by John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter. Source: The Daily Gleaner
January 23, 2026

Nicole Poirier, NB Power vice president, customer & strategy. Photo: NB Power

NB Power is bracing for the cold snap that’s going to put New Brunswick into a deep freeze on Saturday.

Nicole Poirier, the vice president of customer and strategy with the electricity provider, gave an update Friday afternoon to reporters.

She said her organization had taken steps to ensure the heat and lights stay on for the province’s 868,000 people.

“Right now, we are confident that we’re able to meet the load requirements over the weekend,” she said on a Teams call.

“From a wind perspective, we don’t see any issues. The cold temperatures obviously will put pressure on the system. It is definitely a cold snap anywhere between -35 to -40. But we have a diverse asset mix of generation. We have hydro, we have wind, we have nuclear on our system, and we have other sources as well.”

There is reason for concern.

NB Power set a record for energy consumption on Feb. 4, 2023, as wind chills plunged to –40. Officials have said since then that the utility had come awfully close to running out of power.

And in a column written by NB Power CEO Lori Clark, published in the Telegraph-Journal Jan. 12, she said the utility came “close, too close” to running out of electricity in early December when the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station near Saint John broke down unexpectedly, just when the season’s first cold snap hit the region.

The plant, which can provide up to one-third of the province’s electricity, is back up and running.

Weather warning

Environment Canada posted a yellow cold warning for the entire province and Prince Edward Island at 10:23 a.m. on Friday. Such cold warnings are issued when temperatures or wind chills elevate the risk of frostbite or hypothermia.

The federal weather forecaster says a prolonged period of very cold wind chills is expected, lasting from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. The coldest wind chills will make it feel like -30 to –37 C. It will be the coldest in northwestern areas of the province.

Fredericton’s wind chill is expected to be –34 Saturday, while Moncton will feel as cold as –33. Saint John will have a wind chill of –30.

Edmundston and Campbellton will really feel it at –36 on Saturday morning, while Bathurst and Miramichi can bet on a –34 windchill.

Outside purchases

Poirier said as long as all NB Power’s plants keep running through the weekend, it shouldn’t have any trouble.

“We actually run different scenarios throughout the week, running up to an event like this,” she said. “We would look at all our generation assets, the condition of our fleet, what we need from a load perspective, to ensure that we meet the load requirements.

“If something were to happen to one of our assets, we may be required to purchase outside, but we don’t see that right now, other than our normal purchases that we would make through Hydro-Québec.”

NB Power CEO Lori Clark testifying at the legislature’s public accounts committee last fall

Asked for comment about Clark’s column, NB Power spokeswoman Elizabeth Fraser said earlier this week her team “works hard every day to ensure NB Power customers continued to receive the electricity they depend on to go about their daily lives.”

She noted that the column highlighted the challenges NB Power faced when the Point Lepreau and Saint John’s Bayside generating stations were offline.

“These issues were compounded by lower-than-expected power transfers from Quebec and reduced water flows on the St. John River, which limited hydroelectric output,” she wrote to Brunswick News.

“To maintain reliability, NB Power operated more expensive generating stations: Coleson Cove and Millbank – and purchased additional power from New England.”

Gas/diesel plant

NB Power officials have said they are in a rush to build a new gas/diesel plant generator in Tantramar because they expect to run out of enough electricity by 2028.

However, Alain Chiasson, the public intervener hired by the province to represent the public interest, plans to oppose the new gas/diesel plant at Energy & Utilities Board hearings next month in Moncton.

One of his experts, Jeffrey Palermo, 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.

To read previous coverage of Palermo’s testimony, click here.

This story was written by Local Journalism Initiative reporter John Chilibeck of Brunswick News with additional files from Bruce Wark.