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As others have posted, this isnt an accurate picture of Canada. I live on Ontario, we have very high rates and there are a number of mostly political reasons for this. One provice over (Quebec) has insanely cheap rates (massive sources of cheap hydro sources while Ontario has costly nuclear and a disasterous entrance into "green" power).

Up in northern Quebec they hav eboth freezing temperatures and a massive power plant (Robert-Bourassa 5,616MW ). Newfoundland has the equally massive Churchill Falls (5,428MW).

These are hydro plants with outputs that put them in the same range as a decent nuclear plant. For reference, Ontario's "big boy" nuclear plant, Bruce nuclear is number two in the world and puts out 6,384 MW.

You can find Hydro Quebec's rate card here: http://www.hydroquebec.com/res...

Quebec is still pretty cheap and beats Germany at electricity from renewables: 97%

http://www.hydroquebec.com/res...

https://www.mern.gouv.qc.ca/en...

I can explain it.

Renewable energy is variable - you can't rely on it being there when you need it.

Some is, some isn't. Hydro-Quebec generates 99.8% of its energy from water.

With "Nobody" you mean the about 33% electric energy, that comes from renewables for instance in Germany, the 80% in Austria and Switzerland and the 90% in Norway?

You don't have to go that far. You got neighbour in the north where ~96% of all energy produced come from hydro power and ~99% come from renewable source

That's amusing, I assume you don't know much about your marxist neighbor in the north, that is Canada. For example Hydro Quebec, which has been nationalized since 1944 has been a great success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.... We have some of the cheapest residential power in North America AND we're making a tidy profit selling our fairly important over capacity to our neighbors in the states: http://www.hydroquebec.com/pub...

On behalf of Canada, I apologize for destroying all your capitalists wet dreams with our mixed economy. Sorry, sorry!

Look to Ontario for an example proving the exact opposite. We would love to see a capital market for power instead of this legislated crap we have now.

That's amusing, I assume you don't know much about your marxist neighbor in the north, that is Canada. For example Hydro Quebec, which has been nationalized since 1944 has been a great success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.... We have some of the cheapest residential power in North America AND we're making a tidy profit selling our fairly important over capacity to our neighbors in the states: http://www.hydroquebec.com/pub...

On behalf of Canada, I apologize for destroying all your capitalists wet dreams with our mixed economy. Sorry, sorry!

That's amusing, I assume you don't know much about your marxist neighbor in the north, that is Canada. For example Hydro Quebec, which has been nationalized since 1944 has been a great success: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.... We have some of the cheapest residential power in North America AND we're making a tidy profit selling our fairly important over capacity to our neighbors in the states: http://www.hydroquebec.com/pub...

On behalf of Canada, I apologize for destroying all your capitalists wet dreams with our mixed economy. Sorry, sorry!

Since this is the most talked about alternative energy source for a car but are we ready for that ? I'm not sure but 1 thing I'm sure is that some countries or provinces like mine are not ready. Well I'm not too positive about the idea of all the population of Quebec using electric cars. I just think about the electricity cost and what we use right now and what we will need won't be small. I fear that.

the average price per Kw/h is around 6.8. The table is here.

The company has 2.8 million customers responsible for 4.01 million residential, commercial, institutional and industrial service contracts. - Hydro Quebec

Most of the money and profit Hydro-Quebec is making is towards exporting energy. Without those exports, Hydro-Quebec would increase the price to make a profit margin. They've told that countless times in press conferences.

Imagine if the same amount of customers using electric cars on the same grid ?

I don't have the exact number but in 2011 the monthly consumption of Hydro Quebec was around ) 3,06m. Can you imagine if you put around 2-3 million cars on that same grid ? This is just a thought but I think the price will increase without any hesitation and Hydro-Quebec will force it on us. Twice a year or so Hydro-Quebec is asking the goverment for a price increase as they tell us we don't pay enough. I can imagine they will have lots of arguements to increase the price and the goverment will have almost no choice but too accept.

ps: this is just Quebec, I can imagine worst numbers, facts or stories in other provinces or countries.

