We want to offer New Brunswickers the best and most innovative products and services. That’s why we’re currently conducting exciting pilot projects to help us find and develop products and programs that will help lower our customers’ bills and electricity demand, as well as stay current with world-wide electricity trends.

These projects provide an opportunity to test technology that will allow us to shift and manage the amount of electricity being used by New Brunswick homes and businesses to times that provide an economical and environmental benefit to the customer. Shifting electricity demand will help  us avoid using the most expensive and least green methods  of generating power to meet  demand and continue to  provide low and stable rates for our customers, help them to reduce their power consumption and realize potential savings on their bills while playing a key role in reducing New Brunswick’s environmental footprint.

Smart Grid Atlantic

Smart Grid Atlantic is a four-year federally funded research and demonstration program to determine how energy technologies of the future can provide customer, community, and provincial benefits, such as cleaner local power, more renewable energy, new energy solutions and more reliable electricity. NB Power, NS Power and Siemens are all partners in this program, which is funded by the federal departments of Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). It also involves the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) as a research partner.

The program includes smart energy community projects in New Brunswick that will deploy and test smart energy technologies to learn how they impact our provincial power grid and how they can benefit customers in the future. Smart Grid Atlantic will help us understand how these new technologies will fit into the way customers want to use electricity, how they fit into the electricity grid, and how they can be used to the advantage of New Brunswickers and our electricity system.

Learn more about the New Brunswick communities and home developments that are part of this project in the Smart Grid Atlantic web section.

Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR)

NB Power has partnered with Siemens, NRCAN and the National Research Council (NRC) on a Grid Modernization Research and Demonstration Pilot Project to study how we can conserve energy in New Brunswick by means of voltage reduction.

Visit our CVR page to find out about this research and demonstration project.

EcoPeak 3.8kW tank

This is a water heater option for customers who are currently renting a 40-gallon tank who may not be completely satisfied with their  hot water capacity but are not interested in paying the upfront cost of upgrading the electrical water heater connection in their home. NB Power has initiated a pilot that could provide a reasonable solution. This new tank offering would provide customers with a 60-gallon water heater, meaning an additional 20 gallons of hot water capacity, and provide a more energy efficient and grid friendly option for them at the same time.

Heat Pump Water Heaters

NB Power has partnered with NRCAN to gather information on the functionality of heat pump water heaters in New Brunswick. The pilot consists of a small number of tanks in New Brunswick homes that have been evaluated as potential study sites. This initiative will provide data about the feasibility of using this type of water heater in New Brunswick’s climate and will focus on attaining measurements about potential cost and energy savings.

Smart Water Heaters

Heating water at times when there is low demand for energy increases the operating efficiency of the power grid. NB Power continues to expand on a field study to analyze the benefits of using thermal storage in a water heater to defer the heating period to off-peak times.

Service Offerings

NB Power’s development team continually works to introduce new value-added offerings for our customers. In 2020, we introduced a shut-off valve installation service, an optional service at an additional cost to the customer which allows NB Power’s technicians to install a shut-off valve when necessary to complete water heater service work in one visit. This means that customers don’t have to schedule a second visit for water heater service work, saving them time and providing them with more value.

Smart Thermostats

We partnered with the National Research Council and Siemens Canada to see how we can reduce the peak and avoid a big surge in electricity demand on winter mornings in New Brunswick by using smart thermostats. Reducing the peak helps reduce or eliminate the need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity to help make New Brunswick greener.

Visit our smart thermostat page to find out about this first-of-its kind research project.