How the rising rates will impact the average New Brunswicker
New Brunswick Power Corporation (NB Power), the Crown-controlled electric utility which serves N.B., is asking for another major increase in rates. If approved, rates on electricity bills will increase for customers by 4.75 per cent. This is not the first time a large increase has happened in recent years. According to CTV News there was an increase of 5.68 per cent in 2023, and then a 9.14 per cent for 2024 and 2025. The proposed 4.75 per cent figure would be enacted in 2026, going into effect on April 1. CTV News calculated there has been a power rate increase of more than 30 per cent from 2022 to 2026.
The proposed increase is having a direct effect on New Brunswick consumers, who are already dealing with an increased cost of living. Tantramar’s Green Party MLA Megan Mitton says “people are really struggling to make ends meet because many other things are costing a lot more, including groceries,” and New Brunswickers are “having trouble paying all of their bills.” Mitton says she is “extremely concerned that many people are going to be hit hard by yet another rate increase.”
Mitton is not the only one concerned about the effect of the increase, second-year Mt. A student, Bronwyn Larsen says, “as someone who lives off campus, it’s already affecting us just because we are going to be paying more than our usual energy rates.” The CBC estimated, on average, utilities bills will increase by $130 per year on average, which Larsen says is “concerning.” This increase will not just affect individuals who pay utilities separately, but those who have utilities included as well.
NB Power has said that this proposed increase is due to growing debt as well as the rising cost of gas, materials, and transporting electricity. Part of this financial problem, Mitton says, comes from “mistakes made by NB Power, by previous governments deciding to refurbish the Point Laro nuclear power plant, and that costs and we’re still paying the price.” Mitton says the solution to this issue is to focus on energy efficiency. Mitton says, “we know that the energy efficiency programs can reduce people’s bills by an average of about 40 per cent,” but currently, “the funding isn’t enough to [help] all of the eligible homes very quickly, so at this rate they wouldn’t get to all the eligible homes before 2056.”
The energy efficiency programs would be a substitute to projects like the proposed gas plant here in the Tantramar district. The proposed Tantramar gas plant would generate up to 500 megawatts of electricity and be operational by 2028, in hopes of keeping up with the growing population of N.B. and the electricity needed to sustain it. Mitton says this “gas and diesel plant will cost more than one billion dollars to build on top of the profit that Pro-Energy is going to want to make back on that.” Mitton says, “this is going to be a very expensive 25-year-long contract that NB Power is signing New Brunswickers up to pay for.” For Mitton, the proposed power plant will not only cost people in N.B. financially, but will have a cost “in terms of air pollution, harming people’s health, risking people’s well water, [and] harming the environment and the habitat that’s there.” For energy efficiency, Mitton suggests “solar and wind energy, which is the cheapest energy available now.”. Rates will continue to rise at this steep rate, with projected rate increases at 6.5 per cent for 2027 and 2028, according to CTV News.