The figure of 100 TWh, which is often heard as being Hydro-Quebec’s target need by 2050 to meet Quebec’s needs, no longer holds water, admits Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon.
• Read also: The CSN bursts into a Chamber of Commerce event
• Read also: REM: “All projects have cost overruns”, says Minister Fitzgibbon
• Read also: Hydro-Québec: the CAQ should stop wasting our time, as with the 3e link
“Is it 125 or 150 TWh? I’ve no idea. On the horizon of 2050, I know only one thing: no one really knows,” conceded the minister on Friday during a luncheon organized by the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal.
We will therefore have to make choices and change the mentalities of Quebecers, says Mr. Fitzgibbon. “Quebecers have been told for a very long time that we have mass electricity and that Hydro-Québec is a bit of their heritage,” he says.
To get the message across, the minister is counting on the “experts”. “I think the experts will be able to prove to Quebecers that if we consume less, perhaps we will have more energy for hospitals, for schools, for seniors’ homes.”
The Minister is counting on Professor Pierre-Olivier Pineau, from HEC, among others. “These people have to explain to Quebecers that we probably consume 50% too much, and it’s not just residential […] This work must be done by people who are not just in politics,” he said at a press briefing.
- Listen to Philippe-Vincent Foisy’s interview with Pierre-Olivier Pineau, professor at HEC Montréal and holder of the Chair in Energy Sector Management via QUB-radio :
US contracts will be honored
For those wondering if the government intends to terminate certain export contracts, including those of Massachusetts and New York, in order to preserve energy for Quebec’s needs, the “superminister” was clear: “We can discuss it all we want, but Quebec will honor its commitments,” he said in front of some 700 guests, from the business, governmental and scientific worlds, gathered at the convention center.
“At the time, if we had known the current context, would we have asked other questions? Of course. Conditions have changed, that’s obvious,” he admitted.
The challenge of finding more electricity to decarbonize Quebec will therefore go first and foremost through the population, businesses and the famous “peak management”, he explained in his speech.
“I also hear people say that it makes no sense to export our electricity and to ask Quebecers to save energy, to better sell it to multinationals. This is not at all what we are proposing, ”he assured.
Wind power to the rescue
Quebec has some forty wind farms in service, which produce nearly 4,000 MW of energy. The Minister of Energy and Innovation wants to quadruple this installed capacity by 2040.
“I announced last March a call for tenders for a block of 1500 MW of wind energy. Hydro-Québec has identified several areas where we can quickly integrate new wind farms, and we want to launch another even larger call for tenders in the coming months,” he says.