June 01, 2009

Electricity Rate Changes Result in Net Decrease for Customers

Bangor, ME--Bangor Hydro Electric Company customers will see a net decrease in their electric bill effective June 1, 2009. The average residential customer bill of about $87 will be reduced by about $1 due to a decrease in delivery charges.

Bangor Hydro Electric Company and the region continue to improve the delivery of electricity by investing in the transmission system in order to strengthen service reliability to customers, expand capacity to meet future growth, and support the development of renewable energy.

One local transmission project in Bangor Hydro's service territory is the Downeast Reliability Project, a proposed new 36-mile transmission line and substations between Ellsworth and Harrington. This project provides a redundant line serving Washington County which would help prevent prolonged outages like the one during the ice storm of 1998. In addition, the project creates local jobs during the construction phase and allows for economic growth and renewable development on and off shore in Washington County.

"These changes demonstrate stabilized rates for our customers, and allow us to continue to improve our system through transmission development," said Bangor Hydro President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Hanf. "These projects are an important part of our energy future."

Bangor Hydro-Electric Company (BHE) is an electric utility wholly-owned by Emera Inc. BHE serves a population of 192,000 in an area encompassing 5,275 square miles in eastern and east coastal Maine. BHE is a member of the New England Power Pool and is interconnected with other New England utilities to the south and with the New Brunswick Power Corp. to the north. Visit us at www.bhe.com.

Emera Inc. (EMA-TSX) is an energy and services company with $4.7 billion in assets. Electricity is Emera's core business. The company has two wholly-owned regulated electric utility subsidiaries, Nova Scotia Power Inc. and Bangor Hydro-Electric Company, which together serve 600,000 customers. Emera also owns 19% of St. Lucia Electricity Services Limited, which serves more than 50,000 customers on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia and 25% of Grand Bahama Power Company which serves 19,000 customers on the Caribbean island of Grand Bahama. In addition to its electric utility investments, Emera has a joint venture interest in Bear Swamp, a 600 megawatt pumped storage hydro-electric facility in northern Massachusetts; a 12.9% interest in the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline; a 7.4% interest in Open Hydro and Emera Energy Services which manages energy assets on behalf of third parties. Visit Emera on the web at www.emera.com.