NB Power CEO Lori Clark told a legislative committee in Fredericton that a proposed 500-megawatt natural-gas-and-diesel plant remains the best available option to prevent blackouts in New Brunswick by 2028. She said the Crown corporation deliberately fast-tracked the project—bypassing its regular approval process—with customers’ best interests in mind.
The defense comes days after the province’s auditor general issued a critical report calling out poor decision-making and significant financial risk exposure in how NB Power handled the proposal.
CEO Testifies in Defense of Gas Plant Proposal
Lori Clark appeared before the legislative committee on June 11, 2026, making a direct case for the proposed facility. Her central argument: without the plant, New Brunswick faces a real risk of blackouts by 2028. That two-year window, she said, leaves almost no room for a slower, more conventional approach.
Clark acknowledged that NB Power departed from its standard approval methods to accelerate the project—but framed that as a deliberate choice made in customers’ interest, not a shortcut taken carelessly. In her view, the urgency of the supply situation justified moving outside normal practice. The committee appearance put her directly in the line of questioning from legislators, making her testimony, in effect, a public defense of decisions already drawing sharp criticism from an independent watchdog.
Auditor General’s Report Raises Concerns Over Process and Financial Risk
New Brunswick’s auditor general, Paul Martin, issued a critical report on the project just days before Clark’s committee appearance. Martin found that NB Power made poor choices as it advanced the plant proposal and that the rushed process exposed the utility to millions of dollars in financial risk.
The report’s core concern centered on how NB Power bypassed its standard procurement methods—processes that exist to protect public utilities and, by extension, ratepayers, from locking in costly commitments before all options are properly evaluated. Martin’s findings suggest those safeguards were not fully applied here. Notably, the report does not argue the plant is necessarily the wrong solution. It questions whether the process used to arrive at that solution met the standards expected of a Crown corporation managing essential infrastructure.
Regulatory Approval Granted, Provincial Government Review Still Pending
Despite the auditor general’s concerns, the project has already cleared one significant hurdle. The 500-megawatt facility received regulatory approval in May 2026, indicating the proposal satisfied the relevant regulatory body on technical and operational grounds.
That approval, though, is not the final word. Construction still requires authorization from New Brunswick’s provincial government, and that decision is not yet imminent. An environmental assessment is currently underway, and its outcome will weigh heavily on whether the government ultimately greenlights the project—leaving the plant approved in one arena and under active review in another.
Background: New Brunswick’s Electricity Supply Challenges
NB Power is the Crown corporation responsible for electricity generation and distribution across New Brunswick. As a public utility, it operates under a higher standard of accountability than a private company would, which is part of why the auditor general’s criticism carries weight.
The 2028 blackout risk timeline is the central driver of urgency here. Grid reliability concerns are not unique to New Brunswick, but the province’s situation pushed its utility toward an unusually compressed decision-making process. Bridging the gap between identifying a supply problem and actually bringing new generation capacity online is a persistent challenge in energy infrastructure planning—one that rarely gets easier when timelines tighten.
The NB Power case reflects a tension energy planners across North America are actively managing: how to build new capacity quickly enough to meet near-term reliability needs while still respecting the oversight processes designed to protect the public interest. Speed and due diligence do not always move at the same pace.
Exposure to Risk and Bypassing of Standards
The central facts are these. NB Power CEO Lori Clark defended the fast-tracked natural gas plant before a legislative committee, citing the risk of blackouts by 2028. The auditor general found that the process exposed the utility to significant financial risk and bypassed standard procurement methods. The plant has received regulatory approval but still requires provincial government sign-off, pending the conclusion of an environmental assessment. How the government weighs the urgency of the supply problem against the process concerns raised by the auditor general will determine what happens next.
Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.
