‘It will save money,’ says N.S. premier of regional electricity operator

Taryn Grant · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 28, 2026 7:28 PM EDT | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

The Maritime provinces are studying whether they should deepen integration of their electricity grids, and officials in Nova Scotia say their interest is based largely on energy affordability.

“It will save money,” Premier Tim Houston told reporters Tuesday, referring to a regional electricity system operator.

“We’re all running our own independent grids. That means we need to have redundant capacity just in case something happens and we can make sure we can power homes and businesses.”

Planning for and operating a regional grid could eliminate redundancy, Houston said.

Houston and the premiers of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island signed a memorandum of understanding last week, committing to explore greater co-operation on the electricity file.

“It’s just about working together to try to stabilize rates,” Houston said.

He said the MOU acknowledges that energy demand is rising — the federal government is planning for energy use to double by 2050 — and the provinces are aiming for efficiency through resource sharing.

Nova Scotia launched its own energy system operator last year, carving out some responsibilities from Nova Scotia Power and giving them to a new non-profit entity. Nova Scotia’s Independent Energy System Operator (IESO) is gradually taking over the procurement of new energy generating projects and decisions about energy dispatch, among other jobs.

Provincial Energy Minister Marco MacLeod said it’s too early to say what would happen with the Nova Scotia IESO if the Maritime provinces agree to create one that covers the whole region.

“There’s no commitment [for] everyone to sign on to a Maritime system operator,” he said in an interview. “But we are going to look at everything.”

The first stage is creating a “road map” for deeper grid integration, which is expected this fall, followed by a cost assessment next spring. MacLeod said deputy ministers and other staff from the energy departments in each province, as well as officials from electric utilities, will participate. 

MacLeod said Ottawa has agreed to pay for the work, although no dollar figure has been attached yet.

The three provinces already have somewhat interconnected grids and are planning on furthering those links. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are doubling the capacity of the transmission line that bridges the border and have signed an agreement for Nova Scotia to occasionally tap into a gas peaker plant that’s planned to be built in Tantramar, N.B.

New Brunswick and P.E.I. are planning to build a pair of new undersea power cables between their grids.

“We kind of have an organic approach already to working together, we’re very neighbourly in the Maritimes,” said MacLeod.

“But now we’re really looking at setting some goals and some objectives,” he added.

MacLeod said his priority is finding benefits for ratepayers, followed by ensuring reliability. On energy affordability, he echoed the premier’s rationale about eliminating redundancy, and added that regional integration could drive competition between power producers.

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