopt heat pumps and electric cars.
“Having a reliable power will become increasingly important.”
The power of New Scotland has increased its rates several times in recent years to “strengthen the reliability of the energy system, meet the growing demand for electricity and protect against the increasingly severe climate.”
According to the Reliability Plan, New Scotland Power has identified priority regions of the province for investment.
Drover said the company analyzed where the trees have grown significantly in recent years to aim at their tree cut. He also analyzed the reliability performance of each community of Nueva Scotia and is investing in areas more affected by severe storms such as Fiona and Dorian.
In addition, New Scotland Power is seeking to modernize the power grid of the province. Drover said the utility is installing new devices that operate automatically to reduce the number of customers affected by an interruption.
“When the interruption occurs, the devices communicate with each other, they understand where the problem is, and they can” automatically “section” of the electric line, said Drover, so that the interruptions are more located instead of affect an entire area.
The power of new Scotland estimates that the improvements in its five -year plan will reduce the average duration of the interruption by approximately 20 percent.
In addition to tracking the power cuts of Nueva Scotia, CBC News also verified the New Brunswick Power interruption map to compare.
While there were unplanned interruptions almost every day for New Scotland, in New Brunswick there were 34 days in which the lights were lit in that province.
The planned maintenance was the most common explanation for the interruptions observed by CBC News. There were more than 1,600 planned interruptions that covered 180 days in 2024 that were necessary to work safely in reliability updates, said New Scotland Power in a statement.
Some of the other reasons of interruption observed were out of usefulness control: weather events such as strong winds and fires.
No hurricanes hit Nueva Scotia in 2024, but, nevertheless, there were more than 100 hours of winds above 80 km/h, said Drover.
He added that there were also more than 300 accidents that involved vehicles that hit energy posts.
This is not the first time that CBC News analyzes the power cuts in Nueva Scotia. A similar Audit in 2020 It had almost identical results: it was not observed a single day that year without an unplanned interruption in the province.
Keeping low electricity prices is not the only thing that people are interested in, especially as society advances towards electrification, said Muehlenbachs.
“When we have [more] Heating at home or electric vehicles … having reliable energy will become increasingly important, “he said.
