After committing to providing electricity to 11 industrial projects a few months ago, the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy Pierre Fitzgibbon has just accepted several among the 150 waiting on his desk.
The list of selected projects will be sent to Hydro-Québec at the beginning of next week, said the minister, who was the guest of the Canadian Circle on Tuesday.
The visit of the minister who holds several portfolios attracted more than 700 guests, but also a group of public service union members still in negotiations who demonstrated loudly at the start of the event.
Once it knows the list of projects selected by the minister, Hydro-Québec will have to “sequence” them, to determine the order in which they can be carried out.
“There will not be many megawatts” associated with these projects because there are none available, warned the minister.
The choice was made from a list of 150 “good projects” which required 13,500 megawatts of electricity, or a third of Hydro-Québec’s current total production capacity, said Pierre Fitzgibbon.
There will then be a pause in the announcement of new projects, lamented the minister. Quebec was “taken by surprise” by the rapid increase in electricity demand, he said. “Industrial projects were not well planned. »
Accelerate projects
Pierre Fitzgibbon believes that some of the projects on his desk will escape Quebec. “We are going to lose some, but people are also going to be patient,” he predicts.
Hydro-Québec announced a huge investment program of nearly $200 billion to add 8,000 to 9,000 megawatts to its electricity production, including 3,300 megawatts by 2029. “Hydro-Québec is looking to see if we can get ahead of this date,” said Minister Fitzgibbon.
The highly anticipated bill which should give more flexibility to Hydro-Québec and accelerate the development of new electricity production has been postponed several times. It will be tabled “before the end of the parliamentary session”, indicated the minister, to be debated in the summer.
His government also intends to submit a plan for energy development, as many stakeholders in the sector have long demanded.
This integrated resource planning (IRP) will be carried out by the government and Hydro-Québec, with the participation of experts from the energy sector, Indigenous communities and the entire population, according to the minister.
There is lithium for Honda
The sharing of Nemaska Lithium shares which belong to the Quebec government is certainly an asset to encourage Honda to invest in Quebec, according to the Minister of Economy and Energy. “Car companies are concerned about access to lithium, graphite, sodium, phosphate, nickel. In Quebec, we are privileged to have these resources. » The key is an integrated sector, according to him. “So if it’s a partial detention for any player, why not? », says Pierre Fitzgibbon. “This is the first time in the history of Quebec that we are going to take resources and keep them here. » He recalls that the investments already announced in the battery sector total 16 billion and that it is not over. “We will end up at 20, 24 billion perhaps. »