Nova Scotia Power filed the Draft Terms of Reference for its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan, seeking UARB approval following a multi-stakeholder consultation process.

M08929 · P-884 - Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NSPI) - Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) and M08059--Generation Utilization and Optimization

AI summary

NS Power submitted the Draft Terms of Reference (TOR) for the 2020 Integrated Resource Plan IRP to the UARB on December 16, 2019, as directed by the Board's October 2018 order in matter M08059, with a target completion date of September 30, 2020 (Appendix A, Process Timeline).
The TOR establishes three core objectives: developing a risk-weighted least-cost long-term electricity strategy, creating an Action Plan and Roadmap with decision-gate signposts, and building a transparent, evergreen planning process; the primary evaluation metric is minimization of cumulative present value of annual revenue requirements over a 25-year horizon (Appendix A, pp. 3–6).
Key planning drivers include the Nova Scotia Sustainable Development Goals Act's net-zero-by-2050 target, the federal coal phase-out regulation (December 31, 2029 deadline), and the province's equivalency agreement allowing coal operation through 2040; the IRP will explicitly model coal retirement scenarios for both 2030 and 2040 (Appendix A, pp. 2–3, 6).
Eight stakeholders submitted comments, with recurring concerns about: inadequate stakeholder review timelines (AREA, EfficiencyOne, Consumer Advocate); absence of participant cost recovery funding (Ecology Action Centre, Appendix H); the ownership-agnostic vs. revenue-requirement framing of least-cost analysis (AREA, Appendix I); and the need to objectively define how secondary evaluation metrics will be weighted (EfficiencyOne, Appendix D, Recommendation 18).
NS Power accepted several schedule amendments — including additional review time for Draft Assumptions and Analysis Plan and an interim modeling comment period — and confirmed that IRP modeling results will be used to calculate Demand Side Management avoided costs using the Difference-in-Revenue-Requirements method (Appendix B, E1 Outputs response; Appendix A, p. 8 footnote 3).

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What was filed

Documents filed on this day

N-4 Draft Terms of Reference exhibits