The 360 megawatts of energy (MW) promised by Quebec to Northvolt for its Montérégie plant are not at risk of being taken away… for the moment.
Despite what the Quebec Liberal Party said, which demanded Monday that the energy blocks reserved for the Swedish multinational be redirected to local projects, Energy Minister Christine Fréchette ruled Tuesday: “There is no question of reducing the energy blocks reserved for Northvolt,” she said. “We are not there.”
In serious financial difficulty, the battery manufacturing company took another blow on Monday when the Swedish government indicated it was not prepared to come to its rescue. It nevertheless assures that its cell assembly project, located between McMasterville and Saint-Basile-le-Grand, is not threatened.
According to Minister Fréchette, Northvolt’s North American executives have been “reassuring” so far. However, while the CAQ representative was re-promising her 360 MW of energy to Northvolt on Tuesday, her colleague at the Environment, Benoit Charette, allowed himself a little reminder. “It’s not a reservation that is good forever,” warned CAQ Environment Minister Benoit Charette on Tuesday.
According to him, it is not impossible that all the MW granted so far to about twenty projects will not succeed. “There are energy blocks that will be made available as certain projects are abandoned or new renewable energy sources are created,” he maintained, without directly referring to Northvolt.
A “frozen” block that could go to others
“Disaster”, “faltering”, “total darkness”: the three opposition parties fired broadsides on Tuesday at the government and the uncertainty surrounding Northvolt.
The Liberals are asking the government to distribute the megawatts granted to the Swedish company to others. “Why are we going to freeze such a large block that can, I remind you, supply the equivalent of the City of Longueuil?” asks Saint-Laurent MNA Marwah Rizqy.
“Quebecers’ money and our energy are not venture capital,” continued the official opposition’s energy spokesperson. “We have to stop moving forward with projects that are still shaky when the government hasn’t done its homework.”
“Huge amounts of electricity have been promised to what is, after all, a startup that we knew was fragile, worries the leader of the second opposition, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. We did it on the basis of the supposedly exceptional flair of a minister who, since then, has packed up and gone back to hunting pheasants.”
The solidarity accuses the government of leaving parliamentarians and the population “in total darkness” about Northvolt.
“Mr. Fitzgibbon had promised to make public the studies that attest to the economic benefits. Have you ever seen them? We have never received them. […] What are the environmental impacts? We don’t know, because all this was done on the corner of a table, between two cigars. We can’t manage public money like that. We can’t manage electricity, which belongs to Quebecers. [et aux] Quebecois, like that.
The government has bet everything on Northvolt and is on the verge of losing its stake, predicts Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “It’s shaping up to be a disaster,” he insisted Tuesday. The redistribution of the energy block allocated to Northvolt remains hypothetical, in his opinion, since no one knows the clauses of the contract that binds the government to the Swedish company.
“If Quebec commits to international business by saying: ‘we formally commit to reserving this block of energy for you’, we cannot break our agreements without damaging our reputation as a place of business,” stressed Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon.
However, he believes that “we cannot keep [ce bloc d’énergie] forever” because “during this time,” he concludes, “there are Quebec businesses that are suffering.”