Amidst audit delay, NB Power says ‘no reason to believe’ smart metres behind surging utility bills

MLAs are questioning NB Power about its rising energy bills.

NB Power CEO Lori Clark repeatedly maintained there’s “no reason to believe” smart metres were causing a surge in utility bills as she spoke before the province’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday.

Clark was initially scheduled to discuss results from an independent audit looking into reports of skyrocketing bills, which in some cases have spiked several hundred dollars from a year ago.

Results from the audit, ordered Jan. 21 by the provincial government, have now been pushed back to April.

“In hindsight I recognize I should’ve requested more time up front to better scope out the work we needed to do,” Clark said to the committee.

Smart metres are at the core of the audit review, being conducted by KPMG.

To date, Clark said 40 metres (20 smart metres and 20 conventional metres) have been tested in the areas of Fredericton, Moncton, and Sussex with “no issues found.”

“What we need to do now is do a larger sample size so it’s statistically significant and also look at a more geographically dispersed group of metres to understand if there’s anything we’re seeing in different parts of the province” said Clark, who was unsure when asked how many metres would need be tested in total.

“We know part of the bill increase is related to the rate increase we had,” said Clark. “But there is an increase in consumption that we’ve been able to correlate with temperature, weather, billing days… we need to look further and understand what that is.”

Clark said the audit had so far only raised more questions, but not necessarily about smart metres.

“I will say we are one of the last provinces in Canada to implement smart metres and I have no reason to believe there are problems with our smart metres of any kind,” said Clark.

MLAs on the committee voiced their displeasure at the audit’s delay, along with NB Power’s overall messaging to customers.

“(NB Power) went into this investigation thinking it was just going to quickly reinforce their original response, that it was just a change in the weather,” said Green Party Leader David Coon. “Well, winter’s not new.”

Liberal MLA Alexandre Cédric Doucet said he received messages from constituents watching Clark’s appearance, unsatisfied with answers being given.

“On one hand (NB Power is) saying they’re not finding errors overall,” said Doucet. “But on the other hand, they can’t answer specific questions.”

Glen Savoie, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives, said the review’s delay should’ve been communicated by NB Power before this week.

“If the whole goal here is to try to instill confidence and trust in NB Power, then rather than just putting out information on what we’ve done so far, let’s be a little more transparent and let people know as soon as possible ‘hey we can’t do this, and here’s the reason why.’”

NB Power said it would appear before the committee again when the audit was finished.

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