Topic:"Energy Efficiency" in M12920

June 29, 2026 Crystal Henwood Clerk of the Board Nova Scotia Energy Board 1601 Lower Water Street, 3rd Floor Halifax, NS B3J 3S3 Re: CI C0021839 IT – Customer Energy Management 2025 Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Report – Extensi...

AI summary Nova Scotia Power Inc. (NS Power) requested an extension to file its 2025 Customer Energy Management (CEM) Evaluation, Measurement and Verification (EM&V) Report due to a cybersecurity incident impacting data availability and the unavailability of the My Energy Insights platform. The report was filed in two parts due to these data limitations.

CEM EM&V Year 3 NSEB Direction The Board provided the following direction its Decision on the Year 3 CEM EM&V Report proceeding (M12251): The Board finds that enhancing the CEM and My Energy Insights with features specifically designed for...

AI summary The Nova Scotia Energy Board directed NS Power to enhance the Customer Energy Management (CEM) platform with features for commercial rate classes and to continue reporting on initiatives to boost participation. The Board also emphasized the use of EOne data to address confounding factors and requested a discussion on the practical significance of findings in the Year 4 EM&V Report. NS Power has been unable to implement initiatives due to platform unavailability since April 2025.

Evaluation, Measurement and Verification (EM&V) Report, July 8, 2025. CEM Effectiveness Category Measurement Metric Measurement Description What Is Measured How it Is Measured Measurement Approach To Be Included in 2025 Year 4 Evaluation C...

AI summary The EM&V report evaluates the effectiveness of the Customer Energy Management (CEM) program by analyzing billing impact, energy usage reduction, and load shifts for high and low user groups. Metrics include billed amounts, peak period usage, and load profiles, with a focus on residential and business rate classes.

EVALUATION OF THE CUSTOMER ENERGY MANAGEMENT PLATFORM, YEAR 4 Final Report June 25, 2026

AI summary This document is the final report evaluating the Customer Energy Management Platform in its fourth year of operation, submitted on June 25, 2026. It provides an overview of the platform's performance and outcomes.

CEM users generally participated in EfficiencyOne programs at a higher rate than non-CEM users. › The additional annual savings were deducted from the savings captured by the DID approach so that no savings already claimed by EfficiencyOne...

AI summary CEM users showed higher participation in EfficiencyOne programs. Additional annual savings from CEM were adjusted to avoid double-counting with EfficiencyOne's DID approach.

The impact evaluation on a subset of electrically heated customers served to capture savings attributable to the CEM platform. - › High users under the Residential Standard and Residential TOD rate codes achieved statistically significant...

AI summary The impact evaluation on a subset of electrically heated customers shows statistically significant energy and load savings for some residential users under specific rate codes, particularly those on the CPP rate code. However, not all customer subsets showed significant savings, and some results were not statistically significant, indicating the need for further analysis.

Savings due to high bill alerts were generally not statistically significant. › The comparison of energy and bill savings for high and low users that subscribed to high bill alerts compared to those that did not subscribe generally did not...

AI summary Savings from high bill alerts were not statistically significant except for March 2025 residential users. Paperless billing adoption increased significantly among CEM-eligible customers, especially those who activated and used CEM.

INTRODUCTION Nova Scotia Power (NS Power) started onboarding customers to the Customer Energy Management (CEM) platform in November 2021. The CEM is an online tool that serves to analyze and visualize the energy consumption of each custome...

AI summary Nova Scotia Power (NS Power) introduced the Customer Energy Management (CEM) platform in November 2021 to help customers understand and reduce their energy consumption. The CEM platform provides personalized energy-saving tips and visualizes energy usage patterns. It was initially offered to Time-Varying Pricing (TVP) pilot participants and later expanded to other customers with advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) meters.

Evaluation Scope This assignment consisted of conducting an impact evaluation intended to measure the change in energy usage (kWh), customer load (kW), customer bills, and other cost-effectiveness measures due to the CEM. Per the EM&V Plan...

AI summary The evaluation scope outlines an impact assessment to measure changes in energy usage, customer load, and bills due to the Customer Energy Management (CEM) program, with metrics measured by usage group and rate code as per the EM&V Plan.

Table 1: Impact Evaluation Metrics CEM Effectiveness Category Measurement Metric Measurement Description What Is Measured How it Is Measured Measurement Approach To Be Included in 2025 Year 4 Evaluation Customer Load and Energy Billing Imp...

AI summary The document outlines evaluation metrics for assessing the effectiveness of the Customer Energy Management (CEM) program, focusing on customer load, energy usage, and cost-effectiveness. It also discusses unrealized impacts due to a cyber incident and how these should be interpreted as directional estimates rather than formal evaluations.

