Visiting the hydro dams
Metro went and visited the two hydroelectric installations closest to town – Beauharnois and Rivière‑des‑Prairies. The back river dam only generates 54MW. On the other hand, Beauharnois is the longest dam in North America, doing 1912MW. But both are dwarfed by the massive dams in the north and at Churchill Falls.
Nicolas Monet mentions in passing that the Montreal area has three hydro dams, but doesn’t say what the third one is. Going by this list it must be Les Cèdres (113MW).
David 07:40 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
Perhaps he was referring to the Des Cultures Wind Farm in Saint-Rémi and Saint-Michel.
Kate 10:38 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
He wrote “le Grand Montréal compte trois centrales hydroélectriques” which wouldn’t include wind farms, I think.
Orr 10:50 on 2023-07-17 Permalink
There are free public tours of many Hydro-Québec installations across Quebec.
We’ve done the tour of the Hydro-Quebec Beauharnois dam and one of the Manic dams (Manic-2 not the big one Manic-5)
We also visited the Electrium in Varennes, Hydro-Quebec’s electricity museum. It had an impressive maquette of all the different ways electricity can kill you around the home.
I just learned there is a “Bureau d’accueil” to visit at the HQ head office downtown too.
https://www.hydroquebec.com/visites-installations/visites-grand-public/