If you’ve been overcharged on your power bill, Nova Scotia Power will fix it.
That promise came from President and CEO Peter Gregg in front of a government committee Tuesday at Province House.
The utility was summoned to answer questions from the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Economic Development about highly-estimated bills.
“To you the committee, and all Nova Scotians, my promise to you is that if we have overestimated your bill, we will fix it. If you have overpaid, we will fix it, and if we make a mistake, we will fix it,” said Gregg.
He says communications with smart meters were knocked offline in the cyber attack earlier this year.
Abou 75 percent of meters have been read, but 25 percent are going off power usage estimates.
“Restoring all systems will take time, but we’re providing flexible options for our customers, including equal billing, pay-what-you-can arrangements, and photo meter reads.”
The company currently isn’t charging late fees or interest.
He says the first meters are expected to come back online in December, with all restored by March.
Gregg adds they no longer collect Social Insurance Numbers, and they’re expecting to be caught up on payments to suppliers by the end of the year.
Cyber attack update
Gregg also provided an update on the cyber attack, which compromised the personal information of hundreds of thousands of customers.
The company believes the attack was caused by a Russian-based threat actor.
“While we have made significant investments in cyber security, these types of threats are challenging for many organizations worldwide. We’ve learned important lessons from this attack, we’ve evolved IT security, upgraded online customer account portal and financial assistance.”
Gregg says they understand the ongoing challenges related to billing, and they’re working diligently to resolve them.
Liberals want action from government
Meanwhile, the Liberals want an independent review of Nova Scotia Power.
MLA Ian Rankin was one of several politicians who questioned utility officials on Tuesday.
But he says the government should be doing more to regulate them in the legislature.
“There’s a number of policy directions that the government can take, and it would have been a more fulsome discussion had we had the government here,” said Rankin.
He says the Conservatives should have also been answering questions on Tuesday about why they have not offered bill relief to customers and why they cut the heating rebate.
with files from Jacob Moore
