Québec’s Energy Future Cannot Rely on Hydro Alone

Although Québec’s new Integrated Energy Resource Management Plan acknowledges that energy demand will grow significantly over the coming decades, it does not yet provide a sufficiently detailed and credible strategy for meeting that demand.

In its current form, the plan places a disproportionate share of Québec’s energy future on Hydro-Québec. Electrification is presented not simply as an important part of the transition, but as its primary solution. By 2050, electricity demand is expected to reach approximately 281 terawatt-hours (TWh), compared with roughly 200 TWh in 2022. The government also wants to add about 150 TWh of renewable energy supply while preserving affordability, supporting industrial development, and reducing emissions. Achieving these objectives simultaneously will be difficult without a more diversified energy strategy.

The reality is that Québec’s growing energy needs are unlikely to be met through electricity alone. A comprehensive planning exercise should assess all available energy sources and technologies based on their reliability, cost, regional potential, and suitability for different uses. Instead, the plan largely assumes that Hydro-Québec, given its monopoly, will be able to deliver the enormous volumes of new electricity required by households, transportation, and industry. That assumption carries increasing risk, especially as Hydro-Québec faces several challenges at once. For example, low reservoir levels have reduced some of the flexibility traditionally provided by Québec’s hydroelectric system. While hydropower remains a renewable and reliable resource, it is not immune to changing precipitation patterns and prolonged dry periods.

At the same time, elements of Québec’s long-range hydroelectric strategy are becoming less certain. The newly proposed Churchill Falls agreement has generated significant opposition in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Québec, members of the Pessamit Innu community rejected a proposed agreement with Hydro-Québec in a referendum. Together, these developments illustrate that access to additional hydroelectric supply, new projects, and supporting infrastructure cannot be taken for granted.

None of these challenges suggest that Québec should move away from hydroelectricity or electrification, as both will remain central to the province’s energy future. However, relying predominantly on a single corporation, a single network, and a single primary energy source is not consistent with the principles of integrated resource planning—it effectively places all of the province’s energy ambitions in one basket.

Economic development depends on energy being available when businesses are ready to invest, not years later, once new generation capacity, transmission lines, regulatory approvals, and consultations have been completed.

Québec needs an energy plan that begins with the province’s growing demand and systematically evaluates every realistic source of supply. The current plan establishes ambitious objectives, but it does not yet demonstrate in sufficient detail how Québec will produce the energy required to achieve them.