Quebec will soon not have enough electricity to meet all the demands. What does businessman Claude Garcia propose to increase the energy supply?
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“The first thing to do is to price residents and businesses according to the time of day. This is done in Europe, for example, but not yet here. We talked a lot about the example of the dishwasher, which can be programmed to start at night, or at a time of day when it costs less in electricity. But also, someone who owns a Tesla car, for example, can program it to charge at any time of the day. But a Tesla owner in Quebec, it is useless for him to do that, since we pay the same rate, whether we charge it at night or during the day. It’s not effective.”
Another way to increase electricity supply would be to open the electricity market to businesses, according to the businessman. “I would say to companies: ‘Do you want electricity? So do you agree with another company?’ There would thus be production agreements between companies and private suppliers, such as Boralex or Innergex. would pay Boralex, and then Boralex would pay Hydro-Québec to distribute this electricity to the company. We would thus have market prices, and the private electricity suppliers would be encouraged to produce more (to have more customers), which would increase the total supply of electricity in the province. Moreover, Boralex is already doing this in France. It sells directly to companies. It is also done in Alberta and elsewhere in the world, “said the former leader of the Standard Life insurer.
“In other words, instead of telling Hydro-Quebec: buy renewable energy through a call for tenders and then you resell it to companies, we would allow companies to supply themselves. The government would only have to take care of having clear rules of the game.