History of Hydro-Québec

[1] In the fall of 1943, the Godbout government tabled a bill to take control of MLH&P, the company running the gas and electric distribution in and around Montreal, Quebec's largest city.

René Lévesque, a 38-year-old former television reporter and a bona fide star of the new Lesage government, was appointed to the Hydro-Québec portfolio as part of the liberal Premier's "équipe du tonnerre" (English: "Dream Team").

Lévesque quickly approved continuation of the ongoing construction work and put together a team to nationalize the 11 remaining private companies that still controlled a substantial share of the electricity generation and distribution business in Quebec.

[6] The minister then toured the province in order to reassure the population and refute the arguments of the Shawinigan Water & Power Company, the main opponent of the proposed takeover.

[2] On September 4 and 5, 1962, Lévesque finally convinced his liberal cabinet colleagues to go ahead with the plan during a working retreat at a fishing camp north of Quebec City.

The issue topped the liberal agenda during a snap election called two years early, and their chosen theme, "Maîtres chez nous" (in English: "Master in our Own Homes"), had a strong nationalist undertone.

It first had to reorganize in order to seamlessly merge the new subsidiaries into the existing structure, while standardizing dozens of networks in various state of disrepair and upgrading large parts of the Abitibi system from 25 to 60 Hz.

[11][12] When it bought the Shawinigan Water & Power Company, Hydro-Québec acquired a 20% share of a planned hydroelectric facility at Grand Falls[note 1] in Labrador, a project led by a consortium of banks and industrialists, British Newfoundland Corporation Limited (Brinco).

Hydro-Québec would cover part of the interest risk and buy some of Brinco's debt, in exchange for a 34.2% share in the company owning the plant, Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation Limited.

[22] Almost a year to the day after his April 1970 election, Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa launched a project which he hoped would help him fulfill a campaign promise to create 100,000 new jobs.

In November 1973, the Crees got a preliminary injunction that temporarily stopped the construction of the basic infrastructure needed to build the dams, forcing the Bourassa government to negotiate with them.

A new hydroelectric development and the construction of a direct current high voltage line built to export power to New England faced strong opposition from the Crees as well as environmental groups from the US and Canada.

[29] Facing strong opposition from local residents to other options, Hydro-Québec built a 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) tunnel under the river, at a cost of C$144 million,[30] which delayed the project completion by two and a half years.

Cree leaders also got support from US-based environmental groups and launched a public relation campaign in the US and in Europe, attacking the Great Whale Project, Hydro-Québec and Quebec in general.

[37] Two months after the 1994 general election, the new Premier, Jacques Parizeau, announced the suspension of the Great Whale Project, declaring it unnecessary in order to meet Quebec's energy needs.

[38] The moratorium on new hydro projects in northern Quebec after the Great Whale cancellation forced the company's management to develop new sources of electricity to meet increasing demand.

[40] Faced with a public uproar — a poll conducted in January 2004 found that two of every three Quebecers were opposed to it[40]—the Jean Charest government abandoned the project in November 2004.

The incidents highlighted a major weakness of Hydro's system: the great distances between the generation facilities and the main markets of southern Quebec.

[42] On April 18, 1988 at 2:05 am, all of Quebec and parts of New England and New Brunswick lost power because of an equipment failure at a critical substation on the North Shore, between Churchill Falls and the Manicouagan area.

[44] Less than a year later, on March 13, 1989 at 2:44 am, a large geomagnetic storm caused variations in the Earth's magnetic field, tripping circuit breakers on the transmission network.

[49] Customers on the Island of Montreal and in the Outaouais region were also hit by the power outage, causing significant concerns since many Quebec households use electricity for heating.

The situation was so dire the Quebec government temporarily resorted to rolling blackouts in downtown Montreal in order to maintain the city's drinking water supply.

[51] However, part of the operation needed to close the 735 kV loop around Montreal was approved at the height of the crisis without prior environmental impact assessment and quickly ran into opposition from residents of the Val Saint-François area in the Eastern Townships.

[57] On February 7, 2002, Premier Bernard Landry and Ted Moses, the head of the Grand Council of the Crees, signed an agreement allowing the construction of new hydroelectric projects in northern Quebec.

The Paix des Braves agreement clarified some provisions of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, granted a C$4.5 billion compensation to the Cree Nation to be paid over a 50-year period, established a special wildlife and forestry regime, and gave assurances that Cree businesses and workers would get a share of the economic spin offs of future construction projects in the area.

[58] In return, the Cree nation agreed not to challenge new construction projects in the area, such as the Eastmain-1 generating station—authorized by the government in March 1993[59]—and the partial diversion of the Rupert River to the Robert-Bourassa Reservoir, subject to a number of provisions regarding the protection of the natural and social environment.

[63] On October 29, 2009, the premiers of New Brunswick, Shawn Graham, and Quebec, Jean Charest, signed a controversial[64] memorandum of understanding[65] to transfer most assets of NB Power to Hydro-Québec.

[68] However, these worries were unfounded, responded Jean-Thomas Bernard, chair of Electricity economics at Université Laval, in Quebec City, since non-discrimatory policies set by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission guaranteed open access to the North American power grid.

The Globe and Mail and Radio-Canada both reported on January 18, 2010 that the sale would involve the hydroelectric and nuclear power plant,[73][74] which would be bought by Hydro-Québec for C$3.4 billion.

[75] On March 24, 2010, Premier Graham announced the deal had fallen through, due to Hydro-Québec's concern over unanticipated risks and costs of some aspects such as dam security and water levels.

Montreal Light, Heat and Power linesmen.
A plaque dedicates the Daniel-Johnson dam, named to honour Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson, Sr. , who died at this location, in September 1968.
Hydro-Québec provided financial support in the construction of the Churchill Falls Generating Station in Labrador. The company holds a 34.2% interest in the joint venture owning the 5,425-MW plant.
CANDU fuel bundles. Hydro-Québec operated a single nuclear power plant, the Gentilly-2 generating station in Bécancour for 29 years. [ 18 ]
The spillway at the Robert-Bourassa generating station can deal with a water flow twice as large as the Saint Lawrence River. [ 23 ] Inaugurated in 1979, the 5,616-megawatt generating station is the centerpiece of the James Bay Project .
The Crees from Northern Quebec strongly opposed the Great Whale Project in the early 1990s.
A solar eruption caused a province-wide blackout, on March 13, 1989.
The North American ice storm of January 1998 left 1.4 million Hydro-Québec customers in the dark for up to five weeks.
The ice storm affected a large part of eastern Ontario, southwest Quebec, and New York state. This map shows the accumulation of freezing rain in those areas.
the Rupert River diversion will channel part of the natural flow of the river (orange on the map) to the Robert-Bourassa Reservoir.