I felt a slight presage of doom at recent news items saying Pierre Fitzgibbon – wearing his energy minister hat – was displeased at how we use electricity and begging us to stop. Now I can see why: at this weekend’s CAQ conference, François Legault is talking about rethinking residential rates and you can bet your last kilowatt this won’t be in the direction of giving the consumer a break. Legault is talking about sobriété énergétique, while he schemes to sell more Quebec electricity to Americans.
I’m not a big fan of the Journal’s editorial cartoonist Ygreck, but I did have to laugh at this one.
Have to add two recent CAQ stories: Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette appoints a friend to be a judge and finance minister Eric Girard appoints a friend to the Loto-Quebec board. Wondering whether the CAQ is feeling a cool breeze, and handing out lagniappes to cronies while they can.
denpanosekai 08:47 on 2023-05-14 Permalink
Quick question about the caricature. I typically start my dishwasher around midnight thanks to the delay feature. It’s mainly so we don’t hear the noise while we listen to low-volume TV while the kids are asleep. Does it really make a difference on the overall energy consumption? I’m going to start the dishwasher that day either way, I’m just postponing off “peak hours” because of personal reasons. I’m not getting any better rates on my end.
Kate 09:05 on 2023-05-14 Permalink
Hydro has a winter program that rewards customers for limiting their power usage during certain periods on the coldest days. They send out an email a day in advance and if you cut your usage – mostly heating and anything with a motor in it – you get a rebate at the end of the season.
(Most often it’s 6 to 9 am and sometimes 4 to 8 pm. But the catch is that your reduction is rated against what you normally use, so if you’re already turning the heat down overnight and you don’t get up early, your 6 to 9 am rebate won’t add up to much. )
So I assume it offers some benefit to the grid not to draw power when everyone else is getting ready for work, or coming home and doing household chores and cooking dinner. I don’t think they’d be pushing this if it didn’t.
jeather 10:04 on 2023-05-14 Permalink
I don’t use that system — I use about 600/year, it’s not worth it — but I have friends who do and they save quite a lot with that system. But that’s the difference between solo in a condo and a family of four in a semi-detached.
Kate 19:30 on 2023-05-14 Permalink
I just checked the website and I saved slightly less than $20 last winter, which doesn’t really make up for the discomfort and inconvenience. In previous winters I’ve saved quite a lot more.
Nicholas 11:54 on 2023-05-15 Permalink
There are two winter systems. One, the winter credit system you describe, gives you a credit for reducing power during peak demand compared to your “normal” amount. The other, Flex D, lowers your rate all winter long by about 30%, but increases it about 600% during those peak periods (the times you mention, up to 100 hours a year; it was around 50 this winter). So with the second system you could pay more if you don’t reduce consumption during peak, but could save a fair bit, maybe 20-25%, during the winter.
The advantage of this is reducing costs to build extra transmission and generation capacity. Winter peaks draw the most power to the system, which means building extra power plants and lines for just a few dozen hours a year, or buying power from neighbouring states or provinces at very high rates (when they also have peak demand). Also, when buying from neighbouring states, this is often natural gas or even coal power, and besides the carbon emissions, that pollution will also sometimes drift towards us..
Second, it’s good for us to reduce our power, so we can sell more elsewhere. This reduces the amount of carbon burned in New England and New York, and it also makes more money (since Quebec rates are much lower than US rates, especially in winter), and those profits go to the Quebec state. If Hydro-Quebec wasn’t a crown corporation, then you could argue this is gouging and profits, but the profits go to us. Raising rates will incentivize us to reduce usage (it does work), and all the profit goes back to us (plus extra profit selling to the US). We could then use that money to help lower-income people dealing with higher rates (from the money they pay in extra rates, but also the money from higher-income people). (Not saying the CAQ will do that, but they, or a future government, could.) And this would eliminate the hurt of higher rates, but since the cash could be paid regardless of consumption (say, raising the solidarity tax credit), people would still have an incentive to economize. (There is the issue of landlords not wanting to invest in efficiency when tenants pay the rent, but this could be fixed by making all energy use in rentals be paid 50/50 by the landlord and tenant, so the former has an incentive to retrofit to increase energy efficiency and the latter has an incentive to use less energy.)
I do worry these changes may be done in a way that will hurt vulnerable people, but it doesn’t have to, and if done right it’s good for the planet and good for Quebec (our) finances.