While our climate-crazed legislature advances toward full decarbonization of Vermont energy and its replacement with electricity, our main source of electricity – HydroQuebec – is warning that it’s facing demand that may be more than it can provide.

Rob Roper reports in his invaluable blog Behind the Lines, “According to a story in Bloomberg, Vermont’s largest and most economical supplier of electricity is sending signals it won’t be able to produce enough to meet demand.”

“This is a problem for Vermont as the Global Warming Solutions Act put us on a path mandating that Vermonters largely, if not entirely, electrify our thermal and transportation sectors, by 2030 and completed by 2050. This is estimated to double the state’s overall demand for electricity.”

“It is highly unlikely that we can renew our contract with Hydro-Quebec on anything like the same terms as our current contract. … If trends continue, competition for that power from other New England states, businesses such as Amazon and General Motors, and …  Canadians themselves who are laboring under greenhouse gas reduction mandates of their own will drive up prices.”

“What this portends, given our current policy prescriptions, is that Vermont will spend the next decade and a half converting our oil furnaces to electric heat pumps, our gas stoves to electric induction, and our internal combustion engine vehicle fleet to EVs only to see the cost of electricity explode when our contract with Hydro-Quebec expires.”

Thanks for that, Rob.