Where in Quebec do they have mandated smart meters? From what I could find, there is a pilot project in 4 cities, but it is voluntary. http://www.hydroquebec.com/heurejuste/en/index.html

Québec has among the cheapest electricity in the world and could remain competitive for the long term because its power is almost exclusively generated from hydro. Check the chart for relative prices:

http://www.hydroquebec.info/grandesentreprises/tarifs_avantageux.html

Here is sample calculation for a contract with more than 12 consumption periods with no running-in:

http://www.hydroquebec.com/business/moyen/tarifs_rod.html

A big reason for the HVDC transmission lines is that over long distances, AC lines act like (drum roll, please...) transmission lines! At 60Hz 1/4 wavelength is 1250km. The Pacific DC Interie running 1362 km from the Columbia River to Sylmar (northern Los Angeles) would have considerable standing wave problems if it were carrying AC, with excessive voltage (insulator stress) and current (thermal stress) occurring in some of the spans. This circuit was built as a DC line because an AC line would be impractical over this distance between major loads. You can see this line off to the west of US395 when driving from LA to Mammoth. It's impressive. Hydro Quebec has some long DC lines, too. One runs to New York. DC power hasn't retired, it's just moved on to a more demanding job!

As opposed to, for instance, the government nationalizing all the medical insurance and providing generous plans to everyone for free. That's not a recipe for financial disaster at all.

The idea with my idea, is that everyone is covered, everyone who can afford to pay pays, and everyone who can't afford to pay is covered by the public because we are a benevolent society.

And since there is no red-tape (everyone gets the same coverage), the efficiency is as high as 97% (compare this to the 30-35% overhead of private US insurers).

"No red-tape" is a too-sunny appraisal of nationalized medicine.

You anglo-saxons need to remove that head out of your butt, and ditch that stupid hatred and distrust of what the State does, and look elsewhere at other cultures that DO put some trust in the State and do not harbour that visceral defiance of it. And, you know what? In such cultures, working for the State is not seen as something bad, so bright people WILL go work for the State and provide competent, efficient, quality service.

Up here, we got the cheapest electric power in the world, thanks to a government-owned utility that's the Wall Street poster child; everytime it wants to make a new dam, Wall-Street lenders will bend-over backwards to lend them the money, because they know their top-notch infrastructure will not collapse like the northeast power grid did several years ago (ours is the only northeast power grid that bravely stayed put).

Although, in reality, the only difference between my idea and (for instance) a two-tier, universal health insurance system is that there's a means test to get public assistance. This can further be contrasted with a Canada-style single-tier system, in which the entire government health service is a monopoly, and the wealthy cross the border to get decent care when that monopoly falls short.

For those willing and able to pay, the US health care system is the best money can buy.

So why do you defend the zillionnaires? Have you been brainwashed? Are you expecting some crumb handouts???

Believe me, the zillionnaires do not give a rats' ass towards the public good. They could not care less if you croak out in the gutter because you've been denied a lifesaving procedure.

I don't want to throw that away in the name of making sure everyone gets coverage, and a nationalized single-payer system would absolutely do that. There are better ways of ensuring everyone gets health coverage.

Don't worry, no matter the system, the zillionnaires will always be able to "escape" and get "better" health-care.

You oughta worry about yourself, though.

Energy Australia charge 22c/kwh for Peak, 8c/kwh for Shoulder and 4c/kwh for Off-peak.

Wow. I never realized how cheap power was in Quebec, Canada. The residential rate that Hydro-Quebec charges is 5 cents/kWh for the first 30 kWh per day, and 7 cents/kWh after that (Quebec does have lots of rivers & dams).

Admittedly the Ozzie dollar and Canadian dollar aren't the same, but they are close.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes. In the meantime, you'll continue to have lights on and sufficient power to write "Viva la revolution!" on that wonderful piece of modern technology you are using, which was doubtless developed and constructed by a worker's cooperative and not a gigantic multinational that I probably own a tiny part of.

In addition, it also has the only northeastern grid that did not conk-out during the last blackout.

And to add insult to injury, of all the north-american power utilities, it enjoys the absolute very best credit rating, mostly thanks to it's extremely well-maintained physical plant and overdesigned distribution network.

My parent's tax dollars went to it's nationalization 40 years ago, and since then, I have enjoyed continuous dividends by the way of reduced electric rates.

nowhere to be found except here: http://www.hydroquebec.com/gentilly-2/

Listen "Buddy", at the end of the day the developpers in montreal where asked to do games and they did EXTREMELY well with the Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell series. And by extremely well I mean smashing successes. Keep singing that you could have done it as good, we all know the tune.

And as far as your further disinformation spread about my province regarding Labrador, here's a lowdown for people that want the real facts. In a nutshell, Labrador was part of Quebec (called Lower Canada back then) until 1806, when the british empire gave it to newfoundland, a separate country. The borders were never clearly established back then (hilarity ensues). When newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 part of the deal was that the constitution of Canada would give them Labrador, so the feds gave it away and ended the territory dispute.

