Demonstrators march against proposed gas plant in Moncton on Thursday. Photo: Juliette Bulmer
About 30 demonstrators marched Thursday outside the Moncton hotel where the Energy & Utilities Board was holding hearings on NB Power’s plan for a 500 MW gas/diesel plant near Centre Village.
Midgic resident Juliette Bulmer says the demonstrators also spent about an hour inside the hearing room.
“Hotel staff tried to calmly stop us, but we just left all our signs outside the room and quietly and respectfully walked in and sat down,” she says.
“We knew we had a right to be there.”
On Friday, NB Power lawyer John Furey questioned witnesses Jeffrey Palermo and Dustin Madsen, both of whom were hired by Public Intervener Alain Chiasson.
Palermo, an energy consultant 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.
In his evidence, Madsen, an accountant based in Calgary, questions whether NB Power’s decision to invest in a gas plant, owned and operated by an American company, is financially prudent.
Closing arguments
The EUB will meet again on Thursday, February 19th in Saint John to hear closing arguments from NB Power and various interveners.
The EUB has also scheduled additional hearing days from March 31 to April 2 to consider NB Power’s tentative agreement to sell 100 MW of gas-plant power to Nova Scotia.
Demonstrators chanted “No gas plant, No gas plant” as they marched in Moncton on Thursday. Photo: Juliette Bulmer
Two technical issues
(1) Many of the arguments this week in Moncton revolved around complicated technical issues about how much electricity NB Power needs to meet customer demand and how best to supply it.
The EUB heard that NB Power adheres to North American standards for the expected risk of days per year in which available generation may not meet demand.
That standard, called Loss of Load Expectation or LOLE, is set at 0.1 days per year — about 2.4 hours annually, or one day in 10 years. LOLE is a planning benchmark used to determine how much dependable capacity the system must have.
NB Power argues that to stay within that standard, it needs 400 MW of power from the proposed gas/diesel plant, particularly during winter peak periods.
Critics, including the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB), contend that if NB Power needs that electricity, grid-scale battery energy storage systems combined with wind and solar would be a cheaper way to supply it.
(2) This brings in a second technical issue known as Effective Load Carrying Capacity, or ELCC.
ELCC measures how much dependable capacity a specific power resource or asset contributes toward meeting the LOLE standard. In other words, it estimates how much that resource reduces the risk of supply shortfalls during peak demand.
NB Power argues that batteries and renewables provide less ELCC than firm gas generation, especially during prolonged winter peak conditions.
The utility contends that the province’s highest electricity demand typically occurs on frigid winter mornings, when solar output is minimal and wind generation can be variable, making dependable capacity during those hours especially critical for meeting the LOLE standard.
Critics, such as the CCNB, argue that rapid improvements in technology have made battery energy storage systems backed up by wind and solar a more cost-effective way of providing peak power quickly when needed.
To read Erica Butler’s CBC coverage, click here.
Photo: Juliette Bulmer
