Executives at public utility argue they must forge ahead with gas plant that will emit greenhouse gases
By: John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter. Source: Telegraph-Journal
October 10, 2025
Brad Coady, a vice president at NB Power, speaks to New Brunswick politicians Friday as CEO lori Clark and chief financial officer Darren Mruphy look on. SCREENSHOT
NB Power has asked an American firm to build a controversial natural gas-diesel plant at a cost of more than $1 billion because without it, the province risks running out of electricity within three years, says an executive.
Brad Coady, the vice president of business development at NB Power, laid out the possibility of a bleak future to a group of politicians on Friday who represent a province where three-quarters of people still depend on electricity for heat in the bone-chilling winter.
He told the standing committee on public accounts at the legislature that he discovered the problem during an NB Power executive meeting in the fall of 2023, when he learned the public utility had already blown through its budget for connecting new customers only halfway through the fiscal year.
NB Power had already increased that budget from the previous year by 30 per cent.
Coady said he immediately asked his colleagues in the load forecasting team to assess some figures – predictions on gross domestic product and population growth, which had spiked that year as people flooded in from other places.
Population growth
New Brunswick had its biggest surge in population growth in 2023, up nearly 24,000 or 3.1 per cent, a record in recent decades.
“When they ran the numbers through their model, the light bulb went off that we’re very quickly running out of electricity in New Brunswick,” he warned.
Without doing anything, the executive said he realized, “we are going to be short not in the 2030s, like we were originally predicting. It’s going to be in the late 2020s, 2028 to be precise. So it was at that moment that triggered a bunch of activities.”
Keeping the grid running and reliable was a major theme during the committee session Friday, as concerned politicians from all three parties asked questions for more than four hours about the utility’s ballooning, nearly $6-billion debt, and electricity rates that have gone up 24 per cent over the last three years.
NB Power also plans to boost them another 4.75 per cent next year, and possibly another 6.5 per cent in each of the following two years.
The higher costs have fuelled a public backlash.
Terms of deal remain secret
CEO Lori Clark warned them that without big spending, NB Power wouldn’t be able to keep its plants going, making the system unreliable.
Faced with the possibility of an electricity shortage in 2028, Coady said NB Power quickly put a request for proposals together in 2024 for a plant they knew could be built quickly – a gas turbine plant.
Since then, NB Power has forged a deal with the American firm PROENERGY to build it in Tantramar in southeastern New Brunswick, where the greatest population and business growth has been in the province, enough for 400 to 500 megawatts of energy that could be easily turned on whenever there isn’t enough wind to turn turbines or enough sun to reflect off solar panels.
The terms of the deal remain secret, for proprietary reasons, but NB Power wants to sign a 25-year agreement to purchase power from PROENERGY, which would own and run the plant.
Megan Mitton, the Green MLA whose riding includes Tantramar, opposes the plan because she says burning more fossil fuels would increase greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, warming the planet. Tantramar is part of the narrow strip of land between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia called the Chignecto Isthmus and is particularly vulnerable to climate change and flooding.
Green MLA Megan Mitton doesn’t want NB Power to build a gas plant in her riding in
southeastern New Brunswick. PHOTO BY JOHN CHILIBECK/ BRUNSWICK NEWS
She asked repeatedly at the meeting how much the plant and power purchase agreement would cost New Brunswick ratepayers.
Coady said he couldn’t disclose those costs for legal reasons but tried to reassure her by stating that the province’s regulator, the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board, and the public intervener for the energy sector, had access to the details of the secret agreement.
However, when Mitton pointed out that the same firm was building a much smaller gas plant in Prince Edward Island for about $300 million, she said it was obvious the New Brunswick version would cost more than $1 billion.
Coady agreed.
The Green politician then questioned why NB Power would forge a deal with a firm that had misrepresented its project in its environmental impact assessment. She insisted it had overlooked Tantramar as an important wildlife corridor, including fish in its brooks, and also questioned why the firm had said early on that First Nations had an equity stake in the business.
Those Mi’kmaq First Nations have since said the announcement of their partnership was premature.
“They’ve misrepresented themselves,” Mitton said. “They’ve said New Brunswick First Nations were equity partners, and they’re not. They’re putting out inaccuracies. I’d argue they’re lying.”
Brunswick News asked the firm about Mitton’s accusations, but spokesman Chris Evans said in an email, “PROENERGY will not comment at this time.”
Backup batteries
Instead of a gas plant, Mitton has demanded backup batteries be used, pointing to similar projects in Maine and Vermont, nearby states with a similar climate.
NB Power has rejected the idea, arguing it would be too costly to put batteries in for such a large amount of electricity – the CEO said it would be billions of dollars.
They also say the technology would only guarantee backup power for up to four hours.
