A Letter to Merigomish

July 12, 2024

Members of our Reliability team recently held a community meeting in Merigomish (July 10, 2024) to talk about reliability of power service in your area. We know our customers have been challenged and frustrated by outages and we want you to know we take our commitment to improving reliability seriously. Safely providing reliable service to our customers is our most important job.

Thank you to Councillor Don Butler, as well as the many community members who attended. It was a great discussion and opportunity for us to listen to concerns, answer questions, share information about work that has been done, is planned, or underway this year, and to address concerns with reliability of service. Reliability work takes place throughout the year to ensure we are maintaining our infrastructure, keeping trees away from power lines, and preparing for storms/severe weather. We will also look at incorporating feedback from the meeting to our existing work plans. Here is some of the information discussed:

Vegetation Management (tree trimming)

• In 2024, $350,000 (minimum) will be invested to trim and remove trees and cut those identified as high risk of falling into power lines.
• An additional $350,000 is planned for 2025 to clear trees from another 35 kilometers of power lines.
• Since 2015, we’ve invested $2.8 million to clear trees along 155 kilometers of power lines feeding this area.
  

Upgrades and Maintenance

• Equipment failure from salt corrosion and extreme weather conditions is more likely along sections of our power lines near the coast. We’re proactively installing equipment designed to better withstand severe weather and coastal conditions (e.g., larger, stronger poles and more robust insulators).

Inspections

• Our 33,000 kilometers of power lines across the province are inspected on a regular basis; work is then identified and is prioritized and incorporated into work plans.
• Power lines in Merigomish were inspected in 2023; priority items (e.g., replacement of poles/transformers) are being completed this year.
• Electrical devices called reclosers were inspected earlier this year. These devices can sectionalize the power line to reduce the number of customers impacted by an outage and restore power faster.

Longer Term Projects (2025)

• Proactively upgrade the infrastructure supplying service to customers on Big Island by installing new overhead power lines along the causeway.
• Move power poles and lines from less accessible areas to the side of the road, which improves access for our crews and helps restore power faster during an outage.
• Review the feasibility of moving a large section of distribution line to the side of the road to help reduce the number of outages and restore power faster. Preliminary engineering work is planned to be completed in 2025, following the review.

Extreme Weather 

The number and intensity of storms has changed dramatically over the last five years, with Nova Scotia experiencing record setting weather with Hurricanes Dorian and Fiona, tropical storms like Lee, wildfires, flooding, severe lightning, and significant snowstorms. That’s why we’ve been investing more each year in tree trimming and equipment upgrades to protect the system from the damaging winds and extreme weather. Our teams are committed to looking at ways to continue to strengthen and improve reliability and reduce outages as climate change continues to affect the weather patterns in Nova Scotia.

Please visit here for more information on our reliability work >

Sincerely,

Paul Dandurand | Director of Reliability, Nova Scotia Power

 

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• Reliability

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