2023-12-06 00:33:05
The question of burying electrical wires in Quebec comes up almost every year at the time of the first snow, but how much would it really cost? All kinds of estimates suggest different sums, but one thing is certain: this project might be worth tens of billions of dollars.
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“The dream of many Montrealers is to see the electrical wires that weave their web above their street disappear. And above all, to eliminate the poles which support these wires”: this is what was written in an article in a Quebec daily newspaper on June 26, 1988, a sign that this question is not new.
The Léger firm asked Quebecers earlier this year: do you agree or not that Hydro-Québec invests tens of billions to bury electrical wires? A majority (61%) said “yes,” while 26% of respondents disagreed and 13% didn’t know.
The former president and CEO of Hydro-Québec, now president and CEO of Bombardier, Éric Martel, estimated in 2019 that this project would cost $100 billion to bury all the wires. A figure to which the Prime Minister, François Legault, also referred a few months ago in a press conference in Quebec.
How to pay for this project?
In order to plan for this expense, the idea of creating an investment fund was also mentioned. Another question in this same Léger survey asked Quebecers: would you be ready to pay 5% more on your electricity bill so that Hydro-Québec invests in its electricity network?
Unlike the previous question, 70% are once morest an increase in their electricity bill and only 30% were for it.
The problems with burying power lines are not limited to cost, but also maintenance. Mr. Martel mentioned in 2019 that the wires age more quickly once buried, so they require more repair. Also, outages are more difficult to detect when the lines are underground. Finally, this decision does not rest with Hydro-Québec, but rather with the cities and the government.
In fact, certain cities have initiated this process of burying power lines and they have already been able to benefit from the advantages linked to this decision. The City of Lorraine was spared power outages during the ice storm that hit Quebec last April.
In the last two years, Quebec has experienced three major episodes of power outages. One which affected 500,000 Hydro-Québec customers due to the derecho weather phenomenon on May 21, 2022. A snowstorm deprived 640,000 users of electricity on December 23, 2022. Finally, this episode of ice on December 6 April 2023 had cut off electricity to 1,000,000 Quebecers.
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