Reliability

We invest roughly $200 million across the province each year in reliability, including new equipment, upgrades and refurbishments, and tree trimming.

In 2024, nearly $45 million will be invested in trimming, cutting, and removing trees and widening right of ways, which is up 40% from the $32 million spent last year.

We know we need to do more. That’s why, going forward, our plans will include increasing our tree trimming investment year-over-year and nearly doubling our annual investment over the next five years.

Outages are sometimes caused by elements out of our control—everything from motor vehicle accidents and copper theft to wildlife coming into contact with electrical equipment.

Also, trees damaged or weakened during severe or intense storms don’t always fall or come down on lines until days or even weeks later.

Severe weather is the leading cause of power outages in Nova Scotia—its impacts lead to weakened trees which can fall on our lines. It’s why we are spending nearly $45 million this year on tree trimming along approximately 1,000 km of power lines to prevent outages.

While severe weather causes most of the power outages Nova Scotians experience, there are other reasons you might lose power—even on a blue-sky day. This could include a motor vehicle accident, like when a car hits one of our poles, construction, or even animals or birds coming into contact with our electrical equipment.

You can find out more about the top causes of power outages on our blog.

Our weather in Nova Scotia is changing, and it’s bringing more intense storms and high winds.

We’re experiencing more high winds over 80 km/hour more often. Over the last five years, we’ve seen a 33% increase in high wind days from the previous five years. It’s not safe for our crews to be up in bucket trucks when the winds are that high and this can cause delays in restoring power.

Ice buildup and heavy wet snow can also weaken powerlines and cause branches or trees to fall on our powerlines and equipment.

Our power grid is complex and was built over 100 years ago—it’s being exposed to more severe weather now than ever before. We’re working to strengthen and modernize the grid, so it can stand up to changing weather and meet the needs of our customers.

We are investing nearly $45 million in tree trimming, cutting, and removal, as well as widening right of ways. Our tree trimmers clear trees and branches along approximately 1,000 km of powerlines annually—that’s about the same distance from Halifax to Quebec City.

We know we need to do more. That’s why, going forward, our plans will include increasing our tree trimming investment year-over-year and nearly doubling our annual investment over the next five years to continue to improve reliability.

You can visit nspower.ca/trees to see tree trimming work in your community and learn how we’re working to prevent outages in your area.

We continue working with municipalities and developers to install underground systems when it makes sense and the impact on neighbourhoods and communities is minimal. But while underground powerlines do have reliability benefits, they also have some challenges.

To bury our equipment underground—including powerlines, switches, transformers, and other electrical equipment—a significant amount of digging, trenching, and construction is required. And the cost for this work is significant.

Access to underground systems can also be very challenging. When there is an outage caused by an impact to the underground system, it can be much harder to locate the problem and a challenge for crews to access the equipment. Sometimes, we may even need to tear up roads and yards to find the issue and fix it, making power outages more inconvenient, last longer, and more costly to repair.

For more info on why we don’t bury all powerlines—and how we’re also focused on continuing to strengthen our electrical system—read our blog here or explore our underground system here.