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Hydro-Québec $185-Billion Clean Energy Plan accelerates hydroelectric upgrades, wind power expansion, solar and battery storage, pumped storage, and 5,000 km transmission lines to decarbonize Quebec, boost grid resilience, and attract bond financing and Indigenous partnerships.

Key Points

Plan to grow renewables, harden the grid, and fund Quebec's decarbonization with major investments.

✅ $110B new generation, $50B grid resilience by 2035

✅ Triple wind, add solar, batteries, and pumped storage

✅ 5,000 km lines, bond financing, Indigenous partnerships

Hydro-Québec is in the preliminary stages of dialogue with various financiers and potential collaborators to strategize the implementation of a $185-billion initiative aimed at transitioning Quebec away from fossil fuel dependency.

As the leading hydroelectric power producer in Canada, Hydro-Québec is set to allocate up to $110 billion by 2035 towards the development of new clean energy facilities, building on its hydropower capacity expansion in recent years, with an additional $50 billion dedicated to enhancing the resilience of its power grid, as revealed in a strategy announced last November. The remainder of the projected expenditure will cover operational costs.

This ambitious initiative has garnered significant interest from the financial sector, with the province's recent electricity for industrial projects also drawing attention, as noted by CEO Michael Sabia during a conference call with journalists where the utility's annual financial outcomes were discussed. Sabia reported receiving various proposals to fund the initiative, though specific partners were not disclosed. He expressed confidence in securing the necessary capital for the project's success.

Sabia highlighted three immediate strategies to increase power output: identifying new sites for hydroelectric projects while upgrading turbines at existing facilities, such as the Carillon Generating Station upgrade now underway for enhanced efficiency, expanding wind energy production threefold, and promoting energy conservation among consumers to optimize current power usage.

Additionally, Hydro-Québec aims to augment its solar and battery energy production and is planning to establish a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant to support peak demand periods. The utility also intends to construct 5,000 kilometers of new transmission lines, address Quebec-to-U.S. transmission constraints where feasible, and is set to double its capital expenditure to $16 billion annually, a significant increase from the investment levels during the James Bay hydropower project construction in the 1970s and 1980s.

To fund part of this expansive plan, Hydro-Québec will continue to access the bond market, having issued $3.7 billion in notes to investors last year despite facing several operational hurdles due to adverse weather conditions.

For the year 2023, Hydro-Québec reported a net income of $3.3 billion, marking a 28% decrease from the previous year's record of $4.56 billion. Factors such as insufficient snow cover, reduced spring runoff, and higher temperatures resulted in lower water levels in reservoirs, leading to a reduction in power exports and a $547-million decrease in external market sales compared to the previous year.

The utility experienced its lowest export volume in a decade but managed to leverage hedging strategies to secure 10.3 cents per kWh for exported power to markets including New Brunswick via recent NB Power agreements that expand interprovincial deliveries, nearly twice the average market rate, through forward contracts that cover up to half of its export volume for about a year in advance.

The success of Sabia's plan will partly depend on the cooperation of First Nations communities, as the proposed infrastructure developments are likely to traverse their ancestral territories. Relationships with some communities are currently tense, exemplified by the Innu of Labrador's $4-billion lawsuit against Hydro-Québec for damages related to land flooding for reservoir construction, and broader regional tensions in Newfoundland and Labrador that persist in the power sector.

Sabia has committed to involving First Nations and Inuit communities as partners in clean energy ventures, offering them ongoing financial benefits rather than one-off settlements, a principle he refers to as "economic reconciliation."

Recently, the Quebec government reached an agreement with the Innu of Pessamit, pledging $45 million to support local community development. This agreement outlines solutions for managing a nearby hydropower reservoir, such as the La Romaine complex in the region, and includes commitments for wind energy development.

Sabia is optimistic about building stronger, more positive relationships with various Indigenous communities, anticipating significant progress in the coming months and viewing this year as a potential milestone in transforming these relationships for the better.

