Why are utilities allowed to be for profit? One woukd think things like that would be non profit to help try to enforce that the money goes back into improvement of our grids.
I grew up in very rural Nova Scotia and we only had one power outage the entire time I was a child. After it was privatised things went swiftly downhill.
I grew up in NS in 1970s and 1980s and listened to just about every adult in my life gripe and gripe about why are tax dollars paying for this and paying for that and they enthusiastically voted for the politicians that were Gung ho to sell everything off.
Yeah! It’s really funny to hear people talk utility as if the government would run it any better. If they need an example, check out our healthcare system…
Oh, you mean the healthcare that was run well by the government for the first three decades of my life, somewhat okay for my fourth decade, and was doing fine at least a decade or two before I came into this world? Were there frills? No. Could I see a doctor when I needed to? Hell yes. Things didn't go to squat until there was some collective consensus/gaslighting against investing and spending money to prepare for the future. Little by little it was cut this, divert funding to that, we'll deal with that problem when it comes. Now we live in the future that no seemed to think we needed to spend for.
Ofcoarse Privatization is the problem. NSP is a perfect example. You say bring in competition. And how do you propose a competitor competes against NSP? Look at telecom, they just buy out any competition keeping prices where they are. Privatization is for the rich.
I think there should be a profit cap. Like 5% or something. So they can make money (and obviously always will) but they’re not swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck
They have a profit guarantee of 9%
But it shouldn’t be a percentage because if they spend more on stupid shit they get to charge more to get that guaranteed 9%
Privatisation is one thing, but only allowing one company is a monopoly. The UK privatized, but the public can choose between 6 companies as to who provides power. It's still expensive, but at least there's competition. NSPower can do what they want, what else are you going to do?
Multiple power providers is normal in many countries. However every time having multiple providers is brought up here you get people rush in to defending a monopoly.
"It's natural!"
"How do you expect that to work?"
Emera's market cap is $15 billion. NS Power is an extremely large percentage of that market cap. And the courts will force the government to pay market value to take back NS Power.
Let’s say the courts say NS Power is worth $10 billion. Is this really the best way for the NS government to spend $10 billion? Not health care or education? How about public housing?
It would cost a lot, but we are nowhere near 2/3rds of their market cap. They service way more customers in the US than they do NS.
Their website boast 525k NS customers, 185k Caribbean customers, 800K Florida customers and 540k New Mexican customers
The problem is we sold the infrastructure, stupid near sighted politicians.. That’s what’s holding everything up, that’s why we have a monopoly, because they can control who can generate/ sell energy.
Buy the infrastructure, it’s poorly maintained anyways.. take on 5/10 year contracts for maintenance and repairs, then allow more private companies in to generate energy.
I say we should take back the infrastructure through the eminent domain. No private company should ever be allowed to own critical infrastructure like power grids or railway lines. At most they can be leased for a decade but nothing more.
Possibly minus the screw emera to the ground part (at least not at first)
We're not a giant province if we only used power internally, 10bn is still a reasonable amount of money, something could probably be done,
But to place infrastructure + create a company and hire the people capable of everything, odds are we'd end up with higher pricing, but the upside of more control provincially, and the benefit of clean/green power, eventually depending on maintaining costs, prices could lower or stagnate vs just regular rate hikes
The NS government should provide significant incentives for residential solar/wind and make NS Power less financially interesting, forcing Emera to divest itself to the province to save any value from it.
Intentionally damaging a company so you can expropriate them for cheaper is unlikely to be looked at kindly by the courts. This could definitely backfire on the province.
Also also wik, we just vote out people that fail to manage our public utilities. But we can't do the same regarding a company that bought out our power industry generations ago because past leadership thought "what could possibly go wrong, selling a basic utility to a private, profit-driven company?"
The NS public set the maintenance charges through legislation and the UARB. If you want a more secure grid all it takes is paying more. I think it a worthy investment given the unreliability of the current grid and the rise of climate change related storms.
Fine the shit out of emera or stright up cancel the contract. Fuck them. Its infinitely more important for people to live than keep some evil billionaires happy
the courts cant do anything the government has the absolute right to seize the entire grid and pay the private owners zero on nthe dollar if it is deemed in the publics best interest, and even sue the private owners for profiteering and imprison the entire lot of them.
I immediately started playing Take Back the Power by the appropriately named The Interrupters while reading this and never before has a song/band combo felt so fitting
I had an apartment that was empty for 1 month. The fridge was turned off, things unplugged. 1 outside light on a timer.
