New dams? Wind farms? None of this will meet the growth in demand for electricity in the next five years. Hydro-Québec is therefore forced to convince its customers to consume better in winter. An uncertain but inevitable strategy, according to the public company, to a successful energy transition.
By the time several new wind turbines come into operation in 2027, the public corporation plans to increase the performance of its programs by 60%, which rely on the goodwill of its subscribers. It is with these additional 1,000 megawatts (MW) that it thinks it will be able to meet peak needs, which amount to around 40,000 MW.
These “behavioural” programs — which aim, during severe cold weather, to “shift” energy consumption to times when the network is less busy — operate thanks to the financial incentives that Hydro-Québec offers to participating subscribers. Nothing obliges large consumers to participate.
Such programs have long been offered to industrial customers. However, since 2015, Hydro-Québec has also targeted commercial and institutional subscribers. These will be increasingly solicited: for example, we want to rally schools, shopping centers and warehouses. And, since 2019, residential customers can also contribute.
According to Hydro-Québec’s most recent supply plan, the “Business power management” program should release twice as much power during peak periods in 10 years. The “dynamic pricing” program, which targets residential and commercial customers, should double within three years. And the Hilo subsidiary — which is currently failing to meet its targets — is expected to pick up more than 600 MW of power within six years, compared to 10 MW last year.
How can the state corporation foresee with such optimism what it does not decide? “That’s a good question, which we sometimes even ask ourselves internally,” answers Kim Robitaille, director of planning for the management of the energy system at Hydro-Québec. Our engineers also need to be convinced: they find that bolts are a lot more reliable than behavior…”
Market studies nevertheless confirm that this kind of “change of culture” is possible, assures Mme Robitaille. “You can’t say ‘I’m going to continue to consume as before, at any time of the day, without being aware of my electricity consumption’, and thinking of living in an electrified Quebec. It can’t be,” she says. “We really have no choice” to turn to the behavioral, she adds.
We cannot say “I will continue to consume as before, at any time of the day, without becoming aware of my electricity consumption”, and thinking of living in an electrified Quebec. It can’t be.
The Minister of Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, declared on Friday that he wanted to table a “robust” bill from 2023 to further regulate energy-consuming behavior. It is not excluded to include dynamic pricing, that is to require Hydro-Québec customers to pay more during winter peak periods.
Sequence of decisions
Steering electrons on the Hydro-Québec grid is a balancing act. The duty had the opportunity to visit the control center of the main network of the state company. For national security reasons, the exact location of this room, located in the Montreal area, cannot be revealed.
On the wall of this underground control center, plunged into darkness, is a huge schematic map of Quebec. Indicator lights represent the main network infrastructures. “What you see here is the whole province. On the right is the north, where production is located. And on the left, it’s the south, where consumption takes place,” explains Hubert Nolet Côté, the head of this control center.
Three dispatchers hold the controls of this position seven days a week, 24 hours a day. They are the ones who communicate with the production plant managers to launch a turbine-generator group when demand surges. They are based on a tight planning of needs, constantly adapted according to the weather.
During very cold weather, a sequence of decisions is used to increase the power on the network. We can ask industrial customers to shut down their machines. It is possible to turn to the North American electricity market to buy power. Or even to slightly reduce the voltage on the network, which reduces the power demand.
And of course, the Crown corporation can solicit participants in voluntary peak reduction programs. However, points out David Beauvais, a specialist in smart grids who worked at Hydro-Québec and at the Régie de l’énergie, these programs offer more unpredictable gains.
“Anything behavioral, where people are expected to listen for a price signal, that’s a lot less certain,” says Beauvais, who is now president of Alterum, a technology startup in the field of energy transition. Because of this lower reliability, he adds, Hydro-Québec could be forced by the authorities to sign additional supply guarantees on the North American market.
A communication challenge
All of this does not mean that the government corporation should not take the path of responsible consumption and involve its customers. It is also a global movement that goes hand in hand with decarbonization, says Maya Jegen, a political scientist from the University of Quebec in Montreal, specialist in energy and smart grids.
In Quebec as elsewhere, the road to this ideal will not be easy to cross. “In general, people have a poor understanding of the electricity market,” explains M.me Jegen. In people’s minds, it’s normal that it doesn’t cost too much. For Hydro-Québec, this is a communication challenge. »
In recent years, the public company has been conducting a major campaign to get closer to its customers. This strategy was launched in 2015, when Éric Martel was appointed CEO, and accelerated in 2020, with the arrival of Sophie Brochu at the helm.
The public company was once very austere in its communications: it had won the Darkness Prize in 2009, awarded by the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec to the least transparent public body.
Hydro-Québec is now present on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Its moderators sometimes use a humorous tone that makes Internet users happy. The company recently signed contracts with digital content and marketing firms.