Wind: Hydro has relaxed its Quebec content and social acceptability criteria

To move faster in the construction of wind farms, Hydro-Québec relaxed, last year, two selection criteria that were previously considered essential: social acceptability and Quebec content.

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This is what we learn by consulting a presentation that the state company made in January 2023 to the Minister of the Economy and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, and that The newspaper obtained.

“The existing criteria will evolve to better reflect the reality of Hydro and the industry,” reads the confidential document.

“The chosen model of unregulated call for tenders will allow a more efficient and optimal wind supply than the traditional model,” argues Hydro-Québec.

More “flexibility” for promoters

Result: “greater flexibility [pour les] promoters,” we specify.

The most marked change is the following: “no mandatory Quebec or regional content,” stipulates the Hydro document.

There was actually no requirement for Quebec and regional content in the call for tenders for 1,500 megawatts of wind energy, launched by the state company in March 2023.

However, in the 2021 wind calls for tenders, promoters were required to include at least 50% “Quebec content”, including, preferably, 35% “regional content”.

The rule was the same for wind tenders planned for 2022, but these were canceled in extremis.

“Economic nationalism”

“This will allow deployment to go faster,” Mr. Fitzgibbon said in December 2022.

“If we simply seek to reduce costs without enriching ourselves collectively, it is a break with the initial commitments of economic nationalism,” deplores PQ MP Pascal Bérubé.

At Hydro-Québec, we emphasize that in the project analysis grids, 12 points out of 100 are awarded for local content.

“If you don’t have Quebec content, it’s going to be very difficult to qualify,” says a spokesperson, Maxence Huard-Lefebvre.

Social acceptability with the wind

Hydro has also reduced its requirements regarding the social acceptability of wind projects. In the 2021 and 2022 calls for tenders, promoters had to obtain, from the municipalities concerned, a resolution “unconditionally supporting” their wind projects.

But during last year’s call for tenders, the word “unconditionally” disappeared.

“The support [du] local environment can take the form of “support of principles”; the parties do not have to agree on all the support conditions for the submission of tenders,” indicates the 2023 tender document.

At the end of the process, Hydro-Québec also announced, last month, the selection of contested projects, including one submitted by Boralex in the Arthabaska MRC.

“There is a form of social acceptability, but it is biased,” maintains Jean Morin, a cheesemaker from Sainte-Élizabeth-de-Warwick who campaigned against the project.

“We are very, very far from social acceptability,” adds another opponent, Pascale Boislard, who is a municipal councilor in Saint-Albert.

Hydro assures that for it, the social acceptability of projects is still as important as before.

“We wouldn’t be winners […] if projects that do not have social acceptability were accepted. It is we who would lose in the end,” insisted Mr. Huard-Lefebvre.

Manufacturing of wind energy equipment in Quebec

• Marmen: wind tower factories in Trois-Rivières and Matane
• LM Wind Power: wind turbine blade factory in Gaspé