Residents of several regions of Quebec are experiencing extraordinary delays in their connection to the Hydro-Quebec network. Delays which also slow down the realization of certain real estate projects, at the very time when the province is experiencing a housing crisis. At the state-owned company, they say they are doing their best to meet a demand that has increased by 50% since the start of the pandemic.
“It’s really a nightmare,” says Véronique Boissonneault. With her spouse, she had a house built to become their main residence in Saint-Sauveur, in the Laurentians. Since May 2022, the couple has been taking steps with Hydro-Québec to connect this new construction to the electricity grid. The state company told him that the connection would take place at the end of January 2023, says Mme Drinkneault. However, to date, the couple is still patient in a “temporary rental” while waiting to obtain a new schedule from Hydro-Québec.
“We don’t know what will happen,” sighs the one who points out having spent large sums to ensure minimal heating in her new residence in order to prevent the pipes from being damaged by the cold. “But for us, it’s not even a question of money anymore, it’s a question of safety. We need a place to live and we need to be connected as soon as possible. »
“We are at the end of it,” she confides. And she’s not the only one.
Residents of several regions of Quebec have reported to the Duty long delays in processing their request for connection to the Hydro-Québec network, which is also slow to keep them informed of the progress of their file, they criticize.
“In the midst of a housing crisis, there are houses that are ready to be delivered, but which are not habitable because there are delays for Hydro-Québec to connect them to the network”, indicates electrician Guillaume Gautier. The latter takes care of making newly built houses ready to be connected to the electricity grid. “But after that, it blocks at Hydro,” he sighs.
The electrician gives as an example the case of one of his clients, who recently had a house built in L’Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève. He hoped to move into his house on the 1er April, “but Hydro-Québec told him that it will be connected on June 29,” says Mr. Gauthier, who finds it hard to understand why such a simple connection takes so long. “I could go up with pliers and do it in an hour,” he blurts out.
In the context of the housing shortage, we should not be able to put families on the street because a connection has not been made.
In Montreal, Gilles Veillette for his part decided last year to stop using an oil heating system in his apartment located on the ground floor of a triplex in the Mercier-Est district. However, he had to wait three and a half months, from September 18 to January 10, before obtaining a connection to the Hydro-Québec network. “During that time, I had no heating. We had trouble keeping it at 12 degrees with small electric heaters, ”says the 69-year-old man.
In Saint-Côme, in Lanaudière, the real estate company Groupe Sierra launched the Domaine des Hauts Sommets project last year, which provides for the construction of 200 luxurious chalets. A request was then made for a connection to the Hydro-Québec network. Since then, 25 lots have been sold, but the construction of the chalets has been put on hold due to the delays encountered by the state company in responding to this request.
“It will affect our reputation”
“People are owners, but we don’t know when Hydro will bring electricity. They say they are going to try to work miracles so that we will have electricity by the end of the year”, launches, skeptical, the co-founder of the Sierra Group Gabriel Dupuis. The latter indicates that he tried to obtain authorization to make a “temporary connection”, at his expense, in order to accelerate the construction of the chalets, but the request was refused by Hydro-Québec.
“The somewhat contentious situation that we are experiencing here is that if nothing happens, customers who have bought from us will sue us, and we will have to sue Hydro-Québec, notes Mr. Dupuis. It will affect our reputation. »
At the Association de la construction du Québec (ACQ), the head of public affairs, Guillaume Houle, describes the snowball effect that these delays can have in the context of the current housing crisis.
By delaying the time of the sale of properties and, by the same token, the time when rental units will be vacated by their occupants wishing to become owners, the situation “entails that the whole chain of sale of houses and recovery of rents is bogged down,” illustrates Mr. Houle. “In the context of the housing shortage, we should not manage to put families on the street because a connection has not been made”, says the ACQ spokesperson, who asks Hydro- Quebec to “take the situation seriously”.
Hydro says it’s doing its best
In interview at Duty Thursday, Hydro-Quebec spokesperson Cendrix Bouchard acknowledges that delays in connections to the electricity grid are noted “across the province”, mainly due to the extraordinary demand to which the state company has faced in recent years. “Since 2019, we have had about 50% more work requests of all types than before the pandemic,” said Mr. Bouchard.
The expected slowdown in housing starts in 2023 has not yet reduced the demand noted by Hydro-Québec for connections to its network, which remains high, adds the spokesperson. Thus, for connections deemed complex — because they require engineering work, in particular — an average delay of 12 to 18 months is noted by Hydro-Québec. However, 44,000 requests of this type were processed by the Crown corporation last year.
Cendrix Bouchard adds that the state corporation is currently “at full capacity” with regard to its employees assigned to connections to the electrical network, which leaves it little leeway to speed up the processing of requests. “We really have all our staff hard at work, we try to be as efficient as possible”, assures the spokesperson.