NB Power’s certified arborists and tree maintenance contractors work hard year round to keep NB Power’s lines clear of trees and branches that threaten the reliability of our system and your safety.

We work with certified tree maintenance contractors from across New Brunswick to complete this planned maintenance work around power lines.

To reduce the impacts of major storms on our infrastructure, we’re focusing our efforts this year on tree maintenance along high voltage power lines near urban centres.

Similar to how we prioritize power restoration after a major storm, we plan our tree maintenance with a focus on the larger power distribution areas first. If a main line has an issue with a tree, the sidelines will be impacted as well, which will leave many more people without power during a major storm.

We’ve tasked 13 certified tree contractors to cut and prune problem trees and shrubs along lines in the areas that have experienced more frequent tree-related power interruptions over the past year.  

Since New Brunswick is heavily forested, our contractors need to work as efficiently as possible to ensure we can keep on top of tree growth before it becomes a problem. Keeping the crews focused on our scheduled maintenance plan is also essential to keeping costs associated with unplanned interruptions from this work at a minimum. 

When we receive a customer request for tree removal, these crews must take their focus off this scheduled work to remove trees from the customer’s property if the request meets our requirements.

Before contacting NB Power to have an assessment of your problem tree, please consider the following criteria, which will save time for you and our crews.

Identifying a problem tree

1. First and foremost, is the tree on your property? If not, the property owner will have to contact us to inquire about the tree.
2. Is the tree close to a power line?
3. Is the tree uprooted or leaning more than 30 degrees toward the line? 
4. Is the power line scorching any part of the tree?
5. Is the tree dead? (There would be no leaves or needles or reddish/brown needles)

To determine if your tree is diseased or dying, look for the following:

• discoloured blotches or dead areas on the leaves
• dead branches
• insects borrowing into the trunk
• break / split in the tree
• noticeable hole in the trunk
• missing bark on the trunk

Under the customer requested program, NB Power does not remove or maintain any type of vegetation that is not a risk to power reliability.  

Keep an eye on the lines

There are 2 types of power lines that you will see near your property that belong to NB Power. If your tree is leaning near the lines that are highest up- this is a primary wire, which is high voltage and very dangerous.

The line closer to the ground is a service wire, and it carries medium voltage electricity to your home.

Any tree maintenance required near these lines should only be performed either by NB Power or an authorized contractor. Never attempt to cut or prune these trees yourself.  

40% of customer calls to NB Power result in deferrals to the regular preventative maintenance schedule or cancellations due to the above criteria not being met.

Contractors hired to complete the tree work on NB Power’s behalf are fully qualified to safely cut trees around power lines. This type of work requires a specialized skill set and should never be completed by someone who is not qualified to work around electrical lines. These contractors include:

We have a big decision to make about the future of the Mactaquac Generating Station. The station is nearing the end of its life, and NB Power is considering what to do next. Whatever is decided will have a big impact on the environment and the people who live and work near the station and to all customers. That’s why NB Power is working with experts and the public to find out what those impacts might be, and how to lessen them.

If the Mactaquac Generating Station is not rebuilt, NB Power needs to replace the lost power with renewable energy.

New Brunswick’s power grid today

Almost 100 hundred years ago, NB Power started to deliver power to homes and businesses in the province. NB Power’s grid expanded over the years from a small hydro plant in Musquash to 13 nuclear, hydro, coal, oil and diesel powered stations, as well as power purchase agreements from various privately-owned renewable and natural gas-powered facilities.

Power is delivered through 6,800 kilometers of transmission lines and more than 20,000 kilometers of distribution lines to about 394,000 customers.

NB Power’s customers are New Brunswick homes, farms, churches and seasonal properties, for example camps and lodges. Power is also delivered to retail stores, hotels, restaurants, offices, hospitals, schools and universities, as well as plants and workshops.

If Mactaquac isn’t rebuilt, how will you replace the power from Mactaquac?

In case the headpond is retained without power generation or the river is restored to a natural flow, NB Power must replace the power from Mactaquac with renewable energy.

This is in accord with the Renewable Portfolio Standard that demands that NB Power generates 40% of its power from renewable sources by 2020 like:

• Biomass:

Biomass is defined as organic material gained directly from plants. It is produced through photosynthesis, the process used by plants to convert the sun’s energy into chemical energy. Through burning, the chemical energy can be turned into energy that can be used as heat or power.

