We all know the feeling when an unplanned power outage occurs. First you might see a light flicker in your house. Then, maybe a second blip. And then, it happens. Without any real warning, the lights go out and that visceral feeling of fear and uncertainty, often felt deep in your gut, kicks in. Your day is immediately changed.

Preventing that situation is what keeps everyone at NB Power accountable to our customers and firm in our commitment to ensure they’re provided with a safe, reliable and secure supply of electricity. We do everything we can to prevent these moments of unplanned power loss and work hard to get our systems back online so our customers can stay safe and warm and return to their personal and professional lives with as limited disruption as possible.

Energy security is a core part of our mandate. That means more than keeping the lights on during storms — it means ensuring New Brunswickers have a stable, dependable supply of electricity year-round, for today and for generations to come. The hard truth is that ensuring power for New Brunswickers is getting increasingly hard for us to deliver on.

With a growing demand for electrification from our customers who are rising in numbers, aging infrastructure and a need to transition to produce cleaner energy, we need to act now if we want to ensure New Brunswickers continue to have access to the power they need when they need it.

We are running out of generation. In the past, we could rely on surplus generation or purchase extra power from our neighbours. Today, their own energy security challenges mean they no longer have excess power to sell, and our aging system can’t be taken for granted.

To protect New Brunswick’s energy future, we need to take decisive steps now. Strengthening our own energy security will give us greater stability and more control over our province’s long‑term future.

This winter season has gotten off to a colder start than last year with December being about 20 per cent colder than last year. This meant we faced a higher demand for electricity much earlier in the winter season, and this was compounded by Point Lepreau, one of our largest generating stations, being offline.

Thanks to NB Power’s intentionally diverse energy mix of hydro,wind, coal, natural gas-powered stations, solar, and a little help from the neighboring provinces, our team worked diligently to ensure that New Brunswickers had the generation they needed during this cold snap, and no electricity shortages occurred. Point Lepreau is now back online and I’m proud of the team of New Brunswickers that worked hard to ensure none of our customers were left in the dark. But I will say, it was close, too close, and clearly showed us that the reality is, the outcome could be different in a not-so-distant future.

For years, we’ve heard of other jurisdictions (Australia, United States and Alberta, for example) experiencing blackouts due to energy shortfalls under peaking conditions. Jurisdictions facing these shortfalls are now inching closer to home. In recent weeks, Prince Edward Island issued notice that load shedding, another term for rotating outages to alleviate stress on maxed out grids, could be used this winter to protect their systems. And Quebec reportedly had a close call in early December during the same cold snap we experienced. All of our neighboring provinces are experiencing the same generation shortages and the same load challenges.

Here in New Brunswick, we’re not there yet, and we need to keep it that way. Our energy mix remains strong but we need more in-province built generation, and we need it now. We also need our customers, governments, and the business community’s support and buy-in to accelerate this.

Since 2024, we’ve entered into power purchase agreements for 675MW of renewable energy and we’re continuing to add more. In December, we issued a call for a partner to build a Battery Energy Storage System, and we’re working to get a new generating station online in Centre Village that will cover gaps when our renewable stations are offline due to a lack of wind or sun. We’re also continuing to invest in our existing powerhouse clean energy stations - Point Lepreau and Mactaquac included - to ensure their reliability for decades to come.

We’re balancing all of this necessary grid-strengthening work in a way that limits impact on our customers, particularly those who are struggling to pay their bills. We’re continuing to seek out new partnerships to ensure New Brunswickers benefit from increased and stabilized sources of power generation.

We continue to face opposition from some New Brunswickers about our journey to add new generation, and our plans for the future. To them, I say please reach out. We’re committed to transparency and are always happy to discuss the decisions we make, the reasons behind them and the oversight on these decisions.  

Our team of New Brunswickers is working for New Brunswickers, every day, to ensure families are safe, warm and reaping the benefits of a stable supply of electricity.