Hydro-Quebec community relations advisor Alain Paquette recently gave a presentation to the mayors of MRC Pontiac during their plenary meeting on March 9, providing statistics on outages and customer satisfaction as well as an overview of the maintenance work they have planned.

Paquette said that the discussion was a good chance to address the different issues facing the 18 municipalities and get feedback from the elected officials.

Hydro-Quebec will be continuing their work on the refurbishment of the Bryson generating station and also their upgrades to their sub-station in Wyman, which are set to be complete in July. Paquette added that several communities in the Pontiac are serviced by four of the longest power distribution lines in the province, which makes them vulnerable to outages. The areas he mentioned were Alleyn-et-Cawood, Clarendon, Otter Lake, Thorne and Sheenboro adding that their crews would be focusing on keeping these lines cleared of vegetation this summer and next.

Statistics on outages, satisfaction

According to Hydro-Quebec’s data, Pontiac customers experienced 29.5 hours of service interruptions in 2021, compared with 26.3 hours in 2020. Paquette pointed out that the ice storm on December 11 and 12, 2021 caused an average of 15.5 hours of outages. In around two thirds of the cases, the outages were caused by falling vegetation.

Paquette noted that they had been improving their customer service and pointed to a 2021 survey that showed overall satisfaction with Hydro-Quebec went from 68% in 2019 to 84% in 2021. He acknowledged that 78% of residents found it easy to deal with Hydro-Quebec, which is something he plans on improving.

The full interview with Paquette is available below.