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Hydro-QuE9bec Class-Action Lawsuit alleges overbilling and monopoly abuse, citing RE9gie de l'E9nergie rate increases, Quebec Superior Court filings, and calls for refunds on 2008-2013 electricity bills to residential and business customers.

Key Points

Quebec class action alleging Hydro-QuE9bec overbilled customers in 2008-2013, seeking court-ordered refunds.

✅ Filed in Quebec Superior Court; certification pending.

✅ Alleges up to $1.2B in overcharges from 2008-2013.

✅ Questions RE9gie de l'E9nergie rate approvals and data.

A group representing Hydro-Québec customers has filed a motion for a class-action lawsuit against the public utility, alleging it overcharged customers over a five-year period.

Freddy Molima, one of the representatives of the Coalition Peuple allumé, accuses Hydro-Québec of "abusing its monopoly."

The motion, which was filed in Quebec Superior Court, claims Hydro-Québec customers paid more than they should have for electricity between 2008 and 2013, to the tune of nearly $1.2 billion, even as Hydro-Québec later refunded $535 million to customers in a separate case. 

The coalition has so far recruited nearly 40,000 participants online as part of its plan to sue the public utility.

A lawyer representing the group said Quebec's energy board, the Régie de l'énergie, also recently approved Hydro-Québec rate increases for residential and business customers without knowing all the facts, even as Manitoba Hydro hikes face opposition in regulatory hearings.

"There's certain information provided to the Régie that isn't true," said Bryan Furlong. "Hydro-Québec has not been providing the Régie the proper numbers."

In its motion, the group asks that overcharged clients be retroactively reimbursed.

Hydro-Québec denies allegations

Hydro-Québec, for its part, denies it ever overbilled any of its clients, while other utilities such as Hydro One plan to redesign bills to improve clarity.

"All our efficiencies have been returned to the government through our profits, and to Quebecers we have billed exactly what we agreed to bill," said spokesperson Serge Abergel, adding that the utility won't seek a rate hike next year according to its current plans.

Quebec Energy Minister Pierre Moreau also came to the public utility's defence, saying it has no choice but to comply with the  energy board's regulations, while customer protections are in focus as Hydro One moves to reconnect 1,400 customers in Ontario.

The group says the public utility has overbilled clients by up to $1.2 billion. (Radio-Canada)

It would be "shocking" if customers were charged too much money, he added.

"I know for a fact that Hydro-Québec is respecting the decision of this body," he said.

While the motion has been filed, the group cannot say how much each customer would receive if the class-action lawsuit goes ahead because it all depends on how much electricity was consumed by each client over that five-year period.

The coalition plans to present its motion to a judge next February.

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Ontario Utility Scam Alert: protect against phishing, spoofed calls, texts, and emails, disconnection threats, and demands for prepaid cards or bitcoin. Tips from Alectra, Elexicon, Hydro One, Hydro Ottawa, and Toronto Hydro.

Key Points

A joint warning by Ontario utilities on tactics and steps to prevent customer fraud, phishing, and spoofed contacts.

✅ Verify bills; call your utility using the official number.

✅ Ignore links; do not accept unexpected e-transfers.

✅ Never pay with gift cards, prepaid cards, or bitcoin.

Five of Ontario's largest utilities have joined forces to raise awareness about ongoing sophisticated utility scams targeting utility customers.

Some common tactics fraudsters use to target Ontarians include impersonation of the local utility or its employees; sending threatening phone calls, texts and emails; or showing up in-person at a customer's home or business and requesting personal information or payment. The requests can include pressure for immediate payment, threats to disconnect service the same day, and demands to purchase prepaid debit cards, gift cards or bitcoin.