• Biogas:

Biogas is fermented organic matter (manure, waste, plant and algal material) which produces gas. This gas is used to create heat and then steam which turns a turbine to generate electricity.

• Solar:

Solar power can be captured either through photovoltaic or thermal energy. You may have seen solar panels on roofs or fields before.

• Hydro:

Hydro power generates electricity from the movement of water through a channel or pipe into a turbine. The flowing water makes contact with turbine blades, causing the shaft to rotate. The rotating shaft is connected to an electrical generator that converts the rotating shaft motion into electrical energy. Click here to see a video of how hydrogeneration works.

• Ocean:

Ocean power is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides or waves, into electricity or other useful forms of power.

Tidal stream turbines draw energy from water currents in a way similar to how wind turbines draw energy from wind. The higher density of water (which is 800 times the density of air) means that a single generator can provide significant power at low tidal flow velocities (compared with wind speed.)

Wave power captures the movement of waves using devices such as buoy-like structures that convert wave motion to mechanical energy, which is then converted into electricity and transmitted to shore over a submerged transmission line.

• Enhanced Geothermal:

Enhanced geothermal systems inject cold water under high pressure into underground rock formations. This water travels through the fractured rock capturing heat until it becomes very hot and is forced to the surface through a second borehole. A steam turbine and generator can be used to convert the energy in the heated water to electricity.

• Wind:

When wind passes through the blades of a wind turbine, it makes them spin. The rotating shaft of the turbine is connected to an electrical generator which converts the rotating shaft motion into electrical energy. Click here to see a video of how wind generation works.

• Renewable purchases: e.g. from Quebec or Newfoundland

Making a future power grid with renewables sustainable in New Brunswick

New Brunswick sees short high peaks of electricity demand during the winter months, normally in January and February. These peaks can be double what the electricity demands are during the summer. Since storing renewable energy is still in its beginnings, meeting these demands with renewables only can be challenging because of the variability and intermittency of some renewable resources. NB Power often relies on fossil fuel burning during these times to ensure reliable supply, which can cost millions of dollars every year.

Energy efficiency is also crucial. NB Power’s partnership with Siemens, different rebate programs and initiatives such as Beat the Peak encourage all New Brunswickers to adapt smart habits that help reduce and shift energy demands by taking small steps that avoid paying for electricity we don’t need.

What do you think about renewable energy resources and their place on our grid? Tell us in the comments below.

They searched for hours on foot, off-road vehicle and by helicopter. Finally, at 1 am on Monday, crews spotted a flash on a transmission pole more than 21 metres high while running a test of the line that revealed the faulty equipment to blame for Sunday’s large outage in the Kennebecasis Valley.

It was a single cracked insulator. Just one small piece of equipment, but it caused an unusual kind of widespread power outage that inconvenienced many of our customers on Mother’s Day while our crews and operators worked feverishly to find the cause and safely restore power.

When 22,000 customers in Rothesay, Quispamsis and surrounding areas lost power around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday May 8, NB Power’s operating centre immediately identified the issue being transmission-related. We sent out specialized transmission line crews to determine a cause and a plan to restore affected customers.

While crews searched for a cause, our operators began switching groups of customers to other energized lines, bringing as many customers back online as quickly and safely as possible.

By 10:00 a.m., more than 16,000 customers were back online. As the day went on and the weather conditions allowed, crews safely transferred the customer demand from one substation to another, allowing NB Power to restore power to customers by smaller group size as crews continued to search for the cause of the outage.

By 3:30 p.m. 1,000 customers remained without power.

The damaged insulator which caused the transmission outage in Kennebecasis Valley region. This insulator was 21 metres in the air, and this crack was difficult to identify in the daylight. 

During situations like these, we work with customers to minimize the impact to hospitals, nursing homes, stores and arenas. Yesterday, we spoke with the Mayor of Rothesay, Bill Bishop and appreciate all of his support in communicating with residents of the area.  

Before we could safely restore power to the remaining 1,000 customers we needed to test the transmission line stability, which meant  we had to deliberately bring approximately 5,000 customers offline to safely complete the test to ensure we could add the additional electricity demand of 1000 more customers to the line. For this reason, some customers previously restored experienced two additional, brief outages around 3:30 and 5 p.m.

We were able to transfer the remaining customer load to surrounding lines in order to restore everyone by 9:30pm.

