Would you let Hydro-Québec control your water heater? Because faith of Hydro-Quebec, the Quebec house will have to be intelligent and connected if the province wants to achieve its objectives of reduction of polluting emissions. The Crown corporation has just launched a competition to find innovative solutions that will help it achieve this goal. And, incidentally, which will be able to seduce Quebec households, so far not very interested.
This will be quite a challenge. You can’t say that home appliances and accessories that are meant to improve energy efficiency are hugely successful in the province right now. The first reaction of just about everyone in Quebec is to shrug their shoulders when it comes to energy issues. Quebec is somewhat of a victim of its own success: hydroelectricity is clean and remains relatively affordable.
We forget that the electricity saved in houses and buildings will facilitate the transition to electricity in other sectors, such as transport. On the road, Quebecers continue to be among the most gluttonous consumers of oil on the planet.
The challenge is twofold: reducing the consumption of hydrocarbons reduces the province’s environmental footprint and, if this consumption turns to energy produced in Quebec, its trade balance also benefits.
That said, more and more households are showing concern about the situation. During the extreme cold in January, Hydro-Québec appealed to everyone: keep your energy consumption to a minimum. The state-owned company says it was able to cut 400 megawatts of electricity demand over this period, the equivalent of the production of a medium-sized hydroelectric plant. Concretely, it is 400 megawatts that Quebec did not buy outside the province, from suppliers who themselves may have diesel or even coal-fired power stations.
It’s not trivial. At Hydro-Québec, the conclusion is simple: if we could deploy the technologies that would make it possible to stretch this kind of savings throughout the year, we would make the public network much more efficient than it is now. current.
Clip Peak
This is partly why InnovHQ, the subsidiary of Hydro-Quebec which aims to stimulate innovation in the energy sector beyond what the Institute for Electricity Research of Quebec is already doing, launched its first Prize at the end of January. energy innovation.
Interested entrepreneurs have until February 28 to apply. InnovHQ is looking for concrete solutions ready to be marketed and related to energy efficiency or transportation electrification.
You might as well specify it right away: those who intend to submit the idea of a connected water heater can go back to the drawing board. Hilo, another subsidiary of Hydro-Québec, which precisely offers connected accessories for the home, is beginning these days to market its own smart water heater. This is deactivated at times deemed appropriate, but is designed to prevent the proliferation of bacteria (legionella) which is likely to occur when the water becomes too cold for too long.
After heating systems, the water heater is the most energy-intensive domestic appliance. It can represent 20% of the monthly electricity bill.
So, after the heater and the hot water, what remains to be improved in the typical Quebec home? “Anything that helps to consume less or better will interest us,” says Christine Brasseur, Vice-President Strategy and Innovation at InnovHQ. An example ? Tools capable of informing Quebec consumers of the advantages of consuming less. “Quebec has a privileged situation thanks to its low-cost energy,” continues Christine Brasseur. It is true that there are fewer levers to force change. We have a duty to inform the public and popularize the challenges to come for Quebec in terms of energy. »
One of these challenges is to regulate energy consumption so that it is as stable as possible from hour to hour, day to day, season to season. People at Hydro-Québec have an expression to illustrate this: you have to “clip the peak”. The peak is this energy peak hour when all of Quebec is in the shower, in front of the stove or in the swimming pool.
When we will soon add hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles that will all be plugged in at the same time when we get back from work, if nothing is done to dampen demand over a larger part of the day, this peak risks taking on the appearance of Mount Everest.
To do the housework
Hydro-Québec will receive a boost from the technology giants in the spring. They have finally agreed on a standard that will facilitate the use by a single household of connected devices of different models or brands.
Because until now, equipping your home with W-Fi bulbs, smart thermostats and other connected home accessories was tantamount to joining a cult: once a first product has been purchased, it is almost impossible to consider products of a another brand or another generation. For example, very few devices compatible with Apple products are also compatible with those of Amazon or Google.
That will change this year with the introduction of a standard called Matter, which aims to bridge these closed environments. Amazon, Apple, Google, IKEA and Samsung, among others, promise to harmonize their products using this standard.
Starting this summer, it won’t just be Hydro-Québec to encourage consumers to make their homes smarter. At least this time could be the right time: the Matter standard will make the market more competitive, and the devices will cost less, it is said.
If, as a bonus, they could reduce the monthly electricity bill, everyone would benefit. Even Hydro-Quebec.