Faced with the Legault government’s plan to open the production and distribution of electricity to the private sector, all of Quebec is called upon to think again about the reasons which led it to take control of the deployment of its electricity network.
“ [Dans les années 1930], electricity companies are prosperous, but their public image is not very good, we read on the Hydro-Québec website. Leaders from politics and academia strongly denounce the abuses of which electricity companies are guilty: high prices, poor quality service, exorbitant profits, questionable accounting practices, refusal to adequately serve rural areas, arrogance in the face of government attempts to regulate the electricity trade. In a most courageous gesture, the Prime Minister, Adélard Godbout, decided to expropriate the electricity and gas assets of the powerful monopoly that constitutes Montreal Light, Heat and Power […] On April 14, 1944, we witnessed the birth of Hydro-Québec. »
Since this structuring political event in the history of electrification in North America, Hydro-Québec (HQ) has established itself as one of the most powerful levers of economic development at the service of all Quebecers. However, HQ’s monopoly on the electricity trade in Quebec is threatened by the adoption by the Legault government of bill number 2, which modifies the terms of HQ’s obligation to ensure distribution efficient and equitable electricity supply in Quebec.
HQ has never lacked electricity, reaping profits year after year thanks to the sale of its hydraulic surpluses on the short-term export market (spot) for over 25 years. HQ thus exported some 400 TWh of hydroelectricity from 2011 to 2023 inclusive.
Today, the energy security of Quebecers in terms of electricity is trapped in a complicated situation that the Legault government has made worse by carrying out a plan for the forced growth of new industrial electricity needs. All this assuming legislative changes which already bypass the laws in force by “welcoming” projects whose scale of new electricity needs was not part of the supply balance sheet just two years ago. in energy and power to anticipate.
How did we get there ? A few benchmarks describe the recent progress of HQ’s strategic planning.
September 2016. During the study of HQ’s 2016-2020 strategic plan, its CEO, Éric Martel, praises the economic benefits of exporting electricity, and presents a vision of the future based on an expectation of a surplus which could go up to 50 TWh/year. This view has forgotten the important distinction to be made between market sales spot and firm power export contracts to deliver 24/7 for decades.
January 2018. HQ is selected for a contract with Massachusetts: 1090 MW of firm power for deliveries of 9.45 TWh/year for 20 years.
April 2022. Under the presidency of Sophie Brochu, signature by HQ of another contract, renewable this time, with New York: 1250 MW of firm power for deliveries of 10.4 TWh/year for 25 years.
November 2022. HQ submits its proof to the Régie de l’énergie in phase 2 of the examination of the 2023-2032 Supply Plan. By 2035, it forecasts a deficit in “required new supplies”: 26.5 TWh in energy and some 5,000 MW in power. The order of magnitude of these new needs in 2035 is comparable to the volumes of export contracts which will supply Boston and New York from December 2025. The government and HQ present these massive electricity delivery contracts as a contribution to the decarbonization of the northeastern United States, even though they have blocked any possibility of us using it usefully today for the decarbonization of Quebec.
November 2023. HQ unveils its 2035 Action Plan: Quebec’s new electricity supply needs will require 8,000 to 9,000 MW of new production capacity which will supply 60 TWh/year of additional electricity needs, an increase of 30% compared to to Quebec’s electricity needs for 2023.
We are now in the spring of 2024. The Legault government seems to consider that the state company must no longer ensure the orderly deployment of electricity production and distribution in Quebec, and that the electricity market must be opened. electricity to private projects which could soon commercialize “their” electricity production investments.
This would then be the end of the Hydro-Québec monopoly, which four generations of Quebecers recognize throughout the territory as the first of all public services. Let us not be naive: once the breach of liberalism is reopened, it will be impossible to turn back.
The state of frenzy of the Legault government in 2024 requires a social debate to adopt a credible, effective and equitable energy policy with a view to the decarbonization of Quebec, in the interest of future generations. This public debate must take place before any modification to the laws on HQ and the Régie de l’énergie.
It is a question of nothing less than rediscovering the memory of this courage which inhabited Adélard Godbout in 1944 when he undertook the nationalization of electricity in Quebec, and of doing everything that must be done to remain “Masters with us.”