2023-11-10 00:30:00
The list of customers waiting for connection has never been larger at the Crown corporation, as new CEO Michael Sabia admits that Hydro’s service “is not up to par” and that he plans to spend billions of dollars to correct the situation.
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“We currently have 492 connection or power requests from residential customers created over 24 months ago. These affect both primary and secondary residences,” responded to the Journal the head of access to information at Hydro-Québec, François Ramsay.
The latter adds that although requests for all types of work have exploded over the past two years, Hydro-Québec is still seeing a reduction in delays in several regions.
Worried about the coming winter
Johanne Bossé and her partner fear joining this list of customers who must wait several months before being connected.
“We are moving to our new house in Chertsey, in Lanaudière, on November 23, and we will still have no electricity. I signed an agreement with Hydro in February 2023. But since then, the communication time has always been too long and too many stakeholders are involved,” she says.
The most annoying thing, she adds, is that the couple had to pay $41,000 to Hydro in October for the work of planting poles and overhead lines, but nothing has yet been done.
“And there, we’re going to have to rent a chalet for $1,700 per month to be able to live for a month or even two, if we’re lucky. We no longer have cash and the construction work on our house is on hold,” says the 48-year-old woman.
“Out of control” delays
The newspaper has illustrated several cases of citizen connection delays in recent months, in several regions of Quebec. Some owners have been waiting for two and a half years. Most have to pay thousands of dollars for heat using generators, and some have suffered damage to their property during cold winter weather.
In its written response, the state company emphasizes that “these delays beyond the control of Hydro-Québec may be linked in particular to modifications made to the project by the customer, a delay in obtaining easements or requests made in advance considering the complexity of the work required.” For 397 of the 492 requests dating back more than two years, Hydro was waiting for feedback or work attributable to customers for a period of more than a year, she defends.
In order to speed up the processing of deadlines, Hydro has already started to adjust its practices, assures Cendrix Bouchard, spokesperson. “We prioritize work with the greatest impact for customers, we simplify the request processing process and standardize working methods. We are also working to reduce the number of stakeholders with whom our clients must interact,” he says.
Hydro continues to hire
Using another access to information request, The newspaper has learned that Hydro-Québec has hired 203 full-time engineers in 2022, and 101 so far in 2023 (as of June 30). The lack of engineers is often cited to explain connection delays.
Remember that the year 2023 is among the worst in the last 15 for the number of outages at Hydro. New boss Michael Sabia wants to spend up to $50 billion to correct the situation.
“There are too many breakdowns, we don’t communicate enough with our customers and it’s too complicated to interact with us. We have underinvested in the resilience of our network and in the quality of services to our customers. We have to change that,” he said on November 2 during the unveiling of Hydro-Québec’s 2035 Action Plan.
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