1 CEM Usage Overview This section presents CEM login data and how they were used to establish groups of non-, low, and high CEM users for the Year 4 CEM evaluation.

AI summary This section provides an overview of CEM login data and how it was used to categorize users into non-, low, and high CEM user groups for the Year 4 CEM evaluation.

1.1 CEM Login Data Econoler analyzed the CEM login data with the objective of understanding the extent to which the CEM was used and the evolution of usage throughout the three-month evaluation period. It should be noted that the login dat...

AI summary Econoler analyzed CEM login data to assess usage trends among residential and commercial customers from January to March 2025. The analysis excluded customers with inconsistent data and showed a slight decline in logins, particularly for residential customers on CPP and TOU rates. Tables and figures summarize login data and account activation rates for 2024 and 2025.

Table 3: CEM Logins per Commercial Customer in 2024 and 2025 2024 2025 Statistical Parameters General Small General General Small General MURB All Eligible Customers Total Number of Eligible Customers 10,079 24,067 10,371 24,947 10 Number...

AI summary The table shows that commercial customers use the Customer Energy Management (CEM) tool significantly less than residential customers. As of March 2025, 66% of eligible commercial customers had activated CEM, but only 4% logged in at least once. Most commercial customers never logged in more than once, and none of the three MURB customers who activated CEM logged in.

2 Evaluation Methodology The EM&V Plan establishes a general methodology for measuring the impacts of the CEM platform. Econoler further refined that methodology before implementing it. The EM&V Plan establishes how impacts will be estimat...

AI summary The EM&V Plan uses a difference-in-difference (DID) approach to evaluate the impact of the Customer Energy Management (CEM) platform by comparing usage data between CEM users and non-users. Due to a cyber incident and lack of AMI data, the evaluation period for Year 4 is limited to January to March 2025, and baseline periods are adjusted accordingly.

2.1 Available Data NS Power provided the following data to calculate CEM impacts: - › CEM web user login information: Number of logins by month and by customer from November 2021 to March 2025. - › Monthly electricity consumption for each...

AI summary NS Power provided data on customer energy usage and program participation to calculate CEM impacts. EfficiencyOne program participation data were used to identify confounding effects in the evaluation of CEM savings. This includes data on login activity, electricity consumption, rate codes, weather, and paperless billing.

2.2 User Definitions CEM users for a given month are customers that meet the low or high CEM usage threshold as described in Subsection 1.2 above; those customers constitute the treatment group. Non-users constitute the pool of potential c...

AI summary The document defines CEM users and non-users for a given month, noting that non-users are CEM-eligible customers who have not activated their portal. For Residential TVP customers, the control group is defined by login activity rather than portal activation due to the pilot program's structure.

2.3 Comparison of CEM and TVP Evaluation Methodologies The methodology used for the CEM evaluation differs from that used for the TVP evaluation, and savings measured for the CEM and TVP are not cumulative. The non-cumulative nature of the...

AI summary The evaluation methodologies for CEM and TVP differ, particularly in the composition of treatment and control groups and the reference periods used. Savings from CEM and TVP are not cumulative, especially for residential customers. While there may be some overlap in savings, the methodologies make it difficult to quantify this overlap, and thus the savings should not be combined.

3 Control Group Selection As part of the CEM Year 2 evaluation, Econoler concluded that performing the DID electricity consumption analysis on CEM users and using non-CEM users as a control group without applying further selection criteria...

AI summary The CEM Year 2 evaluation used a modified DID approach to account for electrification effects by focusing on CEM users already using electrical heating and matching residential customers on the standard rate. For TVP, control groups were defined based on electrical heating in both periods, while commercial rate codes faced limitations in sample size or participation.

3.2 Confounding Effects Confounding effects refer to the CEM evaluation savings that should be attributed to increased participation in EfficiencyOne programs rather than to CEM usage. Econoler calculated the sum of the savings achieved th...

AI summary The text discusses confounding effects in the CEM evaluation, where savings from EfficiencyOne programs may be incorrectly attributed to CEM usage. Econoler calculated EfficiencyOne savings and adjusted the CEM evaluation by subtracting these savings to ensure accurate measurement of CEM impacts.

4 Evaluation Results The evaluation results presented below first relate to customer load and energy usage savings and then to cost-effectiveness measures. To eliminate the impacts of electrification as much as possible, the results are pr...

AI summary The evaluation results focus on customer load and energy usage savings, as well as cost-effectiveness measures, for a subset of selected customers, excluding the impacts of electrification as described in Section 3.

