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Hydro-Quebec takes credit for emissions savings in U.S.

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The Canadian electric utility Hydro-Québec, which supplies about 22 percent of Vermont’s power, says the renewable energy it exported to the U.S. in 2015 prevented 7.4 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions that otherwise would have come from fossil fuel plants.

The assertion was part of an annual report the publicly owned utility released last week. The report says it would take about 1.85 million cars to produce an equivalent amount of greenhouse gas in a year.

Green Mountain Power, Vermont’s largest utility, holds a 26-year contract to buy electricity from Hydro-Quebec; signed in 2012, the deal expires in 2038. It secures about 225 megawatts for the state, which consumes about 1,000 megawatts as a whole.

Vermont utilities first contracted for power from Hydro-Québec in 1987.

The hydro company says it supplies 10 percent of New England’s electricity.

Its power output has grown from 193,646 gigawatt-hours in 2011 to 201,147 gigawatt-hours in 2015, after peaking at 205,484 in 2013. The trend in exports has roughly tracked with those figures, the company said.

The company made about $1.7 billion in Canadian dollars in 2015 from exported electricity, according to the report. Its total revenues in 2015 amounted to $13.4 billion in Canadian dollars.

Hydro-Québec’s 87 generating stations can put out a maximum of 36,912 megawatts, according to the report. Hydroelectric power accounts for more than 99 percent of that. The remainder comes from thermal generators. Nuclear power supplied a fraction of the company’s portfolio in 2011 but was phased out by 2012, the report says.

There are two interconnections with New England: a 1,800-megawatt transmission line to western Massachusetts and a 225-megawatt line in Vermont.

At least two similar lines are proposed in Vermont by New York-based TDI New England and Massachusetts-based Anbaric. The lines both would pass beneath Lake Champlain and cross underground through southern Vermont.

Hydro-Québec representatives did not immediately return calls for comment.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Hydro-Quebec takes credit for emissions savings in U.S..


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