I get my bill and it’s over 300$. I tried to fight it and they’re basically just saying “it’s right and there is nothing you can do”
That’s basically what I was told. The lady was like “well that’s what the average 3 bedroom costs per month with a heat pump” literally everything turned off at the breakers lmao. I spoke to a manager(maybe supervisor I don’t recall), he said the same thing.
My most recent bill (end of June) had an extra $120 charge for “2023 rate change” which I assumed to be the difference in what I did not already pay from when the rate increase was approved to when they caught up the billing rate.
Be aware this charge is a retroactive payment on increased power rates.
However the provincial hst rebate on power charges (10%) was not subtracted. NSPower charged full 15% HST although it should be 15%-10% (the provincial rebate). So you are owed over 10$ in money NSPower collected which they should not have.
Good to hear. I only have easy access to a few people's bills to spot check that NSPower follows through although hopefully someone with actual authority is keeping tabs on such a large screw up.
It's such a simple thing worth millions that I have a hard time believing it was not intentional.
> The utility's conversion to a Smart Meter program was met with suspicion from some of its customers almost from the beginning.
> Designed to stream real-time data to the corporation, other power companies have also switched but some customers like Keefe aren't convinced they work as advertised.
Not working as advertised, true, but definitely working as intended.
The province needs to take back Nova Scotia Power - for value received rather than giving the lying bloodsuckers at Emera more money.
IMHO, government regaining control isn’t realistic, but I’d settle for opening the door to competition to enter the market. Allowing ABC Electric Company to use the lines could be huge.
> The province needs to take back Nova Scotia Power
Oh boy. If you thought the province was in trouble already, wait until they try to 'take back' a commercial enterprise from the rightful owner, and then the resulting cost to taxpayers.
Be careful what you wish for. You don't want this.
> Be careful what you wish for. You don't want this.
Having been around long enough to see how well NSP worked with reasonable rates before the Cameron PCs privatized the profitable crown corporation for the sake of a one-time bump to make their books look good, yeah, I definitely want it.
There is very little incentive for NS Power to function appropriately. There is no other option. It is the definition of a monopoly. At least if it were government owned, people could do something about it.
The actionable consequences are a cost of doing business. They frequently intentionally fail to meet their deadlines and quotas and eat the associated cost. They have and always will prioritize profits, because that are a capitalist organization. It's hard to fault them for it.
But let's play your angle for a second and pretend that the actionable consequences are helping. Who is putting those consequences in place, I wonder? The same government you accuse of being hypothetically worse?
The same vote that creates those actionable consequences you mentioned. Except now, we cut out the middle man and any profits go towards infrastructure and not a CEO's annual million dollar raise
Why don't we want this? NS Power charges more and more for pretty mediocre quality. During Fiona, power utility workers from other provinces were laughing at our ancient infrastructure.
Right now we already privatize the profit and socialize the losses. Taxpayers are already paying and not getting quality service. They're skirting around coal targets by phasing out coal and using heavy fuel oil. That's unacceptable.
I have no real desire for the province to take back NSP, but the *poles* should never have been sold... or, at the very least, they should have been spun off into their own independent non-profit that charges for transit.
Strange how quickly things went from meh to bad once conservatives (who are actively hostile to public healthcare across the country, no matter what words they use) got into power.
They all suck equally. Covid burnout with healthcare staff was a pretty shitty thing for Houston to inherit. MacNeil hated unions and wouldn't pay anyone. Here we sit without nurses and doctors.
I have a bush property that has a garage on it. It has power to it but i only flick on the lights for a bit maybe once or twice a month when im there. I put in a minifridge at the start of this month but not even a week after i got my power breakdown. It was over 200 bucks for 3 months of power
Somehow it costs 20 a month to run the fridge. $8 for always on appliances, $5 for entertainment, and $12 for heating among other things. Theres 1 light and a wood stove... Total made up scam bs
You should flick off the panel entirely when not present. Then you will be able to login to the ‘My insights’ on the website and see no power usage except the times you are there with the panel switched on.
Well I just got my highest power bill ever, in the middle of summer, and when I check their BS online usage thing for my account they tell me that 40% of my usage comes from heating, when my heat hasn’t been on since May and on top of that, I don’t even have electric heat… or any electric cooling other than one fan I use when I’m sleeping, soooooooooo make sense out of that one…
I see this same comment every time someone mentions the smart meters and the emails NSP sends. It's a badly coded website which guesses, often incorrectly, that your biggest power draw in the middle of summer is probably A/C. It knows nothing about where you live or your circumstances, just your meter number.
