‘I am frustrated’: Nova Scotia Power faces tough questions at first community session

NS Power customers in Yarmouth demanded answers for increased costs at a community meeting.

Nova Scotia Power is hitting the road to bring information sessions directly to customers who have questions about the utility’s cyberbreach and billing estimates. The first community session was held Thursday at the fire hall in Yarmouth.

The goal is to answer questions from customers about their power bills, face-to-face.

“It was higher than it was last year when I was charging an electric truck and had a hot tub on it,” said Jennifer Cunningham, who attended Thursday’s session. “I brought my readings in and I want to find out how they’re going to update my readings.”

A cybersecurity breach by an unknown third party in March saw customer information compromised. Nova Scotia Power found out about the breach in April and told customers about it in May.

“We know that everything that has happened over the last eight months has been a concern for our customers and we have heard that and we know that talking to people and being in the community does help,” said the utility’s director of customer care, Chris Lanteigne, on Thursday.

“If there are people who are more comfortable talking in-person, that’s why we’re here today.”

Nova Scotia Power has been estimating bills for a number of customers since the cyberbreach. The utility explained that, while meters are accurately reading customers’ power usage, that information hasn’t been transmitting properly to its system since the breach, so it has been estimating some bills.

Customers like Cunningham have been complaining their bills have been inflated, even doubling in some cases.

“They have an option online to update your meter reading, and it doesn’t update your meter reading, so they need to have these meetings in order to fix the problem,” said Cunningham.

Lanteigne said the utility is doing everything it can to restore all systems and is making “great progress.” He said Nova Scotia Power has hired meter readers and had 100 people out in field reading meters on Thursday.

However, customers like Ron Hines say that isn’t good enough, and the whole situation could have been avoided.

“System didn’t work but it just kind of pisses you off with all the technology that’s out there nowadays,” said Hines.

Charles Jess is one of the dozens who came out. He’d like to see a return to the way Nova Scotia Power used to do business.

“I am frustrated,” he said. “Simply that they sell their power to me by metered amount. They read the meter and send me the bill accordingly. I’m a shareholder in the company and I expect them to do that.”

That’s one of the suggestions Nova Scotia Power will take away from the face-to-face meeting with its customers.

Another community session will be held in Middleton Friday night and two more in Cape Breton and Truro next week.

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