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Export of electricity | New York to pay a starting price of nearly 10 US cents per kilowatt hour

Hydro-Quebec’s contract with New York State provides for a starting price of 9.7 US cents per kilowatt hour, which is expected to rise to 17.6 US cents at the end of the agreement for a period of 25 years.




Helene Baril

Helene Baril
The press

This is the wholesale price for a kilowatt hour, which includes electricity and transportation. The cost of distribution must then be added before being billed to consumers.

Currently, the kilowatt hour costs around 30 cents US to New York consumers, compared to just over 7 cents CAN in Quebec.

Hydro-Quebec and its American partner Transmission Developers Inc. (TDI) officially signed an agreement on Tuesday that provides for the delivery of 10.4 terawatt-hours of electricity to New York for 25 years from 2025. The contract was submitted to the New York State Public Service Commission for approval. It will be the subject of a public consultation until February 7, 2022. The supply of renewable energy and its transport to consumers in New York is expected to increase the average bill by US $ 2 per month, according to estimates by been made.

The prices set for each of the 25 years of the agreement and the indexation formula are detailed in the public documents.

The contract itself is 114 pages long and was signed by Pierre Despars, vice-president of Hydro-Quebec and president of its American subsidiary HQ Energy US.

From 9.75 US cents per kilowatt hour, the starting price will increase each year to reach 17.63 US cents per kilowatt hour in 2050, can we read in the contract.

This price includes the cost of electricity, which goes to Hydro-Québec, and the cost of transport, which goes to its partner Transmission Developers, responsible for the construction of the 545-kilometer transmission line, called Champlain Hudson Power Express, to link Quebec and New York.

Hydro-Québec does not want to specify the share of the price per kilowatt hour that it is entitled to. “It’s a confidential agreement with our partner TDI,” said spokesperson Lynn St-Laurent.

By way of comparison, the starting price obtained by Hydro-Québec for electricity only (without the cost of transmission) of the contract with Massachusetts is 5.15 US cents.

The two contracts will have “comparable” profitability for Hydro-Quebec, according to its spokesperson. The New York contract should generate estimated revenues of $ 30 billion for Hydro-Quebec.

Profits for the Caisse

New York State signed a second renewable energy supply contract on Tuesday with Clean Path NY, a consortium led by the American company Invenergy, of which the Caisse de dépôt et placement is one of the main shareholders.

Clean Path NY will invest US $ 11 billion in wind and solar power generation totaling 3,800 megawatts in the state. The construction of a 280-kilometer transmission line is also planned to transport this energy to the south.

This project and that of Hydro-Quebec were the two bids selected following the call for tenders launched last January by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which administers the program to increase supply. in renewable energy from New York City.

Currently, 90% of the electricity consumed in New York comes from fossil fuels.

With the two contracts signed this week, the state is expected to meet the target of 70% of its renewable electricity supply by 2030, said state governor Kathy Hochul.

These are the largest transmission contracts concluded by New York for 50 years. Mayor Bill de Blasio referred to it as a historic event. “If the country’s largest city can count on clean energy sources, so can everyone else,” he said.

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