2023-12-14 00:30:00
Hydro-Québec puts obstacles in the way of those who want to optimally reduce their consumption during extreme cold without subscribing to Hilo.
• Read also: He saves up to $1,000 per winter by ‘abusing’ Hydro’s algorithm
• Read also: Hydro struggles to convince its customers to reduce heating during extreme cold
“Clearly, Hydro’s priority is not to allow people to improve their energy consumption habits, but rather to favor its business partners,” denounces Carl de Billy, a software architect who automated “ to death” his residence to reduce its electricity consumption as much as possible during the intense cold of winter.
Thus, during “peak events” announced by Hydro-Québec, he lowers his heating significantly, turns off his water heater, stops charging his electric car and refrains from using his major appliances. Hydro rewards him for his efforts through dynamic pricing (winter credit or Flex rate). The same principle applies to subscribers to Hydro-Québec’s Hilo home automation service.
Mr. de Billy must, however, manually enter the start and end time of the winter peaks into his home automation system. For what? Because Hydro-Québec refuses to make this information available on its open data website. If this information were easily accessible, home automation systems might use it to automatically adjust heating and appliances during peak periods.
It’s different for Hilo subscribers and customers who have thermostats designed by the Quebec company Sinopé. Hydro sends peak event signals to Hilo and Sinopé devices that allow them to adjust automatically, without human intervention.
To have direct access to the signals, “I have to subscribe to Hilo to have a system that is less efficient than mine,” laments Carl de Billy.
Patents are getting organized
Enthusiasts have developed various homemade software, which is notably available free of charge on the hydroqc.ca site, in order to retrieve announcements of peak events that Hydro-Québec publishes in its customer portal. The problem is that the state corporation regularly makes changes to its website, without notice. The authors of the software must then “debug” it.
“We have been taking steps for several years [pour que les signaux de pointe soient facilement accessibles]. We have people internally, at Hydro, who pushed this project, but it is being blocked. It’s not something that would be complicated to set up, it just takes a minimum of will to do it,” says Mathieu Dallaire, one of the managers of hydroqc.ca.
Mathieu Dallaire Courtesy photo
“This is an option that we are evaluating, but which requires prior technological development,” replies Cendrix Bouchard, spokesperson for Hydro-Québec.
Companies also affected
Hydro’s reluctance in this matter also harms companies that have automated energy systems.
“We have nearly 200 customers whose daily electricity consumption we monitor to ensure that their energy profiles become and remain optimized,” relates Jean-Michel Carter of the specialized firm HD Energy.
“I am not denigrating Hilo,” insists Mr. Dallaire. It’s perfect for someone who isn’t too techy and wants to start doing this. What’s sad is that it’s not more open to people who have existing systems. We want to make our effort to reduce our consumption, well give yourself the tools to make our task easier.”
Do you have any information to share with us regarding this story?
Write to us at or call us directly at 1 800-63SCOOP.
1702514286
#Hydro #complicates #lives #Quebecers #reduce #consumption #Hilo
