Electricity in New Brunswick

New Brunswick

Avg. price: 11.2/kWh (6th-lowest among provinces)

2010 capacity: 3,850 MW

2020 forecast capacity: 4,601 MW

Peak use (2011 forecast): 3,030 MW

Cross-border trade: Exports 789 gWh (earns $52.9 million)

GHG intensity rank: 4th-highest

GHG emissions goal: Cut 5.5 million tonnes annually from all sources, starting in 2012

Green targets: 10% of power sales from renewables by 2016

New Brunswick has a modest amount of excess generating capacity andexports surplus power to P.E.I. and the northeast United States. But its mix of power plants with lots of oil, diesel and coal is dirty, generating nearly twice as many greenhouse gases per megawatt of capacity as Ontario, and more than 10 times as much as Quebec.

Things will get substantially cleaner as the 40-year-old Dalhousie oil-fired plant shuts down this year and 320 MW in wind generation starts up by 2014. But the biggest question mark in the province's electricity future is the 635-MW Point Lepreau nuclear station. It was taken offline in 2008 for a planned 18-month, $1.4-billion refurbishment that would extend its life by 25 years.Major problems have set the completion date back to 2012, and the work is at least $1 billion over budget.

New Brunswick's transmission links to the U.S. will skyrocket in strategic importance starting in 2017, when the announced $6.2-billionLower Churchill hydro development comes online and Newfoundland and Labrador seeks to export that electricity to New England via underwater cable to the Maritimes.