Your 2026 residential bill is a 20.08 $ monthly base charge plus 19.128 ¢ for every kWh, effective May 1. Because Nova Scotia Power is a regulated monopoly, there is no rival retailer. The whole savings conversation is consumption and rebates.
Residential price per kWh after the May 1 change, up about 3.1%. On 1,000 kWh that energy line moves from 181.87 $ to 191.28 $ before the base charge, FAM and tax.
The fixed monthly base charge rose from 19.17 $ to 20.08 $. You pay it whether you use 1 kWh or 2,000 kWh, so it makes a small low-use bill feel disproportionately fixed.
There is no supplier to switch to. Nova Scotia Power serves about 95% of the province with roughly 550,000 customers and no residential retail competition. Every dollar you save comes from using less or qualifying for a rebate, never from changing retailer.
Three confusions that fill the customer-service phone lines every rate year:
A monopoly that happens to be privately owned
Nova Scotia is unusual among Canadian provinces: its electric utility is not a Crown corporation. Nova Scotia Power was privatized in 1992 and is now a subsidiary of Emera Inc., a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It is vertically integrated, owning the generation, the transmission and the distribution, and it serves roughly 95% of the province, about 550,000 customers in all.
Being investor-owned does not mean it can set whatever price it likes. Every residential rate has to be approved by the Nova Scotia Energy Board (NSEB, formerly the NSUARB), whose electricity mandate moved to the NSEB on April 1, 2025. So the practical experience for a household is the same as a Crown-utility province: one provider, regulated prices, and no retail shopping. The difference is who collects the profit, not whether you get to choose.
The four things on every Nova Scotia Power bill
Most "rate" coverage quotes a single cents-per-kWh figure and stops. A real Nova Scotia Power bill has four moving parts, and only one of them tracks your behaviour month to month.
A fixed 20.08 $ per month from May 1, 2026 (up from 19.17 $). You pay it regardless of consumption. It covers the cost of keeping you connected: metering, billing, and a share of the distribution network.
19.128 ¢ for every kWh you draw, up about 3.1% from 18.187 ¢. This is the only line your behaviour changes. Use 100 kWh less and you save almost exactly 19.13 $ before tax.
A regulator-approved pass-through that trues up the gap between forecast and actual fuel costs. It appears as separate adjustment lines, changes each rate year, and can move up or down independently of the energy charge.
15% HST applies, but the provincial 10% portion on home energy is rebated automatically at the till through the Your Energy Rebate Program, so you effectively pay the 5% federal portion on electricity.
If your bill reads "Energy 19.128 ¢/kWh × 1,000 kWh = 191.28 $", that 19.128 ¢ is the NSEB-approved residential rate effective May 1. Above it sits the 20.08 $ base charge that never moves, and below it the Fuel Adjustment Mechanism plus HST less the YERP rebate. The energy line is the only one your habits touch.
How the rate got here, and where it is heading
The 2026 rates did not appear out of nowhere. They follow a 2022 General Rate Application settlement, approved by the NSUARB, that set average increases of about 6.9% in each of 2023 and 2024. A new general rate application was then filed with the NSEB on September 2, 2025 as a consensus settlement, and that is what produced the May 1, 2026 base charge and energy charge.
Looking forward, further residential increases of roughly 3.9% per year have been proposed for 2026 and 2027. The word that matters there is proposed: these are subject to NSEB approval and can be modified or rejected. Treat them as a planning signal rather than a fixed figure. The honest takeaway is that 2026 is a sensible moment to tune consumption and price out the rebate stack, not 2028.
average increase each year (2022 NSUARB settlement)
energy charge, from the September 2025 NSEB filing
per year, proposed and subject to NSEB approval
Tool: what did the May 1 change do to your energy line?
Type in your average monthly kWh. The widget shows your energy line at the new 19.128 ¢ rate, and the extra you pay versus the previous 18.187 ¢ rate, monthly and annualised. No data leaves the page.
Apartment ≈ 600 · oil-heat home ≈ 900 · electric heat ≈ 2,000
at 19.128 ¢/kWh
$ annualised
before FAM and tax
Energy line only, at 19.128 ¢/kWh versus 18.187 ¢/kWh. The third card adds the fixed 20.08 $ base charge. The Fuel Adjustment Mechanism and HST less the YERP rebate are not included, so your real bill differs. Future NSEB decisions can change the rate again.
Educational estimate. Pull your actual usage and rate from the most recent Nova Scotia Power bill for an exact figure.
The things that change your bill that the rate decision will not
Because there is no retailer to switch to, the entire savings conversation lives on your side of the meter. The single biggest lever is heat: Nova Scotia is split almost evenly between oil and electric heating, and a cold-climate heat pump delivers two to three units of heat for every unit of electricity, which is why the rebate programs push so hard on the switch. Insulation, draft-proofing, and turning down an over-hot water tank do the rest.
The second lever is the rebate stack itself. Efficiency Nova Scotia, the federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program, the Heating Assistance Rebate Program and the automatic Your Energy Rebate Program are designed to be combined, not chosen between. The companion guides in this series walk through how they stack and the order to apply in.
A few details that catch people out
There is no standard residential time-of-use rate. Nova Scotia Power has run a voluntary time-of-use pilot, but it is currently paused, with resumption anticipated for November 1, 2026. If you read about cheaper overnight electricity, that is the pilot, not a general option you can opt into today.
If you live in Antigonish, Berwick, Lunenburg, Mahone Bay or Riverport, your bill comes from a town-owned utility rather than Nova Scotia Power. Those five town utilities buy wholesale from Nova Scotia Power, so the rate movement passes straight through to them. Switching between the town utility and Nova Scotia Power is not a thing you can choose: it is decided by your address.
Finally, the generation mix is changing under the hood. Nova Scotia has legislated a coal phase-out and a target of 80% renewable electricity by 2030. In 2023 the mix was roughly 47% coal, 22% natural gas, 15% wind and 11% hydro. That transition is part of what the rate decisions are funding, and it is the long-run reason the FAM and capital costs feature so heavily in every filing.
What to actually do, in order
There is no supplier to switch to, so the plan is consumption and rebates. Work through these in sequence.
Find the base charge, the energy charge per kWh, the Fuel Adjustment Mechanism, and the HST line. Note them as four numbers, not one total. Only the energy charge tracks your behaviour.
Use your average monthly kWh to see your energy line at 19.128 ¢ and the annual change versus the old 18.187 ¢ rate. The annual figure is the one to budget around.
Heat is the biggest lever and oil is the most expensive base. Price out a cold-climate heat pump, which delivers two to three units of heat per unit of electricity, and check it against the rebate stack before committing.
Start with Efficiency Nova Scotia, layer the federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program if you heat with oil, and confirm the Your Energy Rebate Program is already taking the 10% provincial HST off your bill automatically.
It does not lower the total, but it spreads the December-to-March electric-heat surge across twelve interest-free payments so the February bill stops being a shock.
Ask Nova Scotia Power customer service (1-800-428-6230) about a payment arrangement and the Heating Assistance Rebate Program. For an outage, the 24/7 line is 1-877-428-6004.
Why this matters now, not next year
The 2026 rates are already in your bills, and roughly 3.9% per year has been proposed for 2026 and 2027 on top. You cannot vote those increases away or shop for a cheaper retailer, but you can change how many kWh you buy and which programs pay for your upgrades. A household that acts in 2026, insulating, switching off oil, and stacking the rebates, flattens its own curve regardless of what the NSEB approves next.
In a province with one regulated, investor-owned utility, the lever you control is everything except the rate itself.
