Maritime Electric applies to P.E.I. regulator for rate hike to cover $37M in Fiona costs

Maritime Electric has applied to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission to recover $37 million in Fiona restoration costs through a customer rate increase that would come into effect in March.

And its application points out that the P.E.I. government has not come through with any support in the wake of the federal government denying it access to a disaster relief fund.

If approved, the utility's rate per kilowatt hour would increase a further 2.9 per cent for residential customers.

This would be the third rate increase in less than a year. Overall, rates would end up 12 per cent higher as of March 1, 2024, than they were a year previously.

The company is seeking to recover:

Under the proposed plan, the utility would recover all its reconnection costs from the 2022 post-tropical storm within five years. After that time, the Fiona rate hike would be rescinded.

While the company notes in its rate increase application that a year ago, P.E.I. Premier Dennis King "indicated that government funding would be available to offset the restoration costs… to date the company has not received any indication that government funding is forthcoming."

The federal government has said Maritime Electric does not meet the definition of a small business under DFAA, the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements program, and thus does not qualify for support. 

In its application to IRAC, Maritime Electric said any government funding that ends up being provided would be used to offset costs so that customers don't have to pay more.

"We are very sensitive to the costs of servicing our customers," Maritime Electric CEO Jason Roberts said in an interview Monday. "Our team works very hard each and every day to keep the costs as low as possible."

All but two of Maritime Electric's roughly 83,000 customers were left without power immediately after post-tropical storm Fiona hit the province on Sept. 24, 2022. It took up to three weeks to restore power to all customers, with the average outage lasting a week.

The company estimates 40,000 fallen trees and tree limbs had to be cleared from the electrical system in order for all power to be restored.

In Fiona's wake, the utility was criticized by the province's electricity regulator for spending just a fraction of what other utilities in the region spend each year on vegetation management — that is, selectively trimming trees growing near power lines so that they are less likely to fall in such a way that they take out stretches of power line.

At the time, Maritime Electric was on a schedule to conduct tree trimming along Island distribution lines once every 35 years, compared to once every eight years for Nova Scotia Power.