It was a rare occurrence that we were not able to identify the cause of the outage throughout the day. NB Power ground and air patrol crews searched the line for obstructions, or equipment problems but could not see anything. We had people stationed at certain locations along the transmission line in the afternoon to search for the root cause of the problem while the system operators at our Energy Control Centre energized and de-energized the line as part of the testing.

Knowing what the issue was allowed us to make necessary repairs Monday morning, and transfer the 1000 customers back to the Fairvale substation without interruption.

We appreciate the continued patience of our customers during this outage on Mother’s Day, while our crews worked diligently to ensure we got everyone back online as quickly and safely as was possible under the circumstances.

Click here to read more information on how we restore power during major outages. 

We have a big decision to make about the future of the Mactaquac Generating Station. The station is nearing the end of its life, and NB Power is considering what to do next. Whatever is decided will have a big impact on the environment and the people who live and work near the station. That’s why NB Power is working with experts and the public to find out what those impacts might be, and how to lessen them.

Under the guidance of top scientists, the Mactaquac Aquatic Ecosystem Study (MAES) examines the Saint John River above, around and below the dam at Mactaquac Generating Station to support NB Power with science-based information.

Dr. Allen Curry, Science Director at the Canadian Rivers Institute, points out some key aspects about the project in this week’s blog post.

What is the Mactaquac Aquatic Ecosystem Study?

It’s a multi-year project and the first in-depth study of its kind of the Saint John River and unique in this sense among studies of large Canadian rivers. It’s divided into three phases: Phase 1 (now until 2017), Phase 2 (during the Environmental Impact Assessment [link to CER blog] and followed work at the station) and Phase 3: (after construction or drawdown.)

Our university-based team includes professional scientists and engineers from different disciplines including biology, geology and engineering, field and computer technicians, and more than 50 students.  We are presently working on more than 30 different studies that examine the whole river ecosystem, fish passage and environmental flow in the Saint John River.

What is the goal of the MAES?

The goal of Phase 1 of MAES is to establish a thorough characterization of the river and headpond to improve our understanding of the ecosystem in these areas and to use various models to predict changes to the ecosystem under each of the options.  This information will be used to inform NB Power and to support our own scientific research.

How large is the study area compared to the river?

The Mactaquac Aquatic Ecosystem Study area stretches from the Tobique River headwaters to the estuary in Saint John, though some of the projects focus on study areas that are smaller and more focused on a particular issue.

What exactly are you looking at when you look at the river as a whole?

Our reason for undertaking a whole river ecosystem study is to attempt to understand, to the best of our ability, the full extent of how the MGS has affected the ecosystem of the SJR to date and to predict the likely changes of the options on the whole river ecosystem.  This is different than the typical approach of limiting the study to smaller sections of a river as is commonly done due to the time and financial constraints of collecting sufficient data over large areas.   The whole river ecosystem approach also attempts to bring together biological and ecological information, like fish and plant communities, with physical and chemical information like water and sediment quality and river flows in such a way that the information can be considered together when characterizing the river ecosystem and making predictions about its future. 

Dams are infrastructures that block natural fish passage in a river. How are you studying fish passage for Mactaquac?

We have reviewed existing literature, hosted an expert workshop to discuss global views on fish passage for multiple species, and visited with other experts in areas where dams have been removed. With the data collected via fish tags [link to Austin’s blog], the team will also study individual species including the Atlantic salmon, Striped bass, Sturgeons, American eel and Muskellunge.  For example, our study of Atlantic salmon looks at all life stages of migration (adults upstream and downstream, and smolts downstream) and considers not just the dam as a potential barrier to passage, but also the large and lake-like headpond.

Why is the Mactaquac Aquatic Ecosystem Study so important?

The Saint John River flows 673 kilometers from the woods of northern Maine into the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. It is the second longest river in eastern North America and supports the greatest diversity of aquatic plants and animals in eastern Canada, including 15 at-risk species. 

Our collective understanding of how dams affect river ecosystems has improved greatly since the original construction of the dam.  There is an opportunity with the Mactaquac Project to reverse some of the adverse changes that have occurred during the time since its construction through the removal of the dam, or to improve the design and operation of a new dam such that the whole-river ecosystem is improved compared to the present.  Such opportunities should not be taken lightly, or done without sufficient consideration of the best data using state-of-the-art science and engineering methods and models.  We believe that MAES is vital to NB Power making a well-informed decision that provides maximum benefit to the state of the Saint John River ecosystem and that this will in turn be a benefit to all who live within its vast watershed.