The President and CEO of Nova Scotia Power delivered a speech to the Truro and District Chamber of Commerce Thursday afternoon, just days before the utility goes to the review board asking for another set of rate hikes.

NSP is asking for an additional 3% in January 2013, followed by another 3% rate increase the following year.

“There have always been three key drivers (affecting power rates),” said NSP President and CEO Rob Bennett. “The cost of fuel we use to make electricity, the cost of the investments that we’re making, at the same time, to transform to renewable infrastructure and most recently, the loss of the fixed cost contribution of the major industrial component in pulp and paper.”

Bennett says the increases will continue well past 2014. He says the rate payers can expect to pay more for power every year, for the next eight years, as the province works toward meeting its renewable energy targets.

“The component of renewable energy investment pushes rates up by 1 to 2% per year during the term of the development of renewable which is now until about 2020,” he says. “It’s justified because these increases are due to the transformation we’re going through in Nova Scotia in terms of where our electricity comes from. We’re building for our future.”

The province has set a target of 40% renewable electricity by 2020.