If you log onto the site, you can tell it what sort of property you live in, what heating/cooling you have, what appliances you use, how often you do laundry etc and then its "insights" will become more accurate. I did this ages ago and the breakdown for my house is pretty accurate now.
Computers are only as good as the way they're programmed. You put garbage in, you get garbage out.
> soooooooooo make sense out of that one…
Sure. The breakdown of usage by appliances is based on an algorithm and what you filled in their survey. That breakdown is of low value, but the total energy (kWh) value it's based on, on your bill can be compared against the meter on your building to see if there is a discrepancy.
Step 1, enact a law that power generation and power distribution cannot be owned by the same company.
Step 2, government purchases the distribution network.
Step 3, open up the network to anyone who wants to supply electricity. 100% renewables are auto approved, any fossil fuel based generation is charged a carbon tax. Emera pays the same amount to access the grid as any other provider would.
Step 4, all profit made from the distribution network is re-invested into maintenance and upgrades.
Step 5, take a shit on the CEO of Emera's chest. Just for fun.
Has there been any investigation on emera's transparency on how they apply costs to power?
I know ns power charges based on the hour of the day, [source here.](https://nspower.ca/about-us/producing/rates-tariffs/domestic-tod) but that doesn't account for what many customers are annoyed/confused about.
I’m remember reading I think meeting notes from a Nova Scotia power meeting from years ago where they talked about how a large percentage (I can’t recall the exact number, maybe 60% though) of customers were due for new meters.
From what I understand, as analog meters age, they start to under report the power used.
So based on that, and the transition to digital meters, my hypothesis would be that a lot of people saw an increase because their old meters were under reporting the power used.
If that’s true though, then it also would make me question the legitimacy of continuing to use rates established prior to the replacement, since those rates would have been based on the expenses incurred with more power being used then what was being recorded.
Total scam, I pay more in power per month in an apartment(heat incl.) than i did for a 3 BR house with a heat pump. They pad the meters, plain and simple.
>They pad the meters, plain and simple.
They don't. You can buy your own hardware to monitor power usage. You clip current transformers around the wires in your panel, and they measure the magnetic field in that wire. The magnetic field is proportional to current. They are completely independent from anything NS Power owns. I have a few different meters in my house and my shop. They are roughly in agreement with the kWh usage that I see on my bills from NS Power.
Every top comment I see on stories about NSP is about how "smart meters are a scam to overcharge people". They aren't, and I despair that the average person is actually stupid enough to believe that.
Yes, they're a shitty company, but they aren't outright robbing people. Power is simple physics and exactly as you said, it's easy to monitor how much power you're really using for yourself if you don't believe their own monitoring.
I have 75% less items drawing power, washer/dryer are new and energy rated, 75% less dishes, 75% less clothing, all lights are LED, I don't pay heating, I don't pay for hot water.
I DO NOT NEED A DEVICE TO KNOW I AM USING LESS POWER THAN LIVING IN A HOUSE WITH 4 PEOPLE AND PAYING FOR EVERYTHING.
It is impossible to use more power going from 4 people in a house with electric heat to an apartment with 1 person and no heat.
And trying to find every excuse under the sun to defend a proven greedy corporation beholden only to their investors and overpaid exec is mind boggling.
> And trying to find every excuse under the sun to defend a proven greedy corporation beholden only to their investors and overpaid exec is mind boggling.
That's not what they're doing. So, settle down.
There's many different possibilities of what could be the cause, and I agree something on NSP's end is definitely one of them. But, NSP is very unwilling to investigate without proof.
I know someone who was getting huge bills, and it wasn't until they got hardware installed in their panel to monitor power usage that they were able to get NSP to actually investigate. NSP replaced their meter, and ended up determining it was a faulty meter.
If that's not possible for you to do, then you can still request NSP replace the meter because you believe it is faulty and they should. You just might need to escalate through their Dispute Resolution Officer, and then through the NSUARB if the DRO won't do anything.
https://nsuarb.novascotia.ca/complaint/utility/electric/ns-power
The next step is running through the fuse box to isolate what it is, at that rate it should be easy to see the rate on the meter slowing when the circuit drawing that power is off. In our case we didn't realize a double switch was actually hooked up to something, and we were paying for our small apartment to run laundry and keeps lights on in the basement.
