Power customers should have 1-2 hours notice of rotating outages, says Maritime Electric

Maritime Electric has officially filed plans with the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission for the rotating power outages it says may be necessary this winter to prevent a provincewide blackout.

IRAC formally requested the plans in a letter to the utility's CEO, Jason Roberts, dated Dec. 11. The regulator said it only learned about the potential for rolling outages, which Maritime Electric calls "load shedding," through media coverage in late November.

The commission wanted to know whether any measures would be put in place to reduce the likelihood of rotating outages and how the utility would notify the public if such outages were necessary.

Roberts said Monday, however, that Maritime Electric filed its official application on the same day it received the letter from IRAC.

"There is some more information that we do need to file just to complete the request as outlined in the letter, but by and large, most of that information has been filed," Roberts told CBC News: Compass host Louise Martin.

Roberts said Maritime Electric will aim to avoid rotating outages unless they're deemed necessary,

He said if the utility needs to use the practice, customers will be notified through Maritime Electric's website, social media and media outlets.

"It's kind of like planning for a storm. You don't know exactly where the storm is going to hit, you don't know how long it's going to last, and you don't know how strong it's going to be," Roberts said.

"We don't know exactly where that load is going to occur, we don't know how high it's going to be or how much we're going to have to shed at a particular point in time."

In its filing to IRAC, the utility said it should be able to give people notice of up to one or two hours before it has to cut power to a particular area — but in an emergency situation, that warning could be just minutes.

Maritime Electric also said the outages will cost the utility money.

It said planning and responding to an overwhelmed power grid is labour intensive, and will likely mean overtime for many staff. But because it's never dealt with them before, the company said it can't say how much rotating power outages would cost.

The utility said it will also cost money to run ads to let Islanders know what's happening.

Roberts said keeping up with the pace of change on P.E.I. has been difficult as Maritime Electric deals with an increased population and government programs that encouraged customers to convert from oil heat to electricity.