Coady said there were times in New Brunswick in the winter when a high-pressure system moved in for up to a week with little wind, and NB Power needed a plant that was more reliable to back up wind energy.
Liberal MLA Natacha Vautour asked why an American firm had been selected, given that U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed punishing tariffs on Canadian products and has mused about turning the country into the 51st state.
The executive replied that when NB Power put out requests for expressions of interest, the political landscape was totally different.
“At that time, we had Joe Biden as the president of the United States and Justin Trudeau as prime minister of Canada. And we had very good relations between the countries,” Coady said. “The last few months, relations really started to sour with tariffs and trade wars and all these different things that NB Power has no direct control over.”
Coady said PROENERGY was selected over Canadian firms that sent in proposals because it was the only firm that could deliver the project on time. And he said the Canadian firms would have used American technology anyway.
Mitton told reporters afterward she couldn’t trust what NB Power was saying.
“They’re saying, ‘we can’t do batteries, but we should burn fracked gas and diesel in Tantramar,’ and I can’t get on board with that. I have concerns about air pollution, water usage, and obviously the climate, but also the cost.
“A 25-year contract with an American company? I’m extremely concerned. Talking about energy security! I’m really worried signing contracts with companies in the States right now.”
This story from Brunswick News was written by Local Journalism Initiative Reporter John Chilibeck.
This 500 MW facility, with its 3 million US gallon diesel oil storage capability, seems to have the Irving Empire sitting on the sidelines just waiting to announce that the diesel fuel, refined from crude oil here in Saint John, will be the preferred fuel over the US imported natural gas. They will push the ‘buy local’ slogan.
Without a supplying oil pipeline (like Coleson Cove), NB Power would need in excess of 100 tractor trailer tanker loads of diesel fuel from Saint John each and every day, to supply this plant when it is being operated at full capacity, like in the middle of winter.
Just to give an example of what a massive amount of fuel these power plants need —–the 450 MW coal fired plant in Belledune burns over ONE MILLION TONS of coal every year.
Eyes wide open folks!
I have some real concerns about this plant, in particular about water usage. They should be recycling the water, and reducing both their draw on the water table and the amount of effluent they put back into the ground. However, I am concerned that a lot of the objections are not based in reality. I went to the public meeting in Sackville, and when the company wanted to take a few minutes to explain how the plant would work and why it was needed, the crowd was not interested, and wanted to immediately go to their grievances.
This would be a “peaker” plant, designed to only be run about three weeks a year. Peaker plants are very common, with thousands in use all over the world. They are used to cover peaks in power usage during abnormal situations, such as extreme heat or cold. The advantages of a peaker plant is that they can come online quickly, and produce a lot of power. However, the power from a peaker is more expensive, and they are not designed to run continuously.
Battery storage has progressed a lot. For example, California stores solar power during the day and then uses it in the evening when people get home and turn on the AC. Current battery technology can provide about 4 hours of power. The peaker plant can run for several days. A decade from now, batteries may be capable of that, but not today. As for the power source, someone has suggested that they will build this plant directly on the natural gas pipeline, and then truck in 1000 loads of diesel every day. They need a backup for the backup, that is what the diesel is for. Fracked natural gas is not my first choice for fuel, but it’s currently the best choice for a peaker plant.
Solar and wind are our best choices for new power generation, but some backup is needed. If you refuse to allow peaker plants, you cannot build out your wind and solar. China is installing 1400 mw of solar EVERY SINGLE DAY – nearly three times the capacity of this proposed plant. However, they are also building peaker plants. Yes, we need to get to 100% renewable, but we can’t get to 80% without backup power. Another point that people seem to be ignoring is that when the plant is not generating power, it will still be used to stabilize the grid, without consuming any fuel or generating any emissions.
Let’s have a real conversation about real issues.
– Should we reconsider who should build the plant, given the current political situation?
– Is there a better place to build it?
– How many days a year are the many other similar plants built by the same company being used?
– Could the design be altered use less water?
If you want to insist that we can’t build anything that emits carbon, then ironically that will mean MORE carbon, because we will not be able to replace our existing fossil fuel generation with wind. You can pretend that somehow New Brunswick can implement battery technology that nobody else in the world has ever done, but that will not make it real. Yes, batteries should be added to grid, and they could increase the use of wind power, but you still need peaker plants. Batteries can shift the load during the day – not cover several days of no wind.
Thanks for the summary Kevin. I was curious, did they say specifically that this would be a “peaker” plant? That would be nice, but given Bruce’s other article posted recently about NB Power’s urgent need for more generating capacity, it would seem that they likely need this for more than just a few weeks per year, they will need it to satisfy basic demand.
