(Montreal) A research chair argues that Quebec will not achieve its climate objectives, just as it has not achieved its 2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target, and that overall, the energy is not evolving in Quebec to match the ambitions of politicians.
Posted at 6:31 a.m.
In a document entitled The State of Energy in Quebec 2022 published Thursday, Pierre-Olivier Pineau, holder of the Chair of Energy Sector Management at HEC Montreal, reports that after the COVID-19 pandemic reduces sales of petroleum products by 11% in Quebec in 2020 compared to 2019, consumption will return to 2019 levels if the economic recovery and sales of gas-guzzling vehicles continue.
Professor Pineau points out that despite the succession of action plans against climate change, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have continued to grow since 2014.
The craze for large vehicles and growth in freight transportation explain most of the increase, with the market share of light trucks, including sport utility vehicles (SUVs), accounting for 71% of total sales in 2020 compared to 44% ten years earlier, in 2010.
The Chair writes that 2021 Canadian monthly data from Statistics Canada shows that sales of petroleum products have rebounded in 2021 and are almost back to their pre-pandemic level. Last August, for gasoline, Canadian sales even exceeded those of 2019.
Furthermore, the document points out that electricity consumption in Quebec is highly dependent on temperature, with each degree of winter cooling requiring nearly 400 megawatts (MW) of additional production capacity. Nothing in the residential rates, however, reflects the costs of this additional power, as the rates continue to be subsidized by cross-subsidization from commercial consumers.
However, the paper’s authors observed that in 2021, this cross-subsidization continued to decline.
On the other hand, the Chair recalls that Hydro-Québec estimated its surpluses at approximately 40 terawatt hours (TWh) per year in 2019. It points out that these could disappear by 2029 with the new export contracts. , growth in demand and electrification, in particular.
The document also notes that the bioenergy and hydrogen sectors are developing very unevenly. As green hydrogen projects take shape, biofuel plants are closing or sitting idle.