The utilities are encouraging all customers to protect themselves and are providing them with the following tips to stay safe, noting that customers want more choice and flexibility in how they manage accounts:

• Never make a payment for a charge that isn't listed on your most recent bill
• Ignore text messages or emails with suspicious links promising refunds
• Don't call the number provided to you — instead, call your utility directly to check the status of your account
• Only provide personal information or details about your account when you have initiated the contact with the utility representative  
• Utility companies will never threaten immediate disconnection for non-payment, and many offer relief programs during hardship
• If you feel threatened in any way, contact your local police
• Steps you can take to protect yourself against fraud:

Take five minutes to ask additional questions and listen to your instincts — if something doesn't seem right, ask someone about it, and look for news of official utility support efforts that confirm legitimate outreach

• Immediately hang up on suspicious phone calls
• Don't click any links in emails/text messages asking you to accept electronic transfers
• Avoid sharing personal information
• Always compare bills to previous ones, including the dollar amount and account number, and stay informed about any official rate changes from your utility
• Reporting suspicious behaviour, including suspected electricity theft, helps authorities

If you believe you may be a victim of fraud, please contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 and your local utility.

Customers can find more information at:

• Alectra Utilities
• Elexicon Energy
• Hydro One
• Hydro Ottawa 
• Toronto Hydro

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EV Subsidies in Canada influence greenhouse-gas emissions based on electricity grid mix; in Ontario and Quebec they reduce pollution, while fossil-fuel grids blunt benefits. Compare costs per tonne with carbon tax and renewable energy policies.

Key Points

Government rebates for electric vehicles, whose emissions impact and cost-effectiveness depend on provincial grid mix.

✅ Impact varies by grid emissions; clean hydro-nuclear cuts CO2.

✅ MEI estimates up to $523 per tonne vs $50 carbon price.

✅ Best value: tax carbon; target renewables, efficiency, hybrids.

Bad ideas sometimes look better, and sell better, than good ones – as with the proclaimed electric-car revolution that policymakers tout today. Not always, or else Canada wouldn’t be the mostly well-run place that it is. But sometimes politicians embrace a less-than-best policy – because its attractive appearance may make it more likely to win the popularity contest, right now, even though it will fail in the long run.

The most seasoned political advisers know it. Pollsters too. Voters, in contrast, don’t know what they don’t know, which is why bad policy often triumphs. At first glance, the wrong sometimes looks like it must be right, while better and best give the appearance of being bad and worst.

This week, the Montreal Economic Institute put out a study on the costs and benefits of taxpayer subsidies for electric cars. They considered the logic of the huge amounts of money being offered to purchasers in the country’s two largest provinces. In Quebec, if you buy an electric vehicle, the government will give you up to $8,000; in Ontario, buying an electric car or truck entitles you to a cheque from the taxpayer of between $6,000 and $14,000. The subsidies are rich because the cars aren’t cheap.

Will putting more electric cars on the road lower greenhouse-gas emissions? Yes – in some provinces, where they can be better for the planet when the grid is clean. But it all depends on how a province generates electricity. In places like Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and Nunavut territory, where most electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, an electric car may actually generate more greenhouse gases than one running on traditional gasoline. The tailpipe of an electric vehicle may not have any emissions. But quite a lot of emissions may have been generated to produce the power that went to the socket that charged it.

A few years ago, University of Toronto engineering professor Christopher Kennedy estimated that electric cars are only less polluting than the gasoline vehicles they replace when the local electrical grid produces a good chunk of its power from renewable sources – thereby lowering emissions to less than roughly 600 tonnes of CO2 per gigawatt hour.

Unfortunately, the electricity-generating systems in lots of places – from India to China to many American states – are well above that threshold. In those jurisdictions, an electric car will be powered in whole or in large part by electricity created from the burning of a fossil fuel, such as coal. As a result, that car, though carrying the green monicker of “electric,” is likely to be more polluting than a less costly model with an internal combustion or hybrid engine.

The same goes for the Canadian juridictions mentioned above. Their electricity is dirtier, so operating an electric car there won’t be very green. Alberta, for example, is aiming to generate 30 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 – which means that the other 70 per cent of its electricity will still come from fossil fuels. (Today, the figure is even higher.) An Albertan trading in a gasoline car for an electric vehicle is making a statement – just not the one he or she likely has in mind.

In Ontario and Quebec, however, most electricity is generated from non-polluting sources, even though Canada still produced 18% from fossil fuels in 2019 overall. Nearly all of Quebec’s power comes from hydro, and more than 90 per cent of Ontario’s electricity is from zero-emission generation, mainly hydro and nuclear. British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador also produce the bulk of their electricity from hydro. Electric cars in those provinces, powered as they are by mostly clean electricity, should reduce emissions, relative to gas-powered cars.

But here’s the rub: Electric cars are currently expensive, and, as a recent survey shows, consequently not all that popular. Ontario and Quebec introduced those big subsidies in an attempt to get people to buy them. Those subsidies will surely put more electric cars on the road and in the driveways of (mostly wealthy) people. It will be a very visible policy – hey, look at all those electrics on the highway and at the mall!

However, that result will be achieved at great cost. According to the MEI, for Ontario to reach its goal of electrics constituting 5 per cent of new vehicles sold, the province will have to dish out up to $8.6-billion in subsidies over the next 13 years.

And the environmental benefits achieved? Again, according to the MEI estimate, that huge sum will lower the province’s greenhouse-gas emissions by just 2.4 per cent. If the MEI’s estimate is right, that’s far too many bucks for far too small an environmental bang.

Here’s another way to look at it: How much does it cost to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by other means? Well, B.C.’s current carbon tax is $30 a tonne, or a little less than 7 cents on a litre of gasoline. It has caused GHG emissions per unit of GDP to fall in small but meaningful ways, thanks to consumers and businesses making millions of little, unspectacular decisions to reduce their energy costs. The federal government wants all provinces to impose a cost equivalent to $50 a tonne – and every economic model says that extra cost will make a dent in greenhouse-gas emissions, though in ways that will not involve politicians getting to cut any ribbons or hold parades.

What’s the effective cost of Ontario’s subsidy for electric cars? The MEI pegs it at $523 per tonne. Yes, that subsidy will lower emissions. It just does so in what appears to be the most expensive and inefficient way possible, rather than the cheapest way, namely a simple, boring and mildly painful carbon tax.

Electric vehicles are an amazing technology. But they’ve also become a way of expressing something that’s come to be known as “virtue signalling.” A government that wants to look green sees logic in throwing money at such an obvious, on-brand symbol, or touting a 2035 EV mandate as evidence of ambition. But the result is an off-target policy – and a signal that is mostly noise.

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Jay Grewal Manitoba Hydro Appointment marks the first woman CEO at the Crown utility, amid debt, rate increase plans, privatization debate, and Metis legal challenge, following board turmoil and Premier Pallister's strained relations.

Key Points

The selection of Jay Grewal as Manitoba Hydro's first woman CEO amid debt, rate hikes, and legal disputes.

✅ First woman CEO of Manitoba Hydro

✅ Faces debt, rate hikes, and project overruns

✅ Amid privatization debate and Metis legal action

The Manitoba government has appointed a new president and chief executive officer at its Crown-owned energy utility.

Jay Grewal becomes the first woman to head Manitoba Hydro, and takes over the top spot as the utility faces mounting financial challenges, rising electricity demand and turmoil.

Grewal has previously held senior roles at Capstone Mining Corp and B.C. Hydro, and is currently president of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation.

She will replace outgoing president Kelvin Shepherd, who recently announced he is retiring, on Feb. 4.

The utility was hit by the sudden resignations of nine of its 10 board members in March, who said they had been unable to meet with Premier Brian Pallister to discuss pressing issues like servicing energy-intensive customers facing the utility.

Manitoba Hydro is also in the middle of a battle between the Progressive Conservative government and the Manitoba Metis Federation over the cancellation of two agreements that would have given the Metis $87 million.

The federation has launched a legal challenge over one deal and says its likely going to do the same over the second agreement.

Grewal also takes over the utility at a time when it has racked up billions of dollars in debt building new generating stations and transmission lines. Manitoba Hydro has told the provincial regulatory agency it needs rate increases of nearly eight per cent a year for the next few years to help pay for the projects.

The utility also exports electricity, with deals such as SaskPower's purchase agreement expanding sales to Saskatchewan.

"Ms. Grewal is a proven leader, with extensive senior leadership experience in the utility, resource and consulting sectors," Crown Services Minister Colleen Mayer said in a written statement Thursday.

The Opposition New Democrats said Grewal's appointment is a sign the government wants to privatize Manitoba Hydro. Grewal's time at B.C. Hydro coincided with the privatization of some parts of that Crown utility, the NDP said.

The B.C. premier at the time, Gordon Campbell, was recently hired by Manitoba to review two major projects that ran over-budget and have added to the provincial debt.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew asked Pallister in the legislature Thursday to promise not to privatize Manitoba Hydro. Pallister would only point to a law that requires a referendum to be held before a Crown entity can be sold off.

"We stand by that (law)," Pallister said. "We believe Manitobans are the proper decision-makers in respect of any of the future structuring of Manitoba Hydro."

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PG&E Wildfire Assistance Program offers court-approved aid and emergency grants for Northern California wildfires and Camp Fire victims, covering unmet needs, housing, and essentials; apply online by November 15, 2019 under Chapter 11-funded eligibility.

Key Points

A $105M, court-approved aid fund offering unmet-needs payments and emergency support for 2017-2018 wildfire victims.

✅ $5,000 Basic Unmet Needs per household, self-certified

✅ Supplemental aid for extreme circumstances after basic grants

✅ Apply online; deadline November 15, 2019; identity required

Beginning today, August 15, 2019, those displaced by the 2017 Northern California wildfires and 2018 Camp fire can apply for aid through an independently administered Wildfire Assistance Program funded by Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). PG&E’s $105 million fund, approved by the judge in PG&E’s Chapter 11 cases and related bankruptcy plan, is intended to help those who are either uninsured or need assistance with alternative living expenses or other urgent needs. The court-approved independent administrator is set to file the eligibility criteria as required by the court and will open the application process.

“Our goal is to get the money to those who most need it as quickly as possible. We will prioritize wildfire victims who have urgent needs, including those who are currently without adequate shelter,” said Cathy Yanni, plan administrator. Yanni is partnering with local agencies and community organizations to administer the fund, and PG&E also supports local communities through property tax contributions to counties.

“We appreciate the diligent work of the fund administrator in quickly establishing a way to distribute these funds and ensuring the program supports those with the most immediate needs. PG&E is focused on helping those impacted by the devastating wildfires in recent years and strengthening our energy system to reduce wildfire risks and prevent utility-caused catastrophic fires. We feel strongly that helping these communities now is the right thing to do,” said Bill Johnson, CEO and President of PG&E Corporation.

Applicants can request a “Basic Unmet Needs” payment of $5,000 per household for victims who establish basic eligibility requirements and self-certify that they have at least $5,000 of unmet needs that have not been compensated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Payments are to support needs such as water, food, prescriptions, medical supplies and equipment, infant formula and diapers, personal hygiene items, and transportation fuels beyond what FEMA covered in the days immediately following the declared disasters, aligning with broader health and safety actions the company has taken.

Those who receive basic payments may also qualify for a “Supplemental Unmet Needs” payment. These funds will be available only after “Basic Unmet Needs” payments have been issued. Supplemental payments will be available to individuals and families who currently face extreme or extraordinary circumstances as compared to others who were impacted by the 2017 and 2018 wildfires, including areas affected by power line-related fires across California.

To qualify for the payments, applicants’ primary residence must have been within the boundary of the 2017 Northern California wildfires or the 2018 Camp fire in Butte County. Applicants also must establish proof of identity and certify that they are not requesting payments for an expense already paid for by FEMA.

Applicants can find more information and apply for assistance at https://www.norcalwildfireassistanceprogram.com/. The deadline to file for aid is November 15, 2019.

The $105 million being provided by PG&E was made available from the company’s cash reserves. PG&E will not seek cost recovery from its customers, and its rates are set to stabilize in 2025 according to recent guidance.

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