Improving the quality of electricity service: Hydro-Québec is tackling the first priority in its Action Plan 2035

In its Action Plan 2035 published last November, Hydro-Québec identified the improvement of service quality as its first priority. Today, we are announcing a series of concrete actions that will help us meet our goal of reducing power outages and their impact on our customers.

Vegetation control

• Vegetation coming into contact with our power lines is the main cause of outages on the distribution system.
• Investments of $130 million are planned in 2024 to carry out pruning and felling of hazardous trees.
• Clearing of 220,000 spans, which represents approximately 22,000 km of power lines, and felling of 75,000 trees that pose a risk to the grid.
• The collaboration of municipalities and customers is essential for us to be able to carry out preventive work, such as the cutting down of trees that are at risk of coming into contact with our equipment and causing power outages.
• Goal: By 2028, reduce outages caused by vegetation by 30%.

Grid resilience

• Inspection of 17,000 km of overhead lines, 200,000 utility poles and 10,000 civil engineering structures and strategic equipment.
• 7,500 maintenance operations on various equipment.
• Installation or replacement of over 28,000 wooden utility poles.
• Deployment of innovative solutions on targeted lines, including:
  • The installation of over 500 composite utility poles in strategic locations;
  • The addition of 12.5 km of insulated wires;
  • The use of a technique involving burial directly in the ground (without concrete ducts) to add 7 km of lines.

Resilience of communities and our customers

• Microgrids deployed in collaboration with local communities to supply backup electricity in the case of an outage.
• Mobile emergency hubs to recharge electric vehicles.
• Portable batteries deployed in areas that are very affected by outages to provide emergency power to essential devices.

These actions are in addition to Hydro-Québec’s ongoing efforts to perform preventive maintenance on its grid, modernize its infrastructures and reinforce the safety of its facilities.