Nova Scotia Power and the Canada Infrastructure Bank are forming a new regulated utility to build, own, and operate a 160-kilometre, 345-kilovolt transmission line from Onslow, NS to Salisbury, New Brunswick.
CIB will put up C$217 million to help fund the Wasoqonatl (“illuminate”, in Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk) Reliability Intertie, which will run parallel to an existing line between the provinces, the federal agency says in a release this week. CIB is also negotiating a loan with Wskijinu’k Mtmo’taqnuow Agency Ltd. (WMA), an economic development partnership owned by the 13 Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw First Nations, that will bring the communities an equity stake in the project.
“For too long, Indigenous communities have been left out on the sidelines of major infrastructure projects,” Glooscap First Nation Chief Sidney Peters said this week. Now, “that is changing,” with the WMA’s stake in the project assuring long-term financial returns for the 13 communities.
New Brunswick Energy Minister René Legacy connected the project back to Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada. “This is the right answer,” he said. “The best method for us to retaliate or defend ourselves is to take care of each other, to take care of home.”
The new line, which is still subject to approval by the Nova Scotia Utility Review Board, is scheduled to go into service in autumn 2028. CIB says it expects to save provincial ratepayers $200 million with more affordable financing.
The New Brunswick portion of the line will be funded by the new joint venture but built, owned, and operated by New Brunswick Power. That province is planning a second phase, a 200-kilometre line that connects as far as the Point Lepreau nuclear station southwest of Saint John.
NB Power says the project will support its “required transition to get off-coal by 2030 and produce cleaner, greener energy.” Nova Scotia Power sees it backstopping new wind energy development and improving grid reliability.
“This line will add reliability to our grid with a better link to New Brunswick and to the larger North American grid that we can lean on in times of stress,” said Nova Scotia Energy Minister Trevor Boudreau.
“That East-West connection, at these uncertain times now, I think is a strategic piece of infrastructure for us to really be sharing resources equally between two neighbouring provinces,” agreed NS Power CEO Peter Gregg.
