Hydro-Québec (HQ) presented its preliminary analysis of the causes of the outage that occurred on Feb 4-5, 2023, to several local representatives last week. The Mayor of L’Isle-aux-Allumettes Corey Spence, the Mayor of Chichester Donald Gagnon, the Mayor of Sheenboro Doris Ranger, the Mayor of Mansfield-et-Pontefrac Sandra Armstrong, the Mayor of Waltham Odette Godin, MRC Pontiac Warden Jane Toller and Pontiac MNA André Fortin received a debrief in a private meeting with representatives from HQ on what caused the outage and what is being done a prevent the situation from happening again.

In the press release regarding the meeting, it was explained that the upper Pontiac receives much of its electricity from the Waltham and Chutes-Coulonge generating stations, which are both owned by Evolugen, a private company contracted by Hydro-Québec.

Alain Paquette, an HQ communications person for the region also explained to THE EQUITY that the upper Pontiac grid is synchronized with the Ontario system under normal conditions, meaning that due to the way the infrastructure is set up in the region it’s easier to use the Ontario grid as a “reference point” as opposed to the Quebec grid.

“The Waltham Station is synchronized with Ontario, meaning that every time there are disruptions on the Ontario grid, it has an impact on the distribution of electricity to our customers,” Paquette said, comparing failure in one part of the system to a game of dominos in the way it impacts the rest of the system.

The official HQ story as outlined in the press release is as follows: The Feb. 4 outage that caused some residents in the upper Pontiac to go 30 hours without power originated in the Ontario system. HQ’s attempts to restore power using the Waltham Generating Station failed which was followed by similarly unsuccessful attempts to use the capacity from Chutes-Coulonge Generating Station and the Cadieux Substation in Bryson to offset the problem stemming from Ontario’s system.

HQ then asked residents in the area to limit their energy consumption by only heating one room until full service could be restored on Feb 5.

The details of what caused the failure on the Ontario side are not known, according to Paquette. He said that there were no known equipment failures in the Waltham Generating Station, despite previous comments from HQ representatives that said otherwise.

Paquette said the HQ had various meetings set up with Evolugen where further details on the cause of the outage will be identified.

“One month later it’s easier for us to point to the exact problem and there are mainly two causes of the outages. The first was the disruption on the Ontario grid and then the historic record of electricity consumption due to extreme cold. So the high demand for electricity,” said Paquette. “We’re talking about a historic record of power usage everywhere in Quebec, including the Pontiac area, which made the recovery more difficult.”

The release then details “a three-pronged approach” HQ has taken in response to the outage. For the first prong, Paquette said that a procedure was put in place to ensure that the region remains supplied through Quebec-based sources should something go wrong on the Ontario side shortly after the Feb. 4 outage.

“What is reassuring is that we experienced a problem with the Ontario network on the Thursday following the major outage, also in a cold weather situation. And we immediately switched to the Quebec network and the results were conclusive. So that’s good news,” Paquette said about the first prong.

Second, the HQ press release said that connecting links have been installed on nodes in the region’s infrastructure to ensure generators can be plugged into the grid if needed. And third, improvements were made to the lines coming from the Cadieux Substation, meaning more electricity can be transported on that power line.

HQ also said crews are patrolling infrastructure in the affected sector to see if any further repairs are required.

“Over the past few years, considerable efforts have been invested to improve the quality of the service in the upper Pontiac, including extensive vegetation control and technical upgrades. We understand the community’s concerns following the recent major outage. We remain steadfast in our commitment to continue our efforts to improve service reliability with the same energy and determination,” wrote Paquette in the release.

“I would describe the meeting with the Mayors, the Warden in the MNA as very constructive and productive,” Paquette said about the meeting in general. “We first wanted to have to share a common vision of what had happened and quickly identify concrete solutions together. They also made us feel the distress of the citizens during this major outage.”

Paquette concluded by saying HQ would participate in a public meeting planned in the upper Pontiac on the outages, though said the exact date and terms of the meeting have not yet been worked out.

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