Summerside electricity customers could see ‘roving’ power outages this winter, city says

As temperatures plunge and Islanders crank up the heat, the City of Summerside is preparing its power plans amid mounting pressure on P.E.I.’s electricity grid.

Those preparations come as Maritime Electric warns it may need to resort to rotating outages this winter to prevent provincewide blackouts — something Summerside’s chief administrative officer said is also a possibility for the city’s customers.

“We’re concerned, for certain,” JP Desrosiers, told CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin.

“We’ve been tracking the loads for our municipality’s utility pretty closely over the last number of years and seeing a steady increase, and… loads we haven’t seen before.”

P.E.I.’s power grid has long relied on two subsea cables that connect the Island to the mainland and electricity purchased from New Brunswick Power.

Summerside Electric, which is owned by the city, generates about 60 per cent of its electricity through renewable sources like solar and wind, but it still relies on Maritime Electric’s transmission system for power that the smaller utility buys from New Brunswick.

WATCH | How Summerside is preparing for the possibility of rolling power outages this winter:

How Summerside is preparing for the possibility of rolling power outages this winter

As temperatures go down, demand for heat goes up — and that means pressure on P.E.I.’s power grid. Maritime Electric has warned it may have to resort to rolling outages, and that has Summerside’s electrical utility preparing too. CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin spoke with the city’s chief administrative officer, JP Desrosiers, to find out how.

With P.E.I.’s grid under increased pressure — which Maritime Electric attributes, in part, to the province’s growing population — Desrosiers said Summerside is preparing for situations where its power is curtailed. 

In those cases, he said, the city is “forced to utilize and pull different levers that we have for generation capacity.” 

One of those levers is diesel generation — but Desrosiers said that’s a “last resort.”

“It’s not something that’s both fiscally responsible and certainly goes against our goal of being green as a community.”

‘We want to be part of the solution’

Desrosiers said the early blast of cold weather the Island saw in December has pushed the city closer to using its diesel generation than staff had anticipated at this point in the season. This winter, city officials anticipate Summerside’s power will be strained to a point where the generators are used more often than they have in the past. 

“In addition to that, we are preparing for the potential for needing to curtail our own customers in sort of a roving practice,” Desrosiers said. 

That means planned, temporary power outages for customers on certain circuits within the city in an effort to prevent a total collapse of Summerside Electric’s grid.

“We’re hopeful that we don’t get into that scenario, but it’s important for our team to prepare,” Desrosiers said, noting that roving outages are also an option of last resort.

He said the city would do its best to notify residents in advance of any such outages.

WATCH | How does P.E.I.’s electrical grid even work? CBC Explains:

How does P.E.I.’s electrical grid even work? CBC Explains

With recent outages shining a light on the fact that the P.E.I. electrical grid is nearing capacity, you may be wondering how the Island gets power in the first place — or what the difference is between Summerside Electric and Maritime Electric. Here’s a breakdown from CBC’s Cody MacKay.

Desrosiers said the city continues to push for direct access to the underwater cables from New Brunswick, so it doesn’t have to rely on Maritime Electric to deliver that power. 

“We made it clear as a utility and as a municipality that we believe we should have access to the publicly-owned cables to which we’ve paid for a percentage… for a number of years, and that hasn’t changed.”

Desrosiers said there has been some progress on that front in terms of looking at costs and feasibility, as well as determining the legislative pathways to make it happen.

He said the city also continues to have conversations with the provincial government.

“We want to be part of the solution, not only for Summerside but for the Island,” Desrosiers said. “We’ve got a utility that’s ready and willing to do what’s needed to gain access, and we feel as though we should have access.”