Hydro-Québec
has more electricity than residents of that province can use. It built
four new large dams over the last 11 years, leaving it with an
unexpected supply of excess electricity it must sell to avoid the dams
becoming white elephants.
"We have both new supply of
electricity, and the demand in Quebec for the last 10 years mostly
remained stable," says Pierre-Olivier Pineau, the research chair in
energy sector management at HEC Montreal, a graduate-level business
university.
"There's a lot of water in Hydro-Québec's reservoirs."
Going to America?
New
Brunswick represents a convenient nearby buyer for that cheap, clean
electricity, but also a potential path to even larger, more lucrative
markets.
NB Power has two transmission connections to Maine it
already uses to sell power into New England, and there's enough room on
those lines to carry more electricity, from here or from Quebec, than is
being exported now.
For
Jack Keir, the former Liberal energy minister who promoted the 2009
sale agreement to a reluctant public, the same logic underlying that
deal is driving the new negotiations.
"I believed in 2009 when
we started looking at it, as I do today, [that] it's the right thing to
do that we get our electricity as cheaply as we can, and that New
Brunswick is located in the perfect spot to feed all of Atlantic Canada
and the northeastern United States," he said.
Jack Keir, the former Liberal energy minister, said he sees
the same logic in this deal as was in a 2009 failed deal to sell NB
Power outright to Hydro-Québec.
High supply, stagnant demand
Three of the massive dams have gone into service in the past five years. A fourth begins operating next year.
They
were approved when energy prices were high and demand within Quebec was
expected to grow. But prices are down and demand in the province has
flatlined.
"We've plateaued," Martel told the Financial Post in 2018. "This is putting a lot of pressure on our financials."
The solution: more exports.
"At
this point Hydro-Québec is pursuing export projects in all directions,
to Ontario, to New York, to New England and all the Atlantic provinces,"
Pineau said.
Defending dead deals
But Keir believes the strategic ambition that drove Hydro-Québec's attempt to buy NB Power 10 years ago is at work again now.
"We're a straight line for them down to New England," Keir said.
Keir
still defends that sale agreement, arguing New Brunswick would have
acquired more benefits from it than what's on the table now: the
elimination of $5 billion in NB Power debt; the cost of refurbishing
Mactaquac taken on by Hydro-Québec, and power rates reduced for industry
and frozen for residents.
That wasn't enough to win over New Brunswickers, who mostly opposed the sale.
At
this point Hydro-Québec is pursuing export projects in all directions,
to Ontario, to New York, to New England and all the Atlantic provinces.
- Pierre-Olivier Pineau
This time, Hydro-Québec's incursion hasn't stirred nearly the same emotions.
"Because
we've already been through this once, it's somewhat less shocking the
second time, and frankly, let's be honest here: they're not selling
anything, so folks aren't as passionate," Keir said.
"Back then
folks really believed we were giving up our sovereignty and a huge asset
that we had. It was very difficult to convince folks otherwise. Now
that's not even an argument coming into play here."
There have been other major shifts since a decade ago, the largest being climate change emerging as a major policy priority.
The green dimension
Ottawa
has new regulations to limit carbon emissions and "we have to comply,"
said Louise Comeau, director of the Environment and Sustainable
Development Research Centre at the University of New Brunswick.
The
Quebec-New Brunswick deal could be a forerunner of a broader plan to
integrate five provincial grids, allowing hydro dams in Quebec and
Labrador to displace coal and fuel oil as a source of electricity
generation, she said.
"Why don't we work together on a plan, a
complete plan to serve 100 per cent of clean energy to all our
provinces?" Quebec Premier Francois Legault said last week.
While
New Brunswick is looking to sign an equivalency agreement with Ottawa
that would allow NB Power's Belledune power plant to continue using some
coal past a 2030 federal phase-out, Premier Blaine Higgs raised the
possibility the plant could close.
Keir said the discussion about Belledune is more muted than it was in 2009, a sign of climate change becoming a bigger concern.
Questions remain
There are still major questions about all the potential integration.
Keir points out Quebec would have to bid to use any new transmission line capacity in New Brunswick.
"It can't just be given to Quebec unless they change that legislation."
Jacques
Poitras has been CBC's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick
since 2000. Raised in Moncton, he also produces the CBC political
podcast Spin Reduxit.
Reply to @David
Raymond Amos: Methinks some of Minister Mikey's minions must recall the
NB-NBSO-NERC MOU that Jacky Boy Keir signed On Oct 3rd, 2008 if not not
the EUB and Neil Jacobsen now working for Atlantica certainly should
N'esy Pas?
David
Peters
Reply to @Jacques poirier:
...but, Mactaquac Dam is failing because of concrete that came from Quebec.
Kyle Woodman
Reply to @David Peters: That's not true in the least.
David
Peters
Reply to @Kyle Woodman:
Mactaquac dam was made from the same concrete as Olympic Stadium...and
it failed in exactly the same way...or is history being re-written?
David Raymond Amos
Reply to @David
Peters: Not the same concrete unless they trucked a mountain of our
gravel to Quebec to make. However methinks it was the same cement
because it did come from Quebec and nobody has denied it N'esy Pas?
David
Peters
Reply to @David Raymond Amos:
...as long as, going forward, NB doesn't forget Quebec's involvement in
the building of the prematurely failing Mactaquac dam...and the
one-sided Churchill Falls agreement where Quebec receives $30 for every
Nfld's $1.
David
Peters
Reply to @David Raymond Amos:
...and the fact that that crazy, one-sided 'agreement' was signed on for decades.
David
Raymond Amos
Reply to @Kyle
Woodman: I doubt it NB Power clammed up about that plan pretty quickly
ate the EUB hearing last year However thus far everyone has failed to
understand what I know about Quebec, Maine, New Hampshshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts and the Maritimes but methinks Franky Boy McKenna, the
"Powers That Be" in NB and everywhere else certainly do N'esy Pas?
Jack Keir, the former Liberal energy minister, said he sees
the same logic in this deal as was in a 2009 failed deal to sell NB
Power outright to Hydro-Québec.
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