New Study Indicates Quebec Ratepayers Subsidize Wind Industry $695 Million annually

Image from le journal de montreal

A new study from the Montreal Economic Institute looks at costs of supply, and market value, in Quebec and appears to come ot many of the same conclusions I have reached for Ontario.

le journal de montreal has a story on the report (in French), and the Wall Street Journal site has reproduced the press release:

MONTREAL, June 17, 2013 /CNW Telbec/ - Invoking "obvious economic reasons," i.e., annual savings of $24 million, the Quebec government cancelled six small hydroelectric power projects this past February. In April, however, it announced new supply contracts for wind power, a sector that is already guaranteed to receive an implicit subsidy of $695 million a year until 2020. For Youri Chassin, economist at the MEI and the author of the Economic Note released today, we have an urgent need for rational decisions based on our actual energy requirements and not on artificial support of various energy sectors.
"Quebecers pay literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year to produce electricity from wind turbines that they don't need... 

With Quebecers having to consume energy that is very expensive to produce, Hydro-Québec is in a position to export more hydroelectricity, a type of energy that is green, renewable and inexpensive, which increasingly benefits Americans, concludes Mr. Chassin.

I have revised a graphic I originally posted here in Cheap Canadian Imports contribute to historic low New York electricity prices; now included is the U.S. E.I.A.'s annual average price for industrial customers in New York state (a figure which includes all charges including transmission - not only electricity):