Gas plant image from EUB documents filed by NB Power
The lawyer appointed by the province to represent the public interest at the Energy & Utilities Board is planning to oppose NB Power’s proposed 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village during EUB hearings next month in Moncton.
“We’ve formed an opinion and we’re not really for this plant,” Alain Chiasson, the public intervener for the energy sector, told John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Brunswick News.
“We believe NB Power hasn’t looked through the alternatives enough,” he added. “For instance, this could have been done with large batteries instead of a gas plant. Our experts are not in agreement with what NB Power is proposing.”
One of those experts, Jeffrey Palermo of PJP Consulting based in Boca Raton, Florida, has filed EUB testimony suggesting that NB Power’s forecasts are wrong and the utility does not need electricity from the gas/diesel plant, known as the RIGS project.
“The most recent Maritimes Area resource adequacy study shows that NB Power has enough resources available without the RIGS generation to meet or exceed its planning requirements through 2030,” he states in a 47-page document available on the EUB website.
“The RIGS project cannot be justified by regional planning criteria and studies,” he adds.
“Delaying NB Power’s planned 111 MW net generating capacity reductions until 2029 will provide more time to develop better alternatives and long-term solutions.”
Palermo says that NB Power has “summarily dismissed” battery energy storage systems (BESS) as an alternative that he says “would be more flexible, provide additional benefits beyond those offered by the RIGS project and could result in lower costs for New Brunswick customers.”
Gas plant in Scoudouc?
Meantime, documents that NB Power has filed with the EUB show that although Centre Village was the utility’s first choice for the gas/diesel plant, it is still considering property it purchased in the Scoudouc Industrial Park as the site for a second, 600 MW facility sometime in the future.
NB Power VP Brad Coady confirmed during a public meeting in Sackville on Wednesday that the utility plans to continue work on the Scoudouc site.
“We are trying to avoid another 600 MW combustion turbine,” he said, but suggested that NB Power needs to plan for it in case it’s needed.
A briefing note for NB Power’s Strategic Executive Oversight Committee (SEOC) dated May 26, 2025, explains why the Centre Village site is a better choice mainly because a gas plant could be built more quickly there, but suggests that communication with local residents would be important.
“There is potential for opposition to development of either site and prudent planning and communications will help mitigate that risk,” the briefing note states.
“Early, proactive, and clear communication and demonstration of intentions to mitigate impacts on local communities and the environment are preferred. This approach is particularly important in the case of the Centre Village site given the differences in how nearby land is currently being used.”
To read the NB Power briefing note, click here.
To read consultant Jeffrey Palermo’s EUB testimony, click here.
—with files from John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brunswick News.
It was well worth the several hours’ time it took me to carefully read (and mostly understand) the filed testimony by expert Jeffrey Palermo. (See the link near the end of Bruce Wark’s excellent article.)
I learned a great deal that I didn’t previously know about the local and regional bodies (both Canadian Provinces and American States) and how they work, both separately and together. I now understand the wrong results that flowed, in part, from NB Power’s mixing together the responsibilities of both.
And I see that the way batteries, wind, and solar were “examined” in NB Power’s study was flawed and seriously insufficient.
I am thankful that the EUB has this in-depth Palermo analysis which clearly shows that NB Power’s claim that NB needs the hastily-cobbled-together gas turbine powered RIGS project to avoid running out of electricity in a couple of years is wrong!