This being said, anyone not totally ignorant like the parent knows that the majority of the power is being produced at the LG plants in James Bay, and all the different rivers leading to Lac Saint-Jean, that have NOTHING to do with Labrador. See here for a little map. Yes, the churchill falls dam produces a lot of energy that is sold to Quebec. That's been income for newfoundland for decades, and the construction was spearheaded by us. You tell me, what would they do with the power? There is no way to get power to the US or the rest of Canada except if you go through Quebec. The deal was mutually profitable, as will be the further development in Labrador that have been proposed by a joint venture from Hydro-Quebec and OPG. And also, please note that Labrador is still being disputed by the native tribes that have always live there, it's status is not set in stone yet.

To even try to undermine Hydro-Quebec's success by saying it's all because we're stealing energy from labrador is the most worthless piece of crap I've ever read off the internet.

And about your "unfair tax markets", you're gonna have to crawl out of your reality-altering bubble and see that government subsidies are also given to companies to make them invest in the GTA, and everywhere else. Hell, even RIGHT NOW, the city of London is trying to entice the Shriners Hospital to move from Montreal to London (Ontario) by using public money to entice them. These guys have been in montreal for 80 years.

And as far as distinct society, we are not the same at you, deal with it or can it. We don't share the same history, the same ancestors, the same culture, the same language. Our ancestors were given away to the British empire and then lived centuries where they were told they were inferior and expected to lose their culture. After enough was enough, we kicked the church out of the state and took control of a territory where we were the majority, you might want to read up on the quiet revolution.

Stop dissing us on the internet.

DC transmission can be more efficient. In Northern Quebec, Canada, there is a power development that converts the output from the generators to high voltage DC for the long distance transmission. With AC, the capacitance between the ground and the wires becomes appreciable, with DC the 'capacitor' charges up once, and no energy is lost in the constant recharging (with its attendant losses). However, you're right that the end circuitry is quite a bit more complex.

More details at:

http://www.hydroquebec.com/transenergie/en/reseau/ caracteristiques.html

So, where are all the dams going to go

There.

It's amazing people still call hydroelectric power "green", but then hypocrisy in defense of liberal ideas is no vice...

You fucking troll. It's renewable, not magical. Every action causes a reaction, our energy needs aren't going away, but there are ways to minimise the impact of our actions. Hydroelectric damns cause dammage, but the impact of a local flood is not in the same ballpark as the impact that the floods from melting the artic and antartic with greenhouse gases would have.

We even saw a demonstration on tv with the minister of energy trying a car retrofit with 4 motor wheel.

The invention was almost forgoten because the main inventor left the lab over a dispute with Hydro and his team disolved.
But it's now commercialized by a division of Hydro Quebec called tm4. You can see it here: http://www.tech-m4.com/eng/tm4transport/moto_wheel motor/

Then you realize the hydrogen you buy is synthetised from natural gaz. You can also make hydrogen out coal, by first converting the coal into electricty, but it isn't any cleaner.

Hydrogen won't be a source of energy until we find a way to pump the underground sources.

Fission isn't clean enough in the long term, and fussion isn't there yet. So it seems that humanity's energy cravings will have to be furfilled by fosil fuels for some times still.

I'm just glad that here in Quebec, there is enough waterfalls to provide all the renewable energy we need.

As you can see, the majority of Canada's electricity is generated by hydro-electricity. Near the end they show the prevailing winds in North America. You can clearly see that the air in the U.S. mid-west get blown into eastern Canada, including Toronto.

For more than 8 years, Hydro-Québec has been laying new electric cable whose core is fiber optic bundles.

Since they already go to the "last mile", they're bound to make a killing once the market is opened...

--

The long answer to "could a utility be held in the public domain?" is no

Well, when your public utility sells to the retail market at $0.06/kWh and still manage to make profits, some of which get put back into the government general fund, then the short answer is a clear and loud YES!

Trust me, I'm an economist..

That's like saying "Trust me, I know Tarot".

You might be interested in looking at this: Comparison of Electricity Prices in Major North American Cities (pdf). It's self congratulatory but it contains interesting numbers.

Clem.

You are right, my mistake. I was thinking about capacitors when in fact, they installed compensators. Still, the effect remains, but technically it's a whole different thing.

Here, from Hydro-Quebec's site: Installation of series compensators on transmission lines to increase system stability. This measure has proved to be highly useful in mitigating the impact of magnetic storms. More info: http://www.hydroquebec.com/solar_storms/index.html