Hydro-Québec calls for tenders | Solar energy production could triple in Quebec

The production of solar energy could triple in Quebec if the project proposed by the company STACE within the framework of the current calls for tenders by Hydro-Quebec is selected.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

The 32.4 megawatt (MW) solar park proposed by the Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures company, near Quebec, is part of the list of pre-selected projects unveiled Thursday by the state-owned company.

It would be built in Matane, “on an otherwise unusable landfill site”, with solar panels made in Quebec, the company said in a press release on Friday.

STACE, for Saint-Augustin Canada Electric, is a supplier of high power electrical equipment in the energy production sector.

The company maintains that its project will demonstrate that solar energy is “a sustainable and viable avenue” in Quebec.

The new double-sided panels “ensure that snow is in no way an obstacle to their use”, adds the company, which promises “competitive costs”.

First in Quebec

STACE could become Hydro-Quebec’s very first external solar energy supplier, with its solar park project in Matane.

This is also the first time that a solar project has been submitted to Hydro-Québec as part of its calls for tenders.

The Hydro-Québec network is currently only supplied with 10.3 MW of solar energy, which comes almost entirely from its two pilot power stations located in Varennes and La Prairie, commissioned in 2021 in a research perspective.

The Crown corporation has also installed a small number of solar panels in Lac-Mégantic as part of a microgrid pilot project.

STACE points out that its project would constitute “an exceptional technological showcase” for the technology it has developed in collaboration with the University of Sherbrooke, which allows solar panels to be installed on unstable ground, such as a landfill site.

A solar park using this Quebec innovation was recently completed in France, says the company.

Decision by early 2023

The projects pre-selected Thursday by Hydro-Québec were submitted as part of the two calls for tenders launched last December for the purchase of separate blocks of electricity: one of 300 MW from wind power only and the other from 480 MW from any renewable source.

These are the first major calls for tenders since 2013 – two specific calls for tenders took place in 2015 and 2020.

The Crown corporation received 27 bids, three of which were rejected at the opening.

The other 24, which total 4205 MW, will be analyzed over the next few months.

Hydro-Québe plans to announce the selected projects by the end of the year or at the very beginning of 2023; their commissioning must be completed no later than 1^er December 2026.