AI-generated summary
· Order · 12/10/2025
NSERBT rejects EfficiencyOne's proposed broad benefit-cost analysis test for DSM plans, directs use of the PAC test with NS Power's WACC as the discount rate
AI summary
- The Board (Decision 2025 NSEB 18, M12282, December 10, 2025) denied Efficiencyone's application to replace the existing Cost Effectiveness Total Resource Cost (TRC) test with a new societal Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) test, finding that the Public Utilities Act restricts Demand Side Management cost-effectiveness screening to impacts directly reflected in electricity costs for customers (Decision, paras. 128, 142, 152).
- For its 2027–2031 DSM Plan, Efficiencyone is directed to use the Cost Effectiveness Program Administrator Cost (PAC) test at the portfolio level, applying Nova Scotia Power's Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) as the discount rate rather than the 2% social discount rate proposed by E1 (Order, paras. 1; Decision, paras. 157, 197–198).
- The Board held that the Energy Reform (2024) Act and s. 6(2) of the Energy and Regulatory Boards Act — which require 'appropriate consideration' of sustainable development and sustainable prosperity — cannot override the specific statutory requirement in s. 79I(1) of the Public Utilities Act that DSM reduce electricity costs for customers; sustainability factors may play a larger role at the plan-content stage, once a portfolio passes the primary screening test (Decision, paras. 131–139).
- For Demand Side Management strategic electrification programs (s. 79A(b)(iv)), E1 is directed to follow consultant Mr. Bowman's PAC modification — adding increased NS Power revenues as a benefit — while remaining open to an alternative approach in the 2027–2031 DSM Plan filing, provided it satisfies both GHG emissions reduction and electricity cost reduction requirements (Order, para. 2; Decision, paras. 162–163).
- The Board directed Eastward Energy be added as a full member of the DSM Advisory Group (DSMAG), ordered long-run marginal (not average) generation emission rates for emissions modelling, and confirmed E1 may use its revised BCA test as a secondary tool to provide supplementary program- and measure-level information (Order, paras. 3–5; Decision, paras. 205, 211, 219).
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What was filed
Documents filed on this day
- 100256 Board Decision
- 100257 Board Order
- 100256 Board Decision
- 100257 Board Order