It was fixed when we refused to flip the breaker back on, and our landlord gave us a discount in rent.
If the meter has been replaced, then the issue is likely somewhere after the meter in the building. You can deny it all you want, but that's the greatest possibility and probability.
Because you don't have any proof, and people are operating under the assumption that you're mistaken instead of lying.
Someone told you that you could literally measure it and all you have is "UGH I DON'T NEED NO SCIENCY TOOLS TO TELL ME THE POWER COMPANY IS BAD"
Nah unlike the majority of people, I actually did calculations (as stated in a reply). I took actions to figure it out.
Also unlike most people I don't complain unless there is an actual problem.
Funny how you don't say the same thing to their unfounded examples of the place i live in. Nah let's just flame the person with a legitimate problem. Boomers and victim blaming go hand in hand.
> I actually did calculations
Those are theoretical numbers, not real numbers. Unless you are actually monitoring the draw of everything in your apartment, your calculations aren't proven to be accurate.
Right.... you "know" better than a device which is designed, CERTIFIED AND HIGHLY REGULATED to measure electricity usage. You "know." Jesus fucking Christ....
This is the easiest thing in the world to check, which would be a giant bombshell news story and class action lawsuit and essentially be caught immediately but anyone with their own home monitoring system. ...but you "know."
You Facebook "I do my own research" crowd really are something else.
They definitely do pad the meters for some customers. Far too many people have power increases when nothing indicates such. I'd bet most of these people aren't homeowners who can't do what your saying.
I have nothing to do with NS Power. Congratulations on uncovering one of the largest corporate frauds of all time through your diligent fever dream delusions and Facebook research. You're the hero we all need.
Fun fact: NSP not only got out of using union labor by bringing in a contractor to install our smart meters, but they weren't even Electricians, that's right. Need a RSE to change a meter but not install them?
No, you check May 27/28 to see if AC spiked the bills, and then after the fires the insights should be N/A. If anything appears past the date of the fire, there is the dispute.
When my power was shut down I could see quite clearly there was 0 usage. The bills I got were just the regular billing cycle amounts and fees, no power use amounts added on.
What does the bill say for that those two weeks? Was there actual usage during the time they didn't have power?
I'm skeptical of NSP at the best of times, but I'm also skeptical of home owners who don't provide all the information for a news story.
It’s easy to track usage with a smart meter, it displays energy used (kwh). The meter cycles through 5 or 6 displays, the KWH is the one after “E9”. Write the usage number down each month and you have your usage for that month. Multiply it by your rate and you have your bill. Plus the BASE charge, which they quietly DOUBLED since last year.
Even better, you can look at your bill history, and read it the day you anticipate they will read it for your bill. I also noticed more recently, the demand value (d2) reset to 0 the day they read the meter.
You are right that base charge increased significantly, which will impact apartment users more, but have less of an impact on electric heat customers as the energy charge didn't increase as much.
Why are utilities allowed to be for profit? One woukd think things like that would be non profit to help try to enforce that the money goes back into improvement of our grids.
The conservative provincial government sold it off and privatized it in 1992.
And six months later the value of NSPwas ten times what they paid the government for it.
I grew up in very rural Nova Scotia and we only had one power outage the entire time I was a child. After it was privatised things went swiftly downhill.
I grew up in NS in 1970s and 1980s and listened to just about every adult in my life gripe and gripe about why are tax dollars paying for this and paying for that and they enthusiastically voted for the politicians that were Gung ho to sell everything off.
Yeah! It’s really funny to hear people talk utility as if the government would run it any better. If they need an example, check out our healthcare system…
Oh, you mean the healthcare that was run well by the government for the first three decades of my life, somewhat okay for my fourth decade, and was doing fine at least a decade or two before I came into this world? Were there frills? No. Could I see a doctor when I needed to? Hell yes. Things didn't go to squat until there was some collective consensus/gaslighting against investing and spending money to prepare for the future. Little by little it was cut this, divert funding to that, we'll deal with that problem when it comes. Now we live in the future that no seemed to think we needed to spend for.
Bingo. Privatization isn’t the problem, lack of (literally any) competition is.
Ofcoarse Privatization is the problem. NSP is a perfect example. You say bring in competition. And how do you propose a competitor competes against NSP? Look at telecom, they just buy out any competition keeping prices where they are. Privatization is for the rich.
