Hydro-Québec spends millions subsidizing smart thermostats

The state-owned company declined to disclose the exact cost of the measure, which would provide up to $700 per household to connect its devices in Hilo.

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Hydro-Québec has added smart thermostats from the Sinopé company to the number of devices that can benefit from generous subsidies by registering with Hydro-Québec's Hilo program.

A sum of $70 per compatible Sinop thermostat, such as an electric baseboard or heated floor, will be awarded to users who can register up to 10 devices, it revealed. Press Tuesday

Subsidies are available to people who buy these devices today as well as those who already own them. Sinop baseboard thermostats sell for a little over $100 each.

In 2021, Sinop's CEO, Maxime Caron-Labonté, came out publicly to denounce unfair competition from Hilo. “To get up in the morning and fight a competing manufacturer, we love that. But fighting in Hilo is different. They come up with really uneven ways [par rapport à ceux du secteur privé]”, he admitted NewspaperTwo years later, before terminating the contract with Hydro-Québec in 2023.

Hilo is a service that allows Hydro to save electricity by shifting home consumption during periods of high demand. For every kWh not consumed during the “challenges”, a family receives a cash prize.

Hydro declines to specify

When asked how much it would cost Hydro-Québec, Hendricks Bouchard, a spokesman, said, “This measure is part of the energy efficiency budget, which will go from $150 million in 2022 to $500 million in 2025.”

However, Hydro-Québec estimates that 200,000 devices eligible for the subsidy have already been installed in Quebec homes. That's a theoretical $14 million bill waiting for Hydro.

Additionally, the company aims to install 700,000 high-performance or connected energy devices among its residential and commercial customers by 2035, Cendrix Bouchard said. This would increase the proportion of residences with such equipment in Quebec from 3% to 25%. Subsidies for these devices will raise the bill for hydro by tens of millions of dollars.

But this calculation “does not take into account the fact that financial assistance may differ from one device to another (between $35 and $150 depending on the type of device),” Cendrix Bouchard explains. “In addition, our target of 700,000 efficient or connected energy devices among our residential and commercial customers by 2035 includes a wide range of devices such as heat pumps and thermostats,” he said.

35,000 users

Jean-Pierre Finet, from the Regroupement des Organismes Environmental en Energie, welcomed the measure, albeit at a cost. “I'm in favor. It is important to understand that a customer connected to a Hilo virtual power plant is worth more than a customer subscribed to a dynamic tariff such as winter credit or flex de tariff. [que] While regulating hydro loads, the avoided cost of supply as well as the avoided cost of transmission and distribution can be taken into account,” he explained.

Nearly 35,000 Hilo customers shared nearly $4.6 million in rewards in 19 challenges for the winter of 2023-2024, allowing Hydro-Québec to move 103 MW per challenge, or 10% more than the target she set for herself.

Recall that in June 2024, Hydro-Québec repatriated its subsidiary Hilo operations. About a hundred employees were transferred to Hydro-Québec.