Atlantic Canada’s energy future was the hot topic in Toronto on September 9, 2010. Forte Bistro on Richmond Street held a full house of people eager to meet Nova Scotia Power CEO Rob Bennett. The executive was in town to showcase his company and attract investors, but also to discuss the future of electricity generation in the Atlantic region. If the questions and the interest from the crowd were any indication, he succeeded on both counts.

Bennett posed the crowd the question, “Why come to Toronto to speak about a privately owned utility in Nova Scotia?” His answer filled the room with ideas for the next half hour. “We’re an exciting company that expanding not just in Nova Scotia, but in other parts of North America and the Caribbean. We’re changing the format about how electricity is made in our province. We’re complying with very aggressive regulations for carbon dioxide reductions. And we’re investing and growing our business, and growing the economy of Nova Scotia at the same time.”

The company is clearly thriving: their stock, traded on the TSX as EMA, recently hit a high of $27.43 per share. Starting out as a crown corporation, NS Power privatized in 1992 in what was then the largest IPO in the history of Canada. Since then, their holding company, Emera Incorporated, has grown and now owns assets inside and outside the Atlantic region, including: natural gas pipelines, utilities in the northeastern US, energy trading companies, energy interests across the Caribbean, and technology companies experimenting with producing hydrogen from natural gas. Bennett points out that the company’s roots remain in its place of origin: “Emera is headquartered in Nova Scotia – so it’s a global company, but very much at home in Nova Scotia.”

Improving customer service forms a pillar of NS Power’s future. Leading into this topic with a discussion of the utility’s record-setting power restoration performance during the recent Hurricane Earl, he said that “We want to create a culture in our company that puts our customers first.” The company is using social networking to adapt to their audience, too: “in that storm, we were followed by over 800 Nova Scotians on Twitter.”

The company has made improvements and advances in a number of areas, prioritizing clean energy development. These include:

• Partnering with customers to produce new means of energy: alongside Port Hawkesbury company NewPage, NS Power is creating electricity from NewPage’s biomass waste products. This is expected to contribute about 3% of the province’s energy output.
• Tidal energy: continuing work on the New Minas Passage generators. Of the project, Bennett says that “We’re ahead of all the projects taking place in the area – we’re literally the ones in the water. We intend to push the technology to its limit, to find out what the breaking point is, so we can improve it for the next generation.”
• Energy conservation: “We’re spending $43 million on conservation in Nova Scotia. So that’s 3% of the revenues of the utility, spent on conservation. Part of that is money provided to customers to help reduce their electricity consumption. We’re having tremendous success there – 83 gigawatt hours of savings last year.”
• Capital projects and improvements: “Typically, NS Power spends about $130 million a year on capital improvements on the network. Last year we doubled that, spending $280 million on capital improvements on the utility. This year we’re spending $611 million on the development of renewable resources like wind. Even our head office, in downtown Halifax, is the site of a former power plant. Instead of tearing the old plant down, we’ve reconstructed it. We’ve recycled a lot of the materials. It’s been a complete green conversion, a state-of-the-art showcase of environmental responsibility.”
• Generation systems improvements: “We have a gas power plant at Tufts Cove which now uses natural gas to create electricity. We’ve invested $83 million into a heat-recovery boiler system which captures the waste heat from the plant’s engine exhaust, creating additional energy without using additional fuel.”

None of this would be possible without the “new blood” in the organization, says Bennett. “All of these things are being done by new people. We’ve hired 162 new engineers, monitors, administrative assistants, powerline technicians, and many others, all in the last two years. We have 1,900 people in our organization and we’re working hard to facilitate a better future for Nova Scotia.”

During the Q&A session that followed, Bennett eagerly tackled some difficult questions about the utility’s future. Fielding a question about community-based renewable energy projects, he noted that while “we’re a supporter of such programs,” that this support only comes “if you can provide a premium price for a new technology. Lots of new technologies like tidal technologies won’t get off the ground without a premium being paid towards the development. You have to be careful about introducing this technology, and monitor how much your customers are paying.” The current Nova Scotia government is acting appropriately to such proposals, says Bennett, “introducing this on a stage basis, to see what the impact is, and see how it develops, economically.”

Other questions focused on the promotion of inter-provincial energy policy, and the development of the company’s international assets He cited recent agreements between NS Power and NB Power, as well as agreements between the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. “We’re on our way,” he said. “I think it will happen in the near term. But that work needs infrastructure.” The company also plans major expansions into the New England and Caribbean markets, using its proximity and expertise in developing alternate sources of energy.

The final question dealt with energy prices and coal – how to rationalize to investors the value in renewable, locally-produced energy in the face of low fossil fuel prices. Bennett tackled the question head-on: “The fact is that, today, burning coal to make electricity is very economical,” he admitted. But he takes a longer view: “When we look to the future we see a world with very volatile fossil fuel prices. It seems to me that we need to diversify – to source energy options right in Nova Scotia, in Atlantic Canada. We buy most of our coal from the southern US and Columbia. We need to put the dollars that we’re sending to the US and Columbia back into the Nova Scotia economy, and create stability for our customers, for at least some of their electricity rates.”