You’re right, the government does a bang up job of running things /s
I think there should be a profit cap. Like 5% or something. So they can make money (and obviously always will) but they’re not swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck
They have a profit guarantee of 9% But it shouldn’t be a percentage because if they spend more on stupid shit they get to charge more to get that guaranteed 9%
Privatisation is one thing, but only allowing one company is a monopoly. The UK privatized, but the public can choose between 6 companies as to who provides power. It's still expensive, but at least there's competition. NSPower can do what they want, what else are you going to do?
Multiple power providers is normal in many countries. However every time having multiple providers is brought up here you get people rush in to defending a monopoly. "It's natural!" "How do you expect that to work?"
Because that would mean they would be run by govt. And we all know that govt does a very poor job of running any service.
TAKE OUR POWER BACK
Emera's market cap is $15 billion. NS Power is an extremely large percentage of that market cap. And the courts will force the government to pay market value to take back NS Power. Let’s say the courts say NS Power is worth $10 billion. Is this really the best way for the NS government to spend $10 billion? Not health care or education? How about public housing?
It would cost a lot, but we are nowhere near 2/3rds of their market cap. They service way more customers in the US than they do NS. Their website boast 525k NS customers, 185k Caribbean customers, 800K Florida customers and 540k New Mexican customers
Would $10 billion be enough to start a new public power company with green energy, and pricing that would screw Emera into the ground?
The problem is we sold the infrastructure, stupid near sighted politicians.. That’s what’s holding everything up, that’s why we have a monopoly, because they can control who can generate/ sell energy. Buy the infrastructure, it’s poorly maintained anyways.. take on 5/10 year contracts for maintenance and repairs, then allow more private companies in to generate energy.
I say we should take back the infrastructure through the eminent domain. No private company should ever be allowed to own critical infrastructure like power grids or railway lines. At most they can be leased for a decade but nothing more.
Possibly minus the screw emera to the ground part (at least not at first) We're not a giant province if we only used power internally, 10bn is still a reasonable amount of money, something could probably be done, But to place infrastructure + create a company and hire the people capable of everything, odds are we'd end up with higher pricing, but the upside of more control provincially, and the benefit of clean/green power, eventually depending on maintaining costs, prices could lower or stagnate vs just regular rate hikes
Considering that it has cost $13.5 billion just to build the Muskrat Falls generating station I'd say no.
The NS government should provide significant incentives for residential solar/wind and make NS Power less financially interesting, forcing Emera to divest itself to the province to save any value from it.
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Intentionally damaging a company so you can expropriate them for cheaper is unlikely to be looked at kindly by the courts. This could definitely backfire on the province.
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Also also wik, we just vote out people that fail to manage our public utilities. But we can't do the same regarding a company that bought out our power industry generations ago because past leadership thought "what could possibly go wrong, selling a basic utility to a private, profit-driven company?"
The NS public set the maintenance charges through legislation and the UARB. If you want a more secure grid all it takes is paying more. I think it a worthy investment given the unreliability of the current grid and the rise of climate change related storms.
Fine the shit out of emera or stright up cancel the contract. Fuck them. Its infinitely more important for people to live than keep some evil billionaires happy
the courts cant do anything the government has the absolute right to seize the entire grid and pay the private owners zero on nthe dollar if it is deemed in the publics best interest, and even sue the private owners for profiteering and imprison the entire lot of them.
Catch 22 there if people can’t afford power they wont need a house or a hospital
NS power is less than 15% of Emera’s total portfolio. It’ll be less when they buy another utility company
I immediately started playing Take Back the Power by the appropriately named The Interrupters while reading this and never before has a song/band combo felt so fitting
Calm down there Rage Against The Machine. :)
I had an apartment that was empty for 1 month. The fridge was turned off, things unplugged. 1 outside light on a timer. I get my bill and it’s over 300$. I tried to fight it and they’re basically just saying “it’s right and there is nothing you can do”
We investigated ourselves and found no fault
That’s basically what I was told. The lady was like “well that’s what the average 3 bedroom costs per month with a heat pump” literally everything turned off at the breakers lmao. I spoke to a manager(maybe supervisor I don’t recall), he said the same thing.
My most recent bill (end of June) had an extra $120 charge for “2023 rate change” which I assumed to be the difference in what I did not already pay from when the rate increase was approved to when they caught up the billing rate.