Table 7: Summary of Customer Load and Energy Usage Savings - Residential Rate Code CEM Usage Post Period Energy Usage Savings (kWh) Average Load Savings During Morning Peak (kW) Average Load Savings During Evening Peak (kW) Post Period Bil...

AI summary The table highlights residential energy usage and load savings under various rate codes. High users on Residential Standard and TOD achieved significant energy savings, with TOD showing the greatest reductions. TVP rates showed significant load savings during peak times, especially for CPP customers, who shifted usage away from peak periods despite non-significant overall energy savings.

4.1.1 Energy Usage The two figures below illustrate the energy usage savings achieved by residential rate code customers that are high CEM users (low users exhibit a similar pattern and corresponding graphs are provided in [Appendix](#page...

AI summary The text discusses energy usage savings across different residential and commercial rate codes, highlighting patterns in winter and summer savings, the impact of heat pump adoption, and the statistical significance of savings. It notes variations between high and low CEM users and the influence of factors like operations on commercial energy use.

4.1.4 Alert Impacts Econoler sought to determine if the CEM high and low user groups that subscribe to alerts achieved higher savings than those who do not subscribe to alerts. This analysis was performed for the high bill alert only, the...

AI summary Econoler analyzed the impact of high bill alerts on energy savings for CEM users, finding inconsistent and non-statistically significant results due to a small non-subscribed customer group. The analysis was limited to specific rate codes and showed mixed outcomes.

4.1.5 Load Shift Analysis The EM&V Plan requires a comparative analysis of the annual energy usage load shape be performed to determine if noticeable changes occurred following the introduction of the CEM. Therefore, Econoler calculated th...

AI summary The EM&V Plan requires a comparative analysis of annual energy usage load shapes before and after the introduction of the CEM. Econoler found that the curves for all rate codes were very similar in both periods, and therefore does not recommend using this analysis to draw conclusions about the effect of the CEM on electricity consumption.

formance; - › Allow for continuity in the assessment of CEM; - › Place evaluated results for January to March 2025 into a broader annual context, which help in interpreting these partial-year results. To estimate the unrealized CEM energy...

AI summary Econoler estimated the unrealized CEM energy usage impacts for April to December 2025 by comparing results from January to March 2025 with the same period in 2024. A weighted average ratio was applied to monthly impact results from 2024 to estimate the unrealized impacts for the remaining months of 2025, considering the non-uniform distribution of energy savings throughout the year.

KEY FINDINGS This section presents the key findings of the CEM platform evaluation for Year 4, which included all eligible rate codes except Commercial TVP participants for which there were too few participating customers to conduct an ana...

AI summary The key findings section outlines the evaluation of the CEM platform for Year 4, excluding Commercial TVP participants due to insufficient data for conclusive results.

Overall, 61% of CEM eligible customers have an activated CEM account. - › As of March 2025, a total of 301,690 customers (278,550 residential and 23,140 commercial) had activated CEM accounts, representing an increase of 13,187 (11,812 res...

AI summary As of March 2025, 61% of CEM eligible customers have activated CEM accounts, with a notable increase from December 2024. Residential TOD and TVP rate code customers use CEM more frequently, while login rates vary significantly across customer segments, with some groups showing high non-login rates during the evaluation period.

CEM users generally participated in EfficiencyOne programs at a higher rate than non-CEM users. › The additional annual savings were deducted from the savings captured by the DID approach so that no savings already claimed by EfficiencyOne...

AI summary CEM users showed higher participation in EfficiencyOne programs. Additional annual savings from CEM were adjusted to avoid double-counting with EfficiencyOne's DID approach.

The impact evaluation on a subset of electrically heated customers served to capture savings attributable to the CEM platform. - › High users under the Residential Standard and Residential TOD rate codes achieved statistically significant...

AI summary The evaluation of the CEM platform on electrically heated customers showed significant energy and load savings for certain residential rate codes, particularly under CPP and TOD. While some savings were statistically significant, others were not, indicating that external factors may have influenced the results.

Monthly Savings 90% confidence interval Figure 42: Monthly Energy Usage Savings, Residential CPP – High Users Figure 44: Average Monthly Load Savings During Morning Peak, Residential CPP – High Users Figure 45: Average Monthly Load Savings...

AI summary The text presents a series of figures illustrating monthly energy usage savings, load savings during peak times, and bill savings for residential customers participating in the Conservation Program (CPP) and Time-of-Use (TOU) programs, categorized by high and low users.

="page-66-1"> Figure 55: Average Monthly Load Savings During Afternoon Peak, Residential TOU – Low Users Figure 56: Monthly Bill Savings, Residential TOU – High Users Figure 58: Monthly Energy Usage Savings, Commercial Small General – High...

