Power bills in Nova Scotia may spike as utility looks to refinance $1B in assets

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Power Inc. wants to refinance nearly $1-billion worth of assets under a plan that could further increase a previously approved electricity price hike coming next year.

The privately owned utility announced Friday that it had asked the Nova Scotia Energy Board to approve a complicated financial scheme known as “securitization.” 

If approved, the plan would result in a 2.9 per cent surcharge on residential power bills next year. Including a previously approved rate increase, residential electricity bills could be going up by a total of 6.8 per cent in 2027.

The utility says the average surcharge for all customer groups would be 3.3 per cent. 

Ageing coal plants make up the bulk of the assets Nova Scotia Power is trying to refinance, with about $713 million of their value yet to be paid off by utility customers. Environmental legislation requires the plants to be shuttered by 2030.

Securitization would allow Nova Scotia Power to remove those assets from its books and issue bonds to investors. Bonds are essentially loans that investors can provide to companies and governments  in order to collect interest before the bond matures.

Nova Scotia Power says this approach would allow it to finance the assets over a longer period of time and at lower interest rates. If approved the plan could also result in a higher credit rating for the utility, which could decrease financing costs.

The utility, a subsidiary of Halifax-based Emera Inc., says in its 430-page application that securitization would save customers $265 million over 30 years, when compared with not using the finance mechanism.

It says customer payments through securitization would amount to $977 million over three decades, compared with $1.24 billion over 13 years without it. The province has been asked to indemnify bond holders against any potential shortfall in their payouts, though it has not yet agreed to do so. 

Securitization is relatively common in the United States, but the Nova Scotia Power proposal would be one of the first arrangements of its kind in Canada, if approved.

The utility publicly released its application soon after provincial Energy Department officials held a hastily organized media briefing Friday morning. The officials announced that the provincial cabinet had enacted rule changes allowing the utility’s application.

Premier Tim Houston, an accountant who is also the provincial energy minister, dismissed the securitization plan earlier this year. 

“I would find it a little hard to believe that Nova Scotia Power has come up with some way to use accounting to save ratepayers money,” he told CBC in January.

The premier also said he had “major concerns” about Nova Scotia Power’s valuation of the coal plants. 

However, Stephen MacDonald, the deputy minister of energy, told reporters Friday that “we haven’t seen anything coming out of the energy board which would necessarily lead us to question the value of those (coal plants) but it is something that we’re paying very, very close attention to.”

Houston did not attend Friday’s briefing and officials repeatedly declined to explain what had changed since the premier first expressed skepticism over the plan.

The premier later issued a statement saying the government was taking politics out of the discussion by allowing regulators to determine if securitization is in the best interest of ratepayers. 

Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said in a statement that Houston could have allowed the application 10 months ago, and that the delay will increase consumer costs. 

“The premier … should have been there today to explain why he has reversed his position on securitization, an approach he once so aggressively opposed,” said Rankin. 

NDP Opposition Leader Claudia Chender called the plan a “bailout” for Nova Scotia Power, noting the Energy Department had previously argued that the company’s shareholders should be paying the costs.

“(Houston) is dumping that extra cost on Nova Scotians who are already seeing their power bills soar,” she said. 

MacDonald told reporters that the government’s green light for a securitization application is unrelated to the recent blockbuster merger announcement from Nova Scotia Power’s parent company. 

Emera announced Tuesday that it planned to merge with Calgary-based Canadian Utilities to create a new company worth about $72-billion, creating one of North America’s largest utility companies. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2026.