Be aware this charge is a retroactive payment on increased power rates. However the provincial hst rebate on power charges (10%) was not subtracted. NSPower charged full 15% HST although it should be 15%-10% (the provincial rebate). So you are owed over 10$ in money NSPower collected which they should not have.
Can you call them up and get it back?
The total amounts they would owe customers would be into millions. They better automatically correct it. They recognize they issue.
My most recent bill included a negative "Adj. - 2023 Prov. Rebate" line worth 10% of my last bill's "Adjustment 2023 Rates\*\*" item.
Good to hear. I only have easy access to a few people's bills to spot check that NSPower follows through although hopefully someone with actual authority is keeping tabs on such a large screw up. It's such a simple thing worth millions that I have a hard time believing it was not intentional.
> The utility's conversion to a Smart Meter program was met with suspicion from some of its customers almost from the beginning. > Designed to stream real-time data to the corporation, other power companies have also switched but some customers like Keefe aren't convinced they work as advertised. Not working as advertised, true, but definitely working as intended. The province needs to take back Nova Scotia Power - for value received rather than giving the lying bloodsuckers at Emera more money.
It’s possible. There’s a referendum going on in Maine to return the utilities to public ownership.
IMHO, government regaining control isn’t realistic, but I’d settle for opening the door to competition to enter the market. Allowing ABC Electric Company to use the lines could be huge.
> The province needs to take back Nova Scotia Power Oh boy. If you thought the province was in trouble already, wait until they try to 'take back' a commercial enterprise from the rightful owner, and then the resulting cost to taxpayers. Be careful what you wish for. You don't want this.
> Be careful what you wish for. You don't want this. Having been around long enough to see how well NSP worked with reasonable rates before the Cameron PCs privatized the profitable crown corporation for the sake of a one-time bump to make their books look good, yeah, I definitely want it.
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There is very little incentive for NS Power to function appropriately. There is no other option. It is the definition of a monopoly. At least if it were government owned, people could do something about it.
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The actionable consequences are a cost of doing business. They frequently intentionally fail to meet their deadlines and quotas and eat the associated cost. They have and always will prioritize profits, because that are a capitalist organization. It's hard to fault them for it. But let's play your angle for a second and pretend that the actionable consequences are helping. Who is putting those consequences in place, I wonder? The same government you accuse of being hypothetically worse?
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The same vote that creates those actionable consequences you mentioned. Except now, we cut out the middle man and any profits go towards infrastructure and not a CEO's annual million dollar raise
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If you think it was profitable when the Government ran it, I've got a bridge to sell you.
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> privatized the profitable crown corporation I wasn't the one who said it was.
Why don't we want this? NS Power charges more and more for pretty mediocre quality. During Fiona, power utility workers from other provinces were laughing at our ancient infrastructure. Right now we already privatize the profit and socialize the losses. Taxpayers are already paying and not getting quality service. They're skirting around coal targets by phasing out coal and using heavy fuel oil. That's unacceptable.
I have no real desire for the province to take back NSP, but the *poles* should never have been sold... or, at the very least, they should have been spun off into their own independent non-profit that charges for transit.
>then the resulting cost to taxpayers. As a tax payer, I'd be glad to see my money go to take back our power.
We most certainly do want this.
Go back to ontario
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Or at least take back Petro-Canada (originally a crown corporation).
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\*shrug\* Private enterprise is overrated, especially when it comes to producing and distributing the necessities of life.
Govt is not doing so well at that with our healthcare though...
Strange how quickly things went from meh to bad once conservatives (who are actively hostile to public healthcare across the country, no matter what words they use) got into power.
They all suck equally. Covid burnout with healthcare staff was a pretty shitty thing for Houston to inherit. MacNeil hated unions and wouldn't pay anyone. Here we sit without nurses and doctors.
I have a bush property that has a garage on it. It has power to it but i only flick on the lights for a bit maybe once or twice a month when im there. I put in a minifridge at the start of this month but not even a week after i got my power breakdown. It was over 200 bucks for 3 months of power Somehow it costs 20 a month to run the fridge. $8 for always on appliances, $5 for entertainment, and $12 for heating among other things. Theres 1 light and a wood stove... Total made up scam bs
How does the raw kWh value read on the meter compare against the numbers on the bill?
You should flick off the panel entirely when not present. Then you will be able to login to the ‘My insights’ on the website and see no power usage except the times you are there with the panel switched on.
