The President and CEO of Nova Scotia Power (NSP) is pulling the company’s application to charge solar users in the province a fee for accessing the power grid.
On Tuesday, NSP announced it would delay the application to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board until 2023.
Premier Tim Houston pumped the brakes Wednesday when he announced his government would introduce legislation that would block NSP from introducing the proposed charge for net-metering solar customers.
“We agree that it is time for changes to the enhanced net-metering program but the changes we seek will support the greening of the grid, not discourage it,” Houston said in a news release.
Less than 24 hours after Houston’s announcement, NSP President and CEO, Peter Gregg, walked back even further, issuing a statement saying the power company wouldn’t proceed with the application at all.
“It is clear to us that the complexity of the Solar Net Metering issue means the right decision is to withdraw our application for the System Access Charge and we will immediately take the necessary steps to do so,” he said.
NSP and the approximately 2000 people it employs support the greening of the grid and the provincial commitment to get off coal by 2030, Gregg said in his statement.
Gregg previously defended the move to apply for the “system access charge,” saying regular customers are subsidizing net-metering solar users.
Through the net-metering program, solar users are able to reroute any excess energy their system generates back to the NSP grid, which the company sells to other customers. On days when solar systems create less power, such as a cloudy day, net metering participants can use power from the grid.
A typical 10 kW solar system generates $1760 of electricity per year; Nova Scotia Power’s proposal would have seen net-metering solar users paying the power company $960 per year to access the grid, according to estimations by the not-for-profit society, Solar NS.
NSP wants to support the switch to renewables to achieve climate goals, Gregg said, while also ensuring fairness for all Nova Scotia Power Customers.
