2023-11-30 05:00:00
Even by offering them money, Hydro-Québec has great difficulty convincing its customers to reduce their consumption during extreme cold.
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Last year, Hydro sent emails to nearly 2.1 million residential customers to encourage them to sign up for its “dynamic pricing” offers. Barely 62,500 of them agreed to do so, which represents a meager membership rate of 3%.
By adding customers who were already registered, approximately 228,000 households participated in dynamic pricing last winter, or a little more than 5.4% of the approximately 4.2 million residential customers in Quebec.
Dynamic pricing allows customers to receive discounts when they reduce their consumption during morning and evening peak periods linked to extreme cold.
Last year, the average annual savings reached $27 per customer for the “winter credit” program (without the risk of seeing their bill increase in the event of non-participation) and $114 per customer for the “Flex” program ( which may lead to an increase in the bill in the event of non-participation).
“In Quebec, it’s still quite new to ask people to pay attention to their consumption during winter peak periods,” says Sabrina Harbec, one of those responsible for dynamic pricing at Hydro-Québec, to explain the difficulty recruiting participants.
Not automatic
Jean-Pierre Finet, spokesperson for the Regroupement des organisms Environnemental en Énergie, believes that Hydro should offer its winter discounts to all of its customers.
Jean-Pierre Finet Photo taken from LinkedIn
“Since there is no risk, why don’t we automatically enroll all Hydro customers in the winter credit program? he asks. We all have smart meters, so Hydro-Québec is able to know who contributed and when. There are people who might receive an amount from Hydro if they were registered in the program but who receive nothing for their efforts because they did not send their email address to register.
It must be said that at Hydro’s request, tens of thousands of customers voluntarily reduce their consumption during extreme cold. According to some estimates, more than 300 megawatts per peak event are saved.
Last winter, dynamic pricing allowed Hydro-Québec to obtain a reduction of 206 megawatts (MW) per peak, on average. For their part, the approximately 20,000 subscribers to Hilo’s home automation services reduced their consumption by 63 MW per peak.
Inequitable?
For independent energy analyst Jean-François Blain, dynamic pricing is rather unfair on a socio-economic level, because it is the better off who are most likely to benefit from it.
“There are probably around 40% of households who do not even have the luxury of being able to participate” because their homes are insufficiently insulated, estimates Mr. Blain.
This winter, Hydro hopes that 300,000 Quebec households will participate in dynamic pricing.
“It’s really a big step,” says Ms. Harbec, who recognizes that it will be “a little more difficult” to reach the objective this year.
To put all the chances on its side, the state-owned company launched, last month, campaign which features a song by Louis-Jean Cormier, Everyone at the same time.
Remember that the CEO of Hydro-Québec, Michael Sabia, will appear today before the elected representatives of the National Assembly to defend his 2035 action plan, which focuses heavily on energy efficiency.
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