Summerside continues energy independence push with substation repair timeline uncertain

Officials in P.E.I.'s second-largest city have lingering questions about the stability of the supply of power that passes through the Maritime Electric grid on its way to Summerside. 

Amid weather disruptions Tuesday morning in the midst of a storm that swept across Prince Edward Island, Summerside Electric announced it was shutting down power to most of the city's downtown to repair damaged equipment.

That shutdown lasted only 30 minutes, but the bigger problem of keeping the city electrified remains far from temporary. 

"The reality is that the failure of this transformer, Maritime Electric's transformer, has basically cut our supply, restricted our access to the power we buy from New Brunswick by about 50 per cent," said Summerside Mayor Dan Kutcher. 

Maritime Electric, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Fortis Inc., serves as the conduit for Summerside to access the electricity it buys from New Brunswick to supplement the power the city generates itself through wind, solar and diesel equipment. 

But damage to one of the Maritime Electric transformers in Sherbrooke has put Summerside's access at risk.

It all started just over a week ago, when an outage across the western part of the Island left more than 19,000 customers without electricity. 

Power was restored by midday, but the Island's supply remained unstable while crews worked to fix the damaged substation.

The transformer was built in 1976 and is the oldest on P.E.I.'s grid. Last August, Maritime Electric applied to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission for permission to spend $6 million over two years to replace it, calling it a "critical aged asset that has reached end of life and cannot be operated to failure."

Maritime Electric still hasn't said how long repairs on the damaged transformer could take.

In a 2020 filing, the utility estimated repairs could take six months to a year. It's not clear what the nature of the current breakdown is, or whether it matches the scenario outlined in Maritime Electric's filing. 

Since the transformer failed, Kutcher said Maritime Electric has cut the power it provides to Summerside from 30 megawatts down to 16. 

"Now if the wind dies down and there's no solar, we're going to run into some really difficult moments," he said. "We just continue to fire everything that we have. We can't keep doing this for months and months."

The mayor is also taking issue with Maritime Electric's assertion that Summerside chose to operate as an "interruptible" power customer in exchange for lower rates — although that cheaper cost comes with the risk of the city's power supply being cut off during high-demand periods.