Even if it must plan billions in investments to reduce the number of outages and increase its production, Hydro-Québec is able to reduce certain expenses in order to contribute to returning to a balanced budget, believes the Minister of the Economy and of Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon.
“There is always a way, I think, to reduce and that is true everywhere in government,” replied the minister in a press scrum in Montreal on Monday, as part of an event organized by Propulsion Montréal.
The budgetary effort requested would not jeopardize the investments planned by the state company. “It is certain that at Hydro-Québec, considering the issues of spending on vegetation [couper et émonder les arbres qui risquent de créer une panne]for the maintenance of energy security, new projects, we will not put that at risk,” he assures.
State corporations will have to identify the equivalent of $1 billion over four years in spending reductions in order to contribute to returning to a balanced budget. The request targets Hydro-Québec, Loto-Québec, the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), the Société québécoise du cannabis and Investissement Québec.
They will have to make savings from the 2025-2026 financial year. Annual savings are expected to reach $400 million in 2028-2029.
The budgetary effort comes at a time when Hydro-Québec has set itself the objective of investing nearly 100 billion dollars to increase the capacity of the network by 2035, according to its action plan unveiled in November. Added to this are investments of between $45 billion and $50 billion to improve the reliability of the network.
Hydro-Québec wants to reduce the number of outages by 35% within 7 to 10 years at a time when unfavorable weather conditions have led to an increase in the number of outages.
The budgetary exercise is “very commendable” at a time when Quebec must return to budget balance, believes Mr. Fitzgibbon. “I think Mr. [Eric] Girard (Minister of Finance), rightly so, wanted to have an approach to demonstrate to the rating agencies that we had a critical path to reducing deficits.”