Saint John wind farm undercuts N.B. Power electricity prices by more than half

Electricity generated at the Burchill wind farm in Saint John and sold to Saint John Energy in 2023 undercut prices being charged to the municipal utility by N.B. Power by more than half, new figures suggest.

It's a discount so deep it has N.B. Power concerned about others making a similar choice to bypass its system, and pricing, in a similar way.

"There is an electricity system that needs to be paid paid for," Brad Coady, the N.B. Power vice-president, said last month during an Energy and Utilities Board hearing into the utility's proposed new rates. 

"To the extent that customers have the wherewithal to escape N.B. Power being their supplier of choice, that causes cost-shifting onto other customers. That's the concern."  

Saint John Energy will not directly say what it paid last year for electricity coming from the wind farm, claiming the amount to be confidential.

"The power purchase agreement with Burchill Wind is commercially and competitively sensitive so we will be unable to confirm the price," company spokesperson Jessica DeLong wrote in an email 

However, the utility has disclosed enough information in bits and pieces over the last several weeks to suggest the price in 2023 was $41 per megawatt hour.  

Burchill, which is jointly owned by the Neqotkuk Maliseet Nation at Tobique and the Nova Scotia-based wind energy company Natural Forces, officially opened in June 2023.

According to DeLong, it sold 76,900 megawatt hours of electricity to Saint John Energy by the end of December 2023.

In annual financial statements issued last month Saint John Energy reported that it paid the Burchill Wind partnership $3.15 million during 2023 for its output. Combining those two pieces of information appears to put the price of electricity from Burchill at $41 per megawatt hour.

That's less than half the $106 per megawatt hour that N.B. Power charged Saint John Energy for supplying the bulk of electricity used in the city during 2023.

The savings from the wind facility were steep enough, even from a half-year of production, to allow Saint John Energy to post record net income of $5.1 million in 2023.  

It also allowed the utility to implement a rate increase of 9.27 per cent for residential customers in Saint John in April,  despite N.B. Power raising what it charges Saint John Energy and its own residential customers 9.8 per cent.

Those financial benefits come despite Saint John Energy having to spend millions of dollars on new transmission and distribution infrastructure to handle the new Burchill wind supply after N.B. Power declined to allow the electricity onto its own wires, even for a fee.