Quebec's energy consumption per capita highest in the world: report

Content of the article

Government efforts to decarbonize the economy have done little to reduce per capita energy consumption in Quebec, which remains one of the highest in the world, a new report says.

According to the 2024 edition of L'État de l'énergie au Québec, an annual report produced by HEC Montréal's department of energy management, Quebecers used an average of 191 gigajoules of energy each in 2021, three times the global average of 54 gigajoules. Thursday. Average per capita consumption across all of Canada and the US was high, as the paper also shows. A gigajoule means about 278 kilowatt-hours.

Content of the article

Content of the article

Canada's second most populous province is at risk of missing its 2030 environmental targets, particularly in terms of reducing greenhouse gases, if it does not begin to limit energy use more aggressively, HEC Montreal professors Pierre-Olivier Pinault and Johanna Whitmore wrote. Current targets include reducing sales of petroleum products by 40 percent in 2030 compared to 2013 levels.

“We've been doing this report for 10 years, and what stands out to me is the overall lack of progress in energy consumption,” Pino said in an interview. “There have been small improvements, but globally we are not on the trajectory we should be on. We see none of the structural changes required. It's disturbing.”

According to the authors, the industries that promised Quebec cheap and abundant electricity are one of the main reasons for the province's high energy consumption. About 60 percent of the energy used by the industrial sector is wasted and does not add value, partly because of businesses like cement plants and steel mills, Pino said. Industries account for 36% of Quebec's annual energy consumption, with 24% for transportation, 19% for residential buildings, and 14% for commercial and institutional buildings.

Content of the article

Content of the article

Hydro-Québec expects electricity demand to double by 2050. That's why the utility announced three months ago that it plans to spend $185 billion on infrastructure by 2035 to increase production and reduce outages. Hydro-Québec plans to add up to 9,000 megawatts of new capacity over the next 12 years, five to six times the capacity of Côte-Nord's Roman complex.

“It's going to be very difficult to decarbonize this amount of energy,” Pinault said. “We can electrify many things, but this raises important issues, for example in terms of social acceptability. We already have a huge power grid and we are proposing to expand it even further. It's not too late if we hope to achieve our goals, but we need to tackle consumption in a much stronger way.”

Quebec's decision to ban the sale of gasoline-powered private vehicles starting in 2035 has yet to dampen demand.

The province's fleet of electric vehicles more than doubled before the pandemic. Quebec had 168,478 electric vehicles at the end of 2022, up from 62,901 in 2019. In 2022, electric vehicles will account for 13 percent of new vehicle sales.

Content of the article

By 2030, the provincial government aims to have two million electric vehicles on the road.

Until then, gasoline-powered sports cars and trucks remain very popular. They have been selling cars in Quebec since 2015, and the trend is accelerating, according to the report. SUVs and trucks will account for 70 percent of Quebec's vehicle market in 2022, nearly triple the 24 percent share achieved in 1990.

Sales of petroleum products are expected to increase by seven percent in 2022 as more large vehicles are added to the provincial fleet, the report said. According to the authors, the statistics “show a gap between our energy consumption habits and our goals, which are still falling short.”

Quebec will also import 54 percent of its energy in 2021, the report said. Locally produced hydroelectric power accounted for 34 percent of total consumption, oil for 32 percent, natural gas for 16 percent, and wind power and biomass for six percent each. Hydro produced at Churchill Falls Dam in Newfoundland and Labrador accounted for five percent of electricity consumption.

All of Quebec's oil comes from North America. Western Canada will supply 52 percent of the total, and 48 percent of U.S. oil and gas will account for 12 percent of the province's total imports by value in 2022, according to the HEC report.

[email protected]

Content of the article

Content of the article