Hundreds of low-income Nova Scotians regularly face the almost impossible choice of paying for groceries, rent, heat, electricity or medicine.“There’s a lot of stress making those difficult decisions between which essential service to pay for,” said Brian Gifford, chairman of the Affordable Energy Coalition that is made up of more than a dozen groups and agencies across the province committed to equitable and universal access to energy.
Gifford says he has a relative who has in the past gone through a stressful electricity disconnection. A company communications adviser said the NSP team is trained to help customers with interest-free payment plans to help manage outstanding balances and will refer customers to other available supports, including the Salvation Army HEAT Fund, government’s 211 service and Efficiency One.NSP encourages people who get behind in their bills to call the company, Jacqueline Foster said.
Typically, it is at least several months before a customer is disconnected for not paying their bill because the company will provide payment reminders before issuing formal disconnection notices, unless payment arrangement terms have been broken, Foster said.Two out of three customers disconnected are reconnected and the company says it has developed internal policies to get customers who have been disconnected reconnected as quickly as possible.
“It’s not just disconnection of electricity, it’s also oil heat in the winter,” Gifford said. “Oil prices have actually gone up a lot more than electricity so people are really struggling with oil, too.”“In the longer term, what we’ve been doing for 20 years, is pushing for helping people out by getting programs in place for making their homes more efficient so their bills actually go down quite a bit,” Gifford said.
The provincial Progressive Conservative government last year expanded the heating assistance rebate program , increasing the one-time rebate for the 2022-23 heating season from a previous maximum of $200 to $1,000 while increasing the eligibility threshold to a base net household income of $85,000.