Given population growth along with the increasing “electrification” of equipment and some transportation, it would seem this plant may be really badly needed to satisfy growing electricity demand. And if I am not mistaken, the coal-fired generating station in Belledune will have to stop burning coal by 2030, so unless they switch to burning wood pellets (which I have read they might do), if they lose any or all of that generating capacity, it would create a big gap in supply.
I agree on batteries, the technology is just not there, and I doubt there is enough wind and solar power currently being generated in NB to meet the growing demand with storage alone anyway, even if it was technologically feasible. It will be a while yet before storage can be a bigger part of the grid supply.
So it would seem that they likely really need this plant not just as a peaker plant, but as a regularly operating plant, but I’m curious if you heard them speak about this at the meeting? I don’t live locally so was not able to attend.
Have they commented at any of the meetings on whether they considered other locations? It’s too bad there wasn’t at least a less-sensitive location to consider for building it.
Thanks for the ongoing coverage Bruce.
This issue is something that a lot of people, including our MLA, have brought up.
Firstly, NB Power has specifically stated that this is a peaker plant, and that they are expecting it to run about 20 days per year.
Of course, folks have a lot of reasons to doubt both NB Power and the company building the plant. However, in this case, you do not have to trust them – the plant cannot feasibly run full-time. It is specifical designed as a peaker, to produce a lot of power for a short time. It is not very efficient, and the cost of producing power is much higher than a regular plant. You can also look at every other similar plant that the company has built, and they have built a lot, and they are all peakers. This will not be a full-time plant. There are a lot of issues, but not this.
The plant also has another function, which was described at the meeting. During the vast majority of the time, the plant will NOT be burning any fuel, but will be serving to stabilize the grid. Solar and wind are the cheapest sources for new electric capacity, but they lack one key function that regular generators have. I’ll let AI explain it:
“Spinning mass on an electric grid” refers to the kinetic energy stored in the rotating parts of synchronous generators, which acts as a natural damper to stabilize grid frequency. This inertia resists changes in the grid’s rotational speed, providing a few seconds of stability when there’s a sudden mismatch between power generation and demand. When demand spikes, the mass slows down, releasing energy; when supply exceeds demand, it speeds up, absorbing excess energy.”
The placement of the plant, from what I understand, is based on two things – the intersection of the gas line and high voltage lines, and the need for grid stabilization in this portion of the province.
I agree that other sites should be considered. There also needs to be a full environmental review. The attempt to dodge this because technically NB Power is not spending money to build the plant is a disingenuous end-run around the regulations. I previously mentioned water usage and possible ground water contamination. Noise is another issue. That is a fairly low traffic area, very quiet at most times. Will people in the area be forced to endure constant noise when the plant is running? Here in Sackville, Mt A had some AC equipment that could be heard over half the town for many months.
Regarding the diesel – at the meeting, they stated that it was for emergency backup only. They also said that a containment membrane would be in place large enough to hold the entire contents of the onsite tanks. Again, it would completely uneconomical to run the plant long term on trucked diesel.
The one thing you can count on corporations to do is to act in their own interest. The price for the power is fixed. They will lose money if they burn diesel. They are not going to do it unless the natural gas is unavailable.
We need to have a open public debate on this. It needs to be a well considered decision. Some of the statements from the company, such as claiming they attempted to contact the local residents, when none of the people living in area heard anything, are suspect at best. However, there are actual facts. This is a peaker plant. It will not be run all the time. It will burn natural gas almost all the time it operates, not diesel. There are protections in place against a diesel leak (although more details on that, and how a clean would be done, are needed). It will also act as spinning mass to stabilize the grid. Its function could not be performed by batteries with current technology.
When the discussion veers off into impossible scenarios, we lose sight of the real issues that need to be discussed. When people are so absolutist that no carbon emitting generate can ever be built, they are preventing the adopting of more wind power, because we are still years away from something like a vanadium flow battery providing multiple days of peaker capacity.
I don’t honestly know if this plant should be built at this location or not. I’m not sure I will ever know, unless we can redirect the conversation to the actual issues.
Maybe I’m missing some power utility jargon, but “This inertia resists changes in the grid’s rotational speed” looks like AI gobbledygook. The generators have a rotational speed with inertia. The grid does not have a rotational speed. The grid is what it sounds like: fixed infrastructure.
When you have the generator spinning, but not generating power, if the power dips, then the generator’s angular momentum adds power to the grid. When the power surges, the inertia causes it to absorb power, lessening the surge. This is a standard feature of spinning generators on the grid, and is a function that requires a much more complex solution for grid batteries.
Note: I did make a mistake on my earlier post – it is the EUB review that was possibly out of scope, since NB Power was not technically spending $50 million. Someone was kind enough to point out my mistake, I missed that during the meeting in Sackville.