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NS Power Facts and History

About Us. Facts about NS Power
  • We provide 95 per cent of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Nova Scotia.
  • We serve 486,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers.
  • Nova Scotia Power employs 1,900 dedicated, safety-focused professionals.
  • We manage $3.5 billion worth of generation, transmission and distribution assets
  • We produce more than 13,000 gigawatt hours of electricity each year, with generating capacity of 2,293 megawatts through power plants province-wide.
  • We have a fleet of five thermal, one tidal and 33 hydro plants, as well as four combustion turbine and two wind turbine sites.
  • We use a fuel mix including hydro, tidal, wind, coal, oil and natural gas to generate electricity.
  • Nova Scotia Power delivers power with 5,000 km of transmission and 25,000 km of distribution lines.

NS Power History

1885First electric street light in use
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1919Nova Scotia Power Commission incorporated
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1920First NSPI hydro system constructed on St. Margaret's Bay
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19361,200 customers connected to the power grid
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1954Average customer uses 1,360 kilowatt hours of electricity per year
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1960Power utilities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick connect, a first in inter-provincial cooperation
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1961100,000 customers connected to the power grid
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1965-69Five new power plants (250 megawatts) are added to the grid
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1973Nova Scotia Power Commission and Nova Scotia Light and Power Ltd. amalgamated to form Nova Scotia Power Corporation
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1978Wreck Cove hydro plant added to grid, increasing hydropower capacity to 400 megawatts
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1984The first and only North American tidal plant, Annapolis, comes online
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1992Nova Scotia Power privatized in the then-largest Canadian equity transaction
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2003First NSPI wind turbine installed at Grand Etang
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2004Average residential customer uses to 6,000 to 9,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year
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2005

 

 

2010


2013

460,000 Nova Scotian homes and businesses connected to the power grid

60 megawatts of renewable energy added to the grid Net metering program enhanced, raising the upper limit from 10 kilowatts to 100 kilowatts. Customers with a renewable generation source of their own can bank their energy and use it at another time. A growing number are taking advantage of this program.

Five per cent of all energy must come from new renewable sources brought online since January 1, 2001 and operated by independent power producers.

Ten per cent of all energy must must come from new renewable sources brought online since January 1, 2001 and operated by independent power producers and Nova Scotia Power.

Currently, 71-75 per cent of the electricity we generate is made by burning coal or petroleum coke. But as part of our plan to improve our environmental performance, that amount would drop to 50 per cent or less. The difference would be made up by non-emitting, renewable sources.