AI summary The text presents a series of figures illustrating energy usage and bill savings across residential and commercial customer segments under different usage categories (low and high users). These figures are part of an analysis of program effectiveness, likely related to demand-side management or energy efficiency initiatives.

n> Figure 69: Additional Savings for Customers Subscribed to High Bill Alerts, Residential Standard – Low Users Figure 70: Additional Savings for Customers Subscribed to High Bill Alerts, Residential TOD – High Users Figure 71: Additional...

AI summary The document contains figures illustrating additional savings for customers subscribed to high bill alerts under different residential programs and a project number and contact information for a consulting firm.

MEMORANDUM DATE : July 24, 2026 TO : Nova Scotia Consumer Advocate FROM : Green Energy Economics Group, Inc RE : Comments on NS Power CEM EM&V Year 4 Report

AI summary Green Energy Economics Group, Inc. submits comments on the NS Power CEM EM&V Year 4 Report, providing feedback on energy efficiency programs and their evaluation.

The Cyber Incident Severely Limits Report Relevance Because the CEM platform and AMI data have been unavailable since April 2025, every impact metric except paperless billing was evaluated for January–March 2025 only. This limits the relev...

AI summary The cyber incident caused the unavailability of the CEM platform and AMI data since April 2025, limiting the evaluation of impact metrics to January–March 2025. This affects the relevance of the report, as prior evaluations show that savings are positive in winter but negative in summer.

Engagement Has Fallen and the Commercial Evaluation Is Not Informative The engagement picture is weak and, in places, deteriorating. The share of analyzed customers who did not log in during the evaluation period rose year-over-year for ev...

AI summary Engagement with the Customer Energy Management (CEM) program has significantly declined, particularly among commercial customers, leading to weak and inconclusive evaluation results. Only a small percentage of commercial customers logged in during the evaluation period, raising concerns about the reliability of the reported energy savings.

Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) Peak Savings are Confounded with the Rate Signal . The report highlights that CPP customers show the largest peak-load reductions and reads this as CEM-driven behavior. However, CPP customers also face the large...

AI summary The report argues that peak-load reductions among Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) customers are likely driven by the price signal rather than the Customer Energy Management (CEM) platform, as CPP customers face significantly higher prices during critical events, which may be the main driver of their behavior.

decision on the Year 3 CEM EM& V Report to undertake additional work with 1 M12920 - Exhibit N-1 - Econoler's Evaluation of the Customer Energy Management Platform - Year 4 (the "Report"). 2 Ml2920 - Exhibit N-1- The Report, Page 24, Figur...

AI summary The document discusses the evaluation of the Customer Energy Management (CEM) platform's Year 4 report, highlighting negative energy savings for commercial customers. NSPI cites a cybersecurity event as a barrier to new initiatives, while the SBA emphasizes the importance of engaging commercial customers. Econoler suggests that electrification may have influenced the results despite limitations in the sample size.

age 18. The SBA highlights the importance of continued momentum with respect to the activation of commercial customers. With respect to NS Power's commercial customer engagement strategy, they state: As noted by NSPI in its cover letter ac...

AI summary The SBA emphasizes the need for NS Power to prioritize engaging commercial customers with the CEM platform, despite challenges from a cyber security event. It notes limited progress in account activation and login activity, but acknowledges that average login rates have remained stable between 2024 and 2025.

cluding a relevant question in its next CEM customer survey. Any findings would be reported as qualitative, directional indicators of customer behaviour and would not form part of the EM&V evaluation. GEEG recommends that, until commercial...

AI summary GEEG recommends reporting commercial impact results as inconclusive due to limited sample sizes and commercial engagement, while NS Power and Econoler argue that the results remain useful for understanding customer group impacts and no changes are needed in reporting methods.

Clarification of Evaluation Methodology The SBA states that it is unclear how the statement in the Report that "The evaluation results for high and low users under the Commercial General code and for low users under the Commercial Small Ge...

AI summary The SBA questions the interpretation of statistically significant energy savings in the Commercial General and Commercial Small General rate codes, while GEEG highlights that peak load reductions under Critical Peak Pricing may be driven by pricing signals rather than the CEM platform. The report uses a difference-in-differences approach to control for rate signals in evaluating TVP rates.

Future Evaluations The CA provides the following recommendation with respect to future evaluations: Given the ongoing challenges with AMI data retention and access, we recommend that any future evaluations should be put on hold until data...

AI summary The Consumer Advocate (CA) recommends delaying future evaluations of the CEM platform until customers have full access for at least nine months, ideally a year. NS Power and Econoler support this, suggesting the next EM&V report be filed in 2028 covering the full year of 2027, and an update on CEM restoration be provided in 2027.