Europe is experiencing a serious energy crisis. This puts citizens and companies in front of difficult choices, but it also makes flourish the concept of “energy sobriety”. What lessons can Quebec learn from the Old Continent to meet its own challenges with regard to electricity and the climate?
The contexts are obviously very different. In Europe, some countries are suffering from the interruption of deliveries of Russian natural gas; others, from the generalized surge in energy prices. Natural gas is used to heat homes, but also to produce a large part of the electricity. The two forms of energy are thus interrelated.
For its part, Quebec does not lack electricity in the immediate future, but it will need new volumes in the coming years to decarbonize its economy, as François Legault repeated on Wednesday. Quebec must also increase its power to meet demand during severe cold weather. As for fossil fuels, it must adopt a more frugal approach to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with it.
As we say with alcohol, sobriety does not necessarily taste less good.
First, what do we mean by “energy sobriety”? This is a voluntary limitation of energy consumption, says Éloïse Edom, a research associate at the Institut de l’énergie Trottier at Polytechnique Montréal. “With energy efficiency, we usually want to maintain the same level of service while consuming less energy. Whereas with sobriety, we would be ready to change the level of service,” she explains.
However, there are many scenarios where the level of service can be reduced, but without really sacrificing the well-being of users. Lowering the heating to 19°C – the most emblematic measure of the Energy Sobriety Plan in France – may cause some inconvenience, but avoiding heating unoccupied rooms does not cause any reduction in the comfort of those who frequent a building.
“As we say with alcohol, sobriety doesn’t necessarily taste less good,” says Pierre-Olivier Pineau, holder of the Chair in Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal. Ditching large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) in favor of small cars, or public and active transportation, has advantages in terms of mobility, costs, physical activity and air quality, underlines- he.
Heating: the sinews of war
Back to buildings, which are the target of most sobriety measures in Europe. What would be the effect of these initiatives on the Quebec power grid?
“We can, by having an intelligent management of our heating – thanks to electronics or simply with humans who take the time to think –, reduce our energy consumption in winter by 10, 15 or 20%, answers Mr. Pineau. And afterwards, if we do renovations on the thermal envelope of the building, on the windows and on the roof, we can get another 20, 30, 40 or even 50%, depending on the scope of the work. »
Generalizing such behavior would save thousands of megawatts in peak periods across Quebec. During severe cold weather, heating homes and businesses accounts for more than 40% of the power demand on the Hydro-Québec network. According to the Crown corporation, lowering the temperature by 1°C can reduce home heating costs by 5 to 7%.
In practice, it is very difficult to encourage the population to increase its vigilance. Analysts from Hilo, the Hydro-Quebec subsidiary dedicated to residential energy efficiency, noticed that 10% of their customers had “excessive” electricity consumption in the summer, says Mr. Pineau. Incredulous, the analysts understood that these customers were heating and air-conditioning at the same time… “Everyone complains about the price of electricity, but no one pays attention to energy management”, laments the professor.
How to do better? “Power tariffs” could optimize the efforts of the population, argues Mr. Pineau. Currently in Quebec, residential electricity rates are based on energy. However, it is very expensive for Hydro-Québec to build a network with sufficient power during extreme cold. In the context of a new tariff structure, the weight exerted by each subscriber on the annual power peak could be reflected in his bill. “It’s already what we do in Norway or Italy,” he points out.
Distribute the load
Reducing consumption related to heating is, rightly, an important element of the energy sobriety efforts required of the European population. However, believes Mme Edom, we should not ask too much of households on other less significant aspects, such as lighting. “I am not sure that the burden is distributed fairly among the actors of society. The burden rests a lot on the citizens, and not always on the companies, the industries. However, in terms of consumption, they are big players, ”she says.
As far as companies are concerned, precisely, Mme Edom underlines an important point, according to her, of France’s Energy Sobriety Plan: that of multiplying energy audits and energy efficiency diagnostics. “Before you can reduce, you have to know what you’re consuming. And although such audits exist here too, it is not necessarily an activity that is always carried out,” she observes.
At the same time, the State must fulfill its duty to set an example, underlines Ms.me Edom. This is what Germany is doing, for example, which has adopted a legal text limiting the heating of public buildings to 19°C. “Governments also need to be transparent” about energy supply and threats to countries, adds the specialist.
Ultimately, energy sobriety requires redefining our relationship to energy. In the Netherlands, citizens are presented with a newsletter to inform them of the times during the week when renewable energy feeds the electricity grid, rather than fossil energy. The country’s solar and wind farms obviously depend a lot on the weather.
The Dutch authorities “inform consumers so that they adapt to production constraints. Since you know that on Tuesday it will be easier to produce renewable energy than on Wednesday, if you want to run your washing machine or recharge your car, do it on Tuesday instead,” explains Bernard Lebelle, the boss of The Green Link. , a company that develops a digital tool that helps companies achieve their sustainability goals.
When wind turbines supply a larger fraction of the Quebec electricity grid, orchestrating such consistency between production and consumption could become a profitable idea.