AI-generated summary
· Application · 06/12/2025
Four intervenors and Board Staff filed Round 1 Information Requests to EfficiencyOne seeking detailed methodological justification for its proposed new Benefit-Cost Analysis test for DSM plans, with responses due July 4, 2025
AI summary
- Synapse Energy Economics (Board Counsel Consultant) issued 24 IRs (Exhibit 98028) probing the construction of the proposed Cost Effectiveness Nova Scotia Jurisdictional BCA Test, including requests for unlocked Excel workpapers supporting Table 11's heat pump test case (IR-3), the social cost of carbon double-counting adjustment (IR-2), non-consensus DSMAG issues (IR-24), and the rationale for treating policy relevance as equivalent to support for inclusion of an impact in the test (IR-4).
- Nova Scotia Energy Board Staff issued 46 IRs (Exhibit 98033) raising fundamental questions about the scope and legal grounding of the BCA framework, including whether non-utility indirect benefits are consistent with Nova Scotia Power's statutory obligation to pursue cost-effective Demand Side Management that reduces customer costs (IR-2(e)), how Strategic Electrification measures that increase peak load are captured as costs (IR-6, IR-7), and whether the federal carbon price — effectively abolished in April 2025 — should be revised in the model (IR-46).
- Eastward Energy filed 12 IRs (Exhibit 98032) focused on Heat Pumps replacing natural gas, flagging that the illustrative example in Table 11 yields a benefit-cost ratio of only 0.45 and a negative net benefit of ($17.4 million) (IR-4), and questioning the appropriateness of electricity grid emissions factors, furnace efficiency assumptions, and the exclusion of gas utility non-commodity impacts for its customers (IR-5, IR-6, IR-12).
- Small Business Advocate filed 20 IRs (Exhibit 98036) and East Coast Environmental Law filed 1 IR (Exhibit 98029), with the former requesting sensitivity analyses on non-energy benefit proxy adders (IR-3(b)), additional illustrative test cases beyond heat pumps (IR-5), and program-level comparisons with Canadian jurisdictions (IR-19); ECEL's sole IR sought justification for adopting the U.S.-developed National Standard Practice Manual (NSPM) as the design framework for a Nova Scotia test.
- Across all filing parties, recurring contested themes include: the evidentiary basis and potential double-counting of societal and host-customer non-energy benefits; the appropriateness of U.S. proxy adders and New England air quality values for Nova Scotia conditions; the 2% real discount rate for societal impacts; and the interplay between the portfolio-level 1.0 BCR threshold and Board discretion to approve sub-threshold measures.
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI from the filings it describes. We take care to make it accurate, but errors are possible - and it isn't advice. Only the filings themselves are the record: if you're relying on something here, confirm it against the source documents or the Nova Scotia Energy Board's own record. Full disclaimer →
What was filed
Documents filed on this day
- 98028 Synapse (E1) IR 1 to 24
- 98029 ECEL (E1) IR 1
- 98032 EE (E1) IR 1 to 12
- 98033 NSEB (E1) IR 1 to 46
- 98036 SBA (E1) IR 1 to 20