[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
dam-l press communiqué, convocation (English)
22 October 1997
URGENT MESSAGE FOR CONCERNED MEDIA
NEWS CONFERENCE ON THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER 1997
To:
From: Coalition contre la dénationalisation de l'électricité (CCDE)
Contacts: Éric Michaud, tel 514-521-6820, fax 514-521-0736
or
Tom Holzinger, tel/fax 514-271-0564
Re: News conference on Hydro-Québec development plan
time: Thursday, October 23, 1997, at 10:30 am
Place: University of Québec at Montréal, 315 Ste-Catherine
Street East, Montréal, room R-4210
Contact: Tom Holzinger, tel/fax: 514-271-0564
e-mail: energie@netaxis.qc.ca
The CCDE will offer a strong critique of the Plan stratégique 1998-2002
presented on 22 October 97 by the CEO of Hydro-Québec, André Caillé. We
will show that the document was prepared undemocratically, is designed
to conceal rather than reveal, cannnot be the basis by which the Minister
and the National Assembly could oversee the state corporation, and is
filled with misleading numbers and statements. It also assumes changes
in policy and direction which have never been agreed at any level. We
will urge the government to reject it in toto.
* * * * *
22 October 97
PRESS COMMUNIQUE -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hydro-Québec Launches 5-Year Strategic Plan
Emphasizes New Hydro Facilities and US Participation
Montreal, Quebec:
- Hydro-Québec's top management today announced a Cdn $13.2 billion
development plan designed to increase energy generation and sales by
25% over the next ten years.
- Hydro-Québec emphasized the construction of additional hydroelectric
facilities and the opportunities presented by the newly deregulated
American market.
- According to the new five-year plan, the additional energy supplies
needed to meet the sales growth objective of 20 TWh will come in part
from the existing system, which will be able to produce an additional
12 TWh a year once reservoir levels have been restored from their
currently low levels, and in part from the Ste-Marguerite-3 complex,
now under construction (2 TWh). The additional 6 TWh will come from
new river diversions and other projects.
- The additional 20 TWh in sales projected for the period 2002-2007
will likewise be met by new hydroelectric projects. While Mr. Caillé
refused to provide any details, it has previously been reported that
he has informed the Crees that he intends to divert both the Great
Whale and Rupert rivers into the La Grande project, which presumably
would go to meet this second target.
- The plan also describes HQ's plans to increase its interconnections
to the US by 1,000 MW or more, depending on demand, and to request
rulings from the NPCC and the FERC to allow it to export an additional
250 to 400 MW through existing lines. In response to questions, Mr.
Caillé also revealed his intention to lease gas turbines in the New
England area to burn natural gas from a Hydro-Québec subsidiary,
thereby allowing it to increase sales in the US by up to 10 TWh a
year without relying on existing interconnections.
- Responding to a query about American opposition to hydroelectricity
because of environmental damage, Mr. Caillé also revealed that Hydro-
Québec had recently joined with American hydro producers to initiate
a public relations campaign in the US to promote hydroelectricity as
clean energy.
- Opposition to the development plan surfaced even before the news
conference ended. An editorialist for a major French-language newspaper
asked what oversight body, if any, would examine the plan as a whole,
rather than piece by piece. He was unsatisfied with Mr. Caillé's
ambiguous response. A provincial coalition claiming to represent up
to 500,000 Quebecers, including unions, consumer groups and
environmentalists, immediately denounced the plan and called its own
news conference for the following day.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Hydro-Québec is a generation, transmission, and distribution monopoly
owned by the government of Québec. Its activities are overseen by the
National Assembly of Québec and the newly created Energy Board. In
recent years it has been frequently criticized for its autocratic
management structure, one notable for lacking democratic or popular
constraints. It has also been the source of numerous political and
legal controversies, especially its attempts in 1990-95 to dam the
Great Whale River in northern Québec.
The President and CEO of Hydro-Québec, André Caillé, met the press
accompanied by HQ's Chairman of the Board, Jacques Ménard. Mr. Caillé
listed five priorities for his corporation, while stressing growth
and profitability ahead of others. He summarized a 60-page booklet
projecting HQ's activities through the year 2002 before taking questions
from a full and skeptical pressroom.
Mr. Caillé and Mr. Ménard reaffirmed that Hydro-Québec would remain
a state-owned monopoly and would continue to offer uniform tariffs
across the province. Sharp questions were asked about the planned
rate hike in May 1998 to be followed by a three-year rate freeze,
since these announcements had come last week not from the new Energy
Board but from the government. Mr. Caillé claimed that this had been
a good business decision suggested by HQ and was not the result of
government pressure; the new Board would assume rate-making
responsibility when it was able to do so. On a technical matter of
how tariffs would be calculated, Mr. Caillé repeated Hydro-Québec's
position that it wanted to submit price-based tariff proposals as
opposed to cost-based ones.
Over the next five years, HQ intends to invest $12 billion in Québec,
mostly in new generating capacity, and $1.2 billion outside Québec,
mostly in transmission facilities for electricity and natural gas.
(Figures are in Canadian dollars, Cdn $1 = US $0.73). Sales are
projected to increase from about 160 terawatt-hours of electric energy
in 1997 to about 180 TWh in 2002, while total revenues are estimated
to rise from $8 to $9.8 billion.
The HQ document projects that energy conservation in Québec's
residential sector will remain flat, while other Québec markets,
especially sales to large industrial customers, are projected to rise
by 10 TWh or 16.5%.
When asked to show how Hydro-Québec proposed to double its
profitability in the next five years without resorting to rate
hikes, Mr. Caillé and Mr. Ménard cited increased sales and a higher
unit price for export sales. In fact, a close reading of their
supporting document shows that several other hypotheses play a
large role in their rosy forecasts: stable low interest rates, a
rising Canadian dollar, gains in several electricity demand factors,
a 20% increase in the world price of aluminum, and above all greater
rainfall and snowfall in HQ's northern reservoirs.
* * * * *