The Nova Scotia Energy Board approved Nova Scotia Power’s $5,644,468 renewable-to-retail implementation project, but left the mechanism for recovering those costs to a later proceeding and required recurring confirmation that the funded assets serve that market alone.
In its June 26 decision, 2026 NSEB 13, Board chair Stephen T. McGrath found the systems work necessary to meet the utility’s statutory obligations. He rejected proposed cost disallowances, while declining to decide who should bear several categories of possible future costs.
The project updates billing, customer information, metering, data handling, reporting and settlement systems so licensed retailers can sell renewable electricity to customers otherwise served by NS Power. The Board found it reasonable to enhance existing systems rather than build entirely new ones and integrate them with the utility’s operations.
Renewall Energy, the only licensed retail supplier identified in the June reasons, had participated in the project’s development. It challenged aspects of the costs, timing and protections for a new market entrant, rather than disputing that implementation work was needed.
Approval did not settle who pays or when
The governing Electricity Act requires NS Power to maintain tariffs, procedures and standards that facilitate the renewable-to-retail market. Its guiding principles include protecting NS Power customers from negative effects of customers switching suppliers and making retailers and their customers responsible for service-related costs that would otherwise fall on the utility and its customers.
The Consumer Advocate and Small Business Advocate questioned whether costs might nevertheless reach NS Power’s broader customer base if they could not be recovered from the retail market. Renewall argued that recovery should reflect actual market use and cost causation rather than automatically follow the project’s 10-year depreciation life.
The Board did not resolve those recovery questions in this capital approval. NS Power had proposed addressing its methodology in a future annually adjusted rates application. McGrath questioned whether that relatively streamlined, formula-based process would suit the complexity of establishing new recovery mechanisms or tariff language. He offered guidance, not a final choice of procedure.
Nor did the ruling categorically insulate general ratepayers from every possible cost. The reasons reproduced an earlier decision contemplating recovery from retail suppliers and their customers, subject to prudence, but allowing an unrecovered balance to be considered in a general rate application if the retail market failed, also subject to a prudence review. That contingency is not an order charging today’s customers or fixing Renewall’s bill.
Late filing received a case-specific assessment
By the time NS Power applied in December 2025, it had already spent approximately $4.4 million, more than three-quarters of the project’s forecast cost. Work had begun in 2023, while Renewall’s expected start date and business plans continued to change.
The Board emphasized that capital review should occur before spending that requires statutory approval. Incurring costs without that approval can count against the initial presumption that utility costs were prudently incurred. If that presumption is rebutted, NS Power must demonstrate prudence.
Here, McGrath gave the late filing less weight because shifting plans made assembling the application unusually difficult, and NS Power had disclosed both the project and spending in annual capital-plan filings since 2023. On this record, the presumption of prudence was not rebutted. The reasoning did not create a general permission to seek approval after spending.
The Small Business Advocate also challenged the explanation for an increase from the previous annual-plan estimate. NS Power could not reconstruct a detailed reconciliation to that estimate after the 2025 cyber incident, but supplied annual costs by category and explained remobilization, financing and overhead effects.
The Board accepted the explanation in this case. It declined to require reconciliations between preliminary annual-plan estimates and later capital applications as a routine rule, while recognizing that significant differences can require explanation and should be examined case by case.
Renewall disputed delay-related costs and questioned whether NS Power should have paused work earlier. The utility said it was adapting a complex project to an evolving business model and changing commercial dates. It proposed a pause to avoid continuing consultant and vendor costs, obtained Renewall’s agreement, and preserved completed work for eventual restart.
McGrath accepted that changing timelines increased costs. He found the competing suggestion that NS Power or unidentified third parties caused the delays insufficiently supported, particularly given Renewall’s involvement. Evidence also showed work continued while the pause was being arranged. The Board accepted that restarting resources would itself produce additional costs.
Certification, not additional launch conditions
Renewall sought annual assurance that project assets would be used only for renewable-to-retail purposes and costs would not be shifted to unrelated activities. NS Power considered additional certification unnecessary because it tracked project costs separately and recovery remained subject to regulatory review.
The Board sided with Renewall on certification. The first filing is due on the first day of the month after Renewall begins sales to its first customer, followed annually until project costs are fully recovered or the Board directs otherwise. The decision does not establish that this trigger has occurred.
McGrath reasoned that if the retail market funds the work, any later use for other purposes should be identified and costs allocated appropriately.
The Board declined, however, to make approval conditional on Renewall’s proposed data-readiness milestones. It expected testing, business-readiness confirmation and related safeguards through NS Power’s normal processes. Renewall could bring a proceeding if readiness problems arose; refusing extra approval conditions was not a finding that testing had already succeeded.
The Board also accepted NS Power’s project-specific assurances that no cyber-recovery costs were charged to this project and that completed work had not been affected by the cyberattack. It expressly left open the treatment of additional costs if cyber-related rework proved necessary. This was not a ruling on the utility’s wider cyber incident.
Future expansion and rework costs remain open
Renewall wanted reporting work limited to necessary outputs and sought protection from costs associated with future competitors. NS Power said reliable tariff invoicing required automated handling of detailed meter data and that the system was sized to avoid repeated upgrades.
The Board accepted the reporting work as necessary and found no unnecessary capacity built into the project on the evidence. It nevertheless refused to predetermine allocation of future expansion costs, which would depend on the circumstances and require other affected parties to be heard.
It similarly left unresolved who would pay for any rebuilding associated with a future customer-information-system replacement. The Board also acknowledged the undesirable prospect of duplicate functionality costs if market administration shifted to Nova Scotia’s independent system operator, but deferred that issue until the circumstances were known.
A subsequent August 26 hearing order in M13008 set a process for proposed renewable-to-retail tariff and terms changes. That procedural order does not establish approval of this project’s cost-recovery mechanism, approved tariff changes or the start of retail sales.
