Saint John Energy customers will be getting an early holiday gift from the municipal electricity utility over the coming weeks.
A one-time credit of $21.05 is being issued on all December bills — equal to the monthly service charge paid by most customers.
Shelley Wood, one of the utility’s executive directors, said it is their way of sharing savings from two initiatives with the community.
“We certainly had a good year with Burchill and our Shave the Peak program,” Wood told our newsroom in an interview on Wednesday.
“At the end of October, savings from purchasing energy from Burchill in 2024 amounted to more than $1 million, while efforts through Shave the Peak surpassed $2 million.”
Burchill, a 10-turbine wind farm in west Saint John owned and operated by Natural Forces and Neqotkuk, was commissioned in 2023. It supplies Saint John Energy with up to 15 per cent of the current demand for electricity throughout the city.
Meanwhile, Shave the Peak encourages customers to reduce energy consumption during high demand. At the same time, Saint John Energy takes steps to curb the need for peak power, such as reducing voltage on its system and drawing power stored in its Tesla Megapacks.
Wood said reducing energy consumption during high demand allows the utility to avoid costly peak power charges while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“Given the successes, we wanted to share this with our customers, and given that all of our customers pay a monthly service charge, rebating that fee seemed to be the most effective way to share the benefits,” she said.
This is not the first time Saint John Energy has credited back the monthly service charge to customers. Wood said they did the same thing back in 2011.
As for whether customers may see something like this happen again in the coming years, the executive director would not make any firm commitments.
“While we can’t promise regular credits of this nature in the future, our focus on renewable energy and innovation aims to continue generating savings that benefit our customers over the long term and allow for important reinvestments in the grid and keep our rates stable,” said Wood.
Saint John already had among the lowest rates in Atlantic Canada, even before the one-time rebate.
