MECL Must Take Accountability for Lack of Electricity Capacity on PEI - Brad Trivers

MECL has dropped the ball on their duty to provide electricity to Islanders – a legislated duty that gives them a monopoly and pays their shareholders an over 9% guaranteed return based on the value of assets they own (see IRAC Order UE23-04 https://irac.pe.ca/wp-content/uploads/Order-UE23-04.pdf). All these costs are directly passed on to Island ratepayers.

MECL has known since 2019 that PEI will have issues getting enough electricity to meet our needs when the demand is highest – capacity isn’t there on-Island or off-Island. Now they are saying rolling outages – brownouts and blackouts – are the only way they can deal with this in the short term.

When the “polar vortex” hit in February 2023 they had already done a study saying they needed 85 MW more capacity. After the polar vortex they upped that to over 100 MW additional capacity – for which they are proposing the purchase of two combustion turbines (CT’s) run by diesel at a cost of $334 million. It takes about 3 years to purchase and install these CT’s, and they have to get approval from IRAC. However, they didn’t put in an application to get the CT’s until March 2025!

[CORRECTION: The application SCBR-Request-for-the-On-Island-Capacity-for-Security-of-Supply-Project-filed-December-18-2024 is a Supplemental Capital Budget Request Application:”To address the Company’s forecast generating capacity deficit, the proposed Project includes the installation of 150 MW of on-Island capacity through a battery energy storage system, combustion turbine and reciprocating internal combustion engine plant. The Project will increase the amount of on-Island dispatchable generating capacity to approximately 50 per cent, supporting a more secure power supply for PEI, and is forecast to provide savings of approximately 50 per cent, supporting a more secure power supply for PEI, and is forecast to prvide saving of approximately 20 per cent over purchaing off-Island capacity resources. By adding new on-Island capacity, Maritime Electric can mitigate the risks associated with regional capacity shortfalls and transmission constraints.“]

Also, PEI gets electricity from the mainland through four undersea cables. These have a capacity of 560 MW, but the substation in Memramcook, NB only allows 300 MW to flow through to them. This has been the case since 2017 when latest two undersea cables were installed. So for over 8 years we have had capacity in our undersea cables that cannot be used! Why has the Memramcooke substation not been updated?

MECL came to present to the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability on January 8th. Please find a video excerpt of my questions to the presenters, and the MECL slide presentation below (also PDF of presentation downloadable here).