Without a real big boss at Hydro, we sail blindly

Sophie Brochu officially left her position as CEO of Hydro-Québec this week. And three months following the announcement of his departure, the government of François Legault has not yet found the key person who will replace Ms. Brochu at the head of the most important Quebec state company.

I have nothing once morest Pierre Despars, Executive Vice-President, Strategies and Development of Hydro, whom François Legault has just named as interim CEO of Hydro-Québec. However, this temporary appointment does not make him the big boss who will be called upon to re-energize the state-owned company for the future, while solving problems as down-to-earth as the great vulnerability of the network. ‘Hydro-Québec facing the ice.

In the absence of a CEO well anchored in his role as big boss of Hydro, we were treated during the freezing electricity crisis to the improvised reactions of Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon, to whom François Legault entrusted the mandate to put Hydro-Québec in his hands. .

No better than 1998

That said, twenty-five years following the ice storm of the century that paralyzed a large part of the Hydro-Québec network in 1998, we are still just as vulnerable to the cursed ice storm.

During last week’s ice storm, it was not the collapse of pylons that caused major trouble in several regions of Quebec, but rather the breaking of icy trees.

It was indeed the breaking of icy trees that generated the countless power outages, following falling on the electric wires. At the worst of the crisis, no less than 1.1 million homes were in the dark and, for the vast majority of them, without heating.

If a large portion of Hydro-Québec’s wires had been buried, countless power outages would obviously have been avoided.

The question that arises: why, during the 25 years that followed the storm of the century, did Hydro-Québec not do so? The simplistic answer we were given: the generalized burial of the wires of the Hydro network, it costs too much!

And we can’t count on the new minister responsible for Hydro-Québec, the super minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, to change course and invest in burying the wires.

Fitz says no to landfill

According to Fitzgibbon, the new “strong man” of Hydro-Quebec, “Buying the electrical wires is not the solution,” he said. Ah good ! I’m sorry, Mr. Fitzgibbon, but by what expertise can you say that this is not the solution to solving power outages due to ice storms?

As far as I know, being “crowned” with the hat of Minister responsible for Energy does not make Pierre Fitzgibbon an expert in electricity distribution.

That Minister Fitzgibbon say that the option of burying the wires is a very expensive option. No problem.

“Are we going to put $100 billion for global landfilling in Quebec? The answer is no. It would not be reasonable because Hydro-Quebec already has $90 billion on its balance sheet. The number of assets should be doubled,” said Minister Fitzgibbon.

He told Paul Arcand’s show (98.5 FM) that burying the wires cost $3 million per kilometer compared to $100,000 per kilometer of overhead wire.

But if the minister tells us that burying the wires “is not the solution”, then I would invite him to keep a little embarrassment.

The reply of an expert

In interview at The Press, Normand Mousseau, professor of physics and scientific director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said that Minister Fitzgibbon’s figure of 100 billion “represents nothing” because “no one is defending” this idea. “What would be desirable are targeted burials,” he says. For example, in the city or in the suburbs, in dense neighborhoods, we might do it. It costs a bit more, but it would give us a stronger network because blackouts in those places affect a lot more people than in the countryside. »

Priority to pruning

Moreover, if it was the breaking of icy trees that caused the bulk of the power outages last week, what is Hydro-Quebec waiting for to invest massively in the pruning of trees and thus make up for the delays in this matter.

Cut them, the branches that trail on the wires.

Saving pennies in pruning trees is ridiculous from the most prosperous of crown corporations.