Project documents<\/a> show the utility has long identified the Hampstead substation as a weak link in the local grid.<\/p>\nPascal Poinlane, a Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec spokesperson, said the outage was caused by the failure of a breaker at the substation \u2014 an issue that is \u201cnot as easy to fix as a problem caused by a snowstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it happens in a substation with equipment like that, it takes more time,\u201d he told CBC. He said generators were installed to restore power as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Fran\u00e7ois Bouffard, an associate professor of engineering at McGill University who closely follows the public utility, said that replacing a failed breaker is a complex task even under ideal conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the kind of repair that can take several weeks to complete \u2014 in the summertime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Without knowing the details of the malfunction, Bouffard said aging pieces of equipment are \u201cbound to fail eventually\u201d after being in use for more than half a century.<\/p>\n
At the outage\u2019s peak, more than 20,000 customers were without electricity on Saturday in Montreal, Montreal West and C\u00f4te Saint-Luc. More than 50 people used a warming centre in C\u00f4te-des-Neiges, some of them staying overnight.<\/p>\n
Most residents had finally gotten their power back by late Monday. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, Sonny Moroz, the interim mayor for the borough of C\u00f4te-des-Neiges\u2013Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce, said the “crisis was over.” <\/p>\n
He said he met with Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec officials and that he was hopeful the conversation would “bear fruit” \u2014 bringing more investment, more quickly to the area.<\/p>\n
WATCH | What’s behind this latest blackout?:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769603351_258_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Why it\u2019s taking days to restore power to some Montrealers on the coldest days of the year<\/p>\n
Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec said it had to fix a breaker at the Hampstead substation, which feeds power to areas such as C\u00f4te-Saint-Luc, Que., and Montreal\u2019s neighbouring Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce neighbourhood. Thousands of customers went without electricity during the winter storm sweeping the region.In service since 1955<\/p>\n
While Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec has a plan to completely rebuild the aging station, the project has faced delays and is not scheduled for completion until 2029. Further upgrades to the power lines servicing C\u00f4te Saint-Luc won\u2019t be finished until 2031.<\/p>\n
The plan calls for converting the facility from 120 kilovolts\u00a0to 315 kilovolts\u00a0to meet growing demand. The substation will also be renamed the C\u00f4te Saint-Luc substation to reflect its actual location, which is C\u00f4te Saint-Luc \u2014 not Hampstead.<\/p>\n
A 2019 public notice stated that the rebuild was necessary to replace \u201caging equipment\u201d and ensure the reliability of the power grid.<\/p>\n
The substation has been in service since 1955.\u00a0At the time, Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec documents describe the site as being almost in the \u201cmiddle of a field.\u201d While the area was bordered to the southeast by a Canadian Pacific railway line, the surroundings were largely agricultural.<\/p>\n
In the decades that followed, the area\u2019s rural character gave way to dense, suburban development.<\/p>\n
That shift has complicated the upgrade process \u2014 and driven up demand. New, larger transmission lines will run through residential neighbourhoods and required extensive consultations.<\/p>\n
The replacement substation is part of an overall effort to provide more power, more reliably, in the years ahead, Bouffard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big challenge for Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec to build up its capacity in a restricted amount of space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Project delayed by pandemic<\/p>\n
Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec began public consultations for the project in 2018, but the timeline was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the utility<\/a>.<\/p>\nNessim Malka, a C\u00f4te Saint-Luc resident with a baby who just turned one, said the outage was difficult for his family. He believes Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec should have been better prepared and communicated more clearly with residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew this was coming. We knew we were going to have the coldest days this winter, and it seems like Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec was not prepared,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Poinlane acknowledged that Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec must improve its communications. He conceