Montreal

Power largely restored after outage during deep freeze in Montreal

Thousands of Hydro-Québec clients were without electricity Tuesday in Montreal, primarily in the boroughs of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Montréal-Nord and Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension.

About 100,000 Hydro-Québec clients, including in Montréal-Nord, impacted Tuesday

A Hydro-Québec truck is shown in an area without power in Montreal, Saturday, Dec. 24, 2022.
Hydro-Québec was working to restore power on Tuesday. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

After an early morning outage cut power to nearly 100,000 Montreal addresses early Tuesday morning, Hydro-Québec says it has brought power back to the affected areas.

"The situation is largely back to normal this morning," said Lynn St-Laurent, a spokesperson for the Crown corporation. "Customers who were without power yesterday morning have had their power restored."

At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Hydro-Québec was reporting seven outages in Montreal at 3,731 locations, but none were hit by Tuesday morning's major outage.

It began at 6:25 a.m. on one of the coldest days of the winter. St-Laurent said it was due to equipment failure at a substation.

The outage primarily impacted those in the boroughs of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Montréal-Nord and Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension.

By noon, more than 15,000 clients were still without power, including some schools. The number of customers affected fluctuated in the afternoon, dropping as low as 3,800 and then back up to 6,800 at around 6:45 p.m.

"Obviously we want to get the power back as quickly as possible. We know that it's very cold and that's where our focus is right now," St-Laurent told CBC News on Tuesday.

WATCH | How cold snaps affect Quebec's power grid:

How cold snaps affect Quebec’s power grid

10 days ago
Duration 2:45
Electricity consumption in Quebec skyrockets when extreme cold sets in. It’s tough to know exactly how much the network can handle before it crashes, but Hydro-Québec says it has been working on upgrading hydro dams, building more wind farms and replacing old equipment.

With files from Radio-Canada