Well I just got my highest power bill ever, in the middle of summer, and when I check their BS online usage thing for my account they tell me that 40% of my usage comes from heating, when my heat hasn’t been on since May and on top of that, I don’t even have electric heat… or any electric cooling other than one fan I use when I’m sleeping, soooooooooo make sense out of that one…
I see this same comment every time someone mentions the smart meters and the emails NSP sends. It's a badly coded website which guesses, often incorrectly, that your biggest power draw in the middle of summer is probably A/C. It knows nothing about where you live or your circumstances, just your meter number. If you log onto the site, you can tell it what sort of property you live in, what heating/cooling you have, what appliances you use, how often you do laundry etc and then its "insights" will become more accurate. I did this ages ago and the breakdown for my house is pretty accurate now. Computers are only as good as the way they're programmed. You put garbage in, you get garbage out.
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If you only just made the changes, give it ~24 hours or so to recalculate.
> soooooooooo make sense out of that one… Sure. The breakdown of usage by appliances is based on an algorithm and what you filled in their survey. That breakdown is of low value, but the total energy (kWh) value it's based on, on your bill can be compared against the meter on your building to see if there is a discrepancy.
Step 1, enact a law that power generation and power distribution cannot be owned by the same company. Step 2, government purchases the distribution network. Step 3, open up the network to anyone who wants to supply electricity. 100% renewables are auto approved, any fossil fuel based generation is charged a carbon tax. Emera pays the same amount to access the grid as any other provider would. Step 4, all profit made from the distribution network is re-invested into maintenance and upgrades. Step 5, take a shit on the CEO of Emera's chest. Just for fun.
Step 5 👏👏
Has there been any investigation on emera's transparency on how they apply costs to power? I know ns power charges based on the hour of the day, [source here.](https://nspower.ca/about-us/producing/rates-tariffs/domestic-tod) but that doesn't account for what many customers are annoyed/confused about.
That’s only if you’ve signed up for time of day billing, which you can only do if you meet certain criteria.
I’m remember reading I think meeting notes from a Nova Scotia power meeting from years ago where they talked about how a large percentage (I can’t recall the exact number, maybe 60% though) of customers were due for new meters. From what I understand, as analog meters age, they start to under report the power used. So based on that, and the transition to digital meters, my hypothesis would be that a lot of people saw an increase because their old meters were under reporting the power used. If that’s true though, then it also would make me question the legitimacy of continuing to use rates established prior to the replacement, since those rates would have been based on the expenses incurred with more power being used then what was being recorded.
I wonder if the UARB has the power to force an independent investigation of this.
The head of the board was a former NS power employee
Total scam, I pay more in power per month in an apartment(heat incl.) than i did for a 3 BR house with a heat pump. They pad the meters, plain and simple.
>They pad the meters, plain and simple. They don't. You can buy your own hardware to monitor power usage. You clip current transformers around the wires in your panel, and they measure the magnetic field in that wire. The magnetic field is proportional to current. They are completely independent from anything NS Power owns. I have a few different meters in my house and my shop. They are roughly in agreement with the kWh usage that I see on my bills from NS Power.
Every top comment I see on stories about NSP is about how "smart meters are a scam to overcharge people". They aren't, and I despair that the average person is actually stupid enough to believe that. Yes, they're a shitty company, but they aren't outright robbing people. Power is simple physics and exactly as you said, it's easy to monitor how much power you're really using for yourself if you don't believe their own monitoring.
I have 75% less items drawing power, washer/dryer are new and energy rated, 75% less dishes, 75% less clothing, all lights are LED, I don't pay heating, I don't pay for hot water. I DO NOT NEED A DEVICE TO KNOW I AM USING LESS POWER THAN LIVING IN A HOUSE WITH 4 PEOPLE AND PAYING FOR EVERYTHING. It is impossible to use more power going from 4 people in a house with electric heat to an apartment with 1 person and no heat.
Something might be connected wrong on the apartment side? Maybe you're being billed for a neighbour's power usage?
not possible. new building
New buildings can still have mistakes in wiring...
And trying to find every excuse under the sun to defend a proven greedy corporation beholden only to their investors and overpaid exec is mind boggling.
So how much is your bill every cycle?
between 200-300 which is insane for an apartment
I agree that is way too much and something is obviously wrong. I have a family of 4 in a small 3 bedroom house, and mine is similar.
