Daily Unplanned Power Outages in Nova Scotia

The reliability standard for grid electricity is less than two outages per person, per year. In 2024, an analysis of Nova Scotia’s power outages showed that the province had more than 4,700 outages, recording only a single day without an unplanned outage. This breaks the reliability standard by a significant margin and is a big cause of concern for both Nova Scotia residents and Nova Scotia Power. Especially considering that the province has failed to meet the standard for the fifth year in a row.

To resolve these reliability issues, Nova Scotia Power released a five-year reliability plan. This plan involves spending $1.3 billion on grid reliability upgrades, including $45 million per year on trimming trees. During storms trees come into contact with power lines causing outages.

This five-year plan is estimated to reduce the average outage duration by around 20%. 3,100 out of the 4,700 outages in 2024 were of the unplanned type. The majority of these out-of-control issues were caused by bad weather, more than 100 hours of above 80 km/h wind and over 300 accidents involving vehicles hitting power poles. As we shift to more and more electric appliances, reliable electricity becomes even more important, hopefully this five-year plan provides more reliability to Nova Scotia’s power grid.

Borrum Energy Solutions designs towers and microgeneration wind turbines that generate clean and reliable electricity to reduce dependence on the electrical grid and provide some back up electricity for essentials like heaters and vehicles if outages occur.