Nova Scotia Power says revitalization plan showing improvements but more work needed to meet 5-year reliability goals

One day after a favourable ruling by the Nova Scotia Energy Board, members of Nova Scotia Power’s reliability team said more needs to be done to meet the company’s five-year reliability plan.

On Thursday, the board decided not to fine the utility for failure to meet six of 32 performance targets. In the ruling, the board found three of the targets, despite not being met, had improved from 2024 to 2025.

“When I see the response from the board, I’m looking at there’s a lot more work in front of us,” said Charlene MacMullin, senior manager of reliability, engagement and standards for Nova Scotia Power.

MacMullin said Nova Scotia Power is still in Year 2 of the five-year, $1.3-billion reliability plan but is showing encouraging results.

“We’re just starting to finish Year 2,” she said. “The goal here again is for customers to be able to see at the end of this work that they are seeing improvements.”

MacMullin and Keith O’Callaghan, senior manager of reliability with Nova Scotia Power, held a media briefing Friday at its Halifax headquarters to discuss the plan.

The goal is to reduce the length of power outages by 20 per cent by 2029. The main areas of focus are modernizing the grid, strengthening the system to better withstand extreme weather and increase work on vegetation management.

The 2025 results are encouraging, said MacMullin. Data showed tree-related outages were down 19 per cent, equipment failures dropped by 14 per cent and the utility had the lowest number of outages since 2012.

“We know that we’re targeting the right work,” said MacMullin. “We saw in 2025 the lowest number of outages customers experienced since 2012. So we met our performance standards for frequency, and we’re continuing to see further reductions from that value.”

Pilot projects with smart technology resulted in a 60 per cent reduction in customer outage hours, according to the utility. This technology includes increased communication to devices, providing real-time information about system issues that allows for faster identification and resolution of problems, leading to fewer outages and interruptions.

“Grid-modernizing smart technology is increased communication to devices. So you’re installing protective devices on the power system that can talk to you, and so it can give you real-time information in terms of ‘I see an issue here,'” said MacMullin.

“In the past, we would need to get in the truck and drive to see where the issue is, and sometimes we relied on customer comments to tell us something.

“Now, we can have technology tell us exactly where it’s detected a problem, and we can go directly there.”

As of Oct. 1, there have been 17 protective devices that can automatically restore power after temporary interruptions installed, nine automated reclosers that automatically detect a fault were added, four kilometres of power lines and poles were moved out of woods to the side of the road and 70 kilometres of power lines were upgraded.

Also, nearly 500 transmission structures were replaced or upgraded, which O’Callaghan called the backbone of the system.

“Our transmission system is not visible to most folks unless you spend time on a four-wheeler like me,” he said.

“These are the critical backbone system, and when we do have something happen on our transmission system, it is a very significant response and mobilization to get to those sites. It’s very challenging to restore.”

The reliability team said the core priorities of grid modernization, system strengthening and vegetation management will be the same for 2027. They will use inspection, outage data, customer feedback and winter performance to target areas for work or, if necessary, adjust plans.

“We’re using data from the performance of our system to make sure that we’re building a 2027 plan,” said O’Callaghan.

“We want to be adaptable, and we want to be able to pivot as needed if an area does underperform, but we’re really in a good rhythm of knowing where we have challenges and invest in those areas. We have a team of engineers and foresters and really talented folks who have the mission of keeping the power on.”