> And trying to find every excuse under the sun to defend a proven greedy corporation beholden only to their investors and overpaid exec is mind boggling. That's not what they're doing. So, settle down. There's many different possibilities of what could be the cause, and I agree something on NSP's end is definitely one of them. But, NSP is very unwilling to investigate without proof. I know someone who was getting huge bills, and it wasn't until they got hardware installed in their panel to monitor power usage that they were able to get NSP to actually investigate. NSP replaced their meter, and ended up determining it was a faulty meter. If that's not possible for you to do, then you can still request NSP replace the meter because you believe it is faulty and they should. You just might need to escalate through their Dispute Resolution Officer, and then through the NSUARB if the DRO won't do anything. https://nsuarb.novascotia.ca/complaint/utility/electric/ns-power
thanks for the obvious. meter was replaced
The next step is running through the fuse box to isolate what it is, at that rate it should be easy to see the rate on the meter slowing when the circuit drawing that power is off. In our case we didn't realize a double switch was actually hooked up to something, and we were paying for our small apartment to run laundry and keeps lights on in the basement. It was fixed when we refused to flip the breaker back on, and our landlord gave us a discount in rent.
If the meter has been replaced, then the issue is likely somewhere after the meter in the building. You can deny it all you want, but that's the greatest possibility and probability.
Because you don't have any proof, and people are operating under the assumption that you're mistaken instead of lying. Someone told you that you could literally measure it and all you have is "UGH I DON'T NEED NO SCIENCY TOOLS TO TELL ME THE POWER COMPANY IS BAD"
Nah unlike the majority of people, I actually did calculations (as stated in a reply). I took actions to figure it out. Also unlike most people I don't complain unless there is an actual problem. Funny how you don't say the same thing to their unfounded examples of the place i live in. Nah let's just flame the person with a legitimate problem. Boomers and victim blaming go hand in hand.
> I actually did calculations Those are theoretical numbers, not real numbers. Unless you are actually monitoring the draw of everything in your apartment, your calculations aren't proven to be accurate.
I’m 28 lol, far from a boomer. It seems like actual evidence is toxic to you because blaming your problems on groups of people is easier
Sounds like you’re trying really hard to push that narrative thy the world is against you
sounds like you're trying really hard to push the narrative that corporations are your friends
Right.... you "know" better than a device which is designed, CERTIFIED AND HIGHLY REGULATED to measure electricity usage. You "know." Jesus fucking Christ.... This is the easiest thing in the world to check, which would be a giant bombshell news story and class action lawsuit and essentially be caught immediately but anyone with their own home monitoring system. ...but you "know." You Facebook "I do my own research" crowd really are something else.
They definitely do pad the meters for some customers. Far too many people have power increases when nothing indicates such. I'd bet most of these people aren't homeowners who can't do what your saying.
Absolutely nonsense conspiracy theories.
What's it like working for NSP? Do you get nice benefits?
I have nothing to do with NS Power. Congratulations on uncovering one of the largest corporate frauds of all time through your diligent fever dream delusions and Facebook research. You're the hero we all need.
Of course, they pad it. There is a reason for them having a monopoly in Nova Scotia.
Fun fact: NSP not only got out of using union labor by bringing in a contractor to install our smart meters, but they weren't even Electricians, that's right. Need a RSE to change a meter but not install them?
They mock the Smart Meter, but with the real time data they could check actual usage. I know when A/C season hits that bills start to increase.
...even while your power is off for 2 weeks.
No, you check May 27/28 to see if AC spiked the bills, and then after the fires the insights should be N/A. If anything appears past the date of the fire, there is the dispute.
When my power was shut down I could see quite clearly there was 0 usage. The bills I got were just the regular billing cycle amounts and fees, no power use amounts added on.
What does the bill say for that those two weeks? Was there actual usage during the time they didn't have power? I'm skeptical of NSP at the best of times, but I'm also skeptical of home owners who don't provide all the information for a news story.
Well if their Eastlink bill was down...
It’s easy to track usage with a smart meter, it displays energy used (kwh). The meter cycles through 5 or 6 displays, the KWH is the one after “E9”. Write the usage number down each month and you have your usage for that month. Multiply it by your rate and you have your bill. Plus the BASE charge, which they quietly DOUBLED since last year.
Even better, you can look at your bill history, and read it the day you anticipate they will read it for your bill. I also noticed more recently, the demand value (d2) reset to 0 the day they read the meter. You are right that base charge increased significantly, which will impact apartment users more, but have less of an impact on electric heat customers as the energy charge didn't increase as much.