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Hydro-Québec has released a report suggesting it may need to import electricity from neighbouring provinces or the United States within the next three years.
The state-owned utility's new supply plan for 2027 to 2041 projects an "extremely high" increase in the demand for energy in the coming years.
The utility expects this demand could cause it to face energy deficits as early as 2029.
"We need the new generation assets to come online, because if we're not able to build new generation capacity, demand will rise and production won't keep up. And that's when we'll run into a problem," said Dave Rhéaume, the company's executive vice president in charge of energy strategy, in an interview.
Energy analyst Jean-François Blain pointed out that, in 2025, Hydro-Québec released a report in which it predicted it would sell 227.5 terawatt-hours of energy to its clients by 2035. In the report released Tuesday, that number has been lowered to 212.2 terawatt-hours.
Blain does expect Hydro-Québec to face a deficit and turn to importing, but he blames this on low water levels in their reservoirs. Hydro-Québec lost 108 terawatt-hours in energy production because of low water levels between 2023 and 2025, according to Tuesday’s report.
This situation is exacerbated by climate change and increases in droughts and torrential rains, said Blain. He added that urgent reflection is needed to ensure Hydro-Québec understands and meets these new dynamics.
“If the hydrological situation does not recover — and recover quite drastically — within six months to a year, we won’t even need to wait until 2029 to be in serious trouble. We could find ourselves in serious trouble as early as the spring of 2027,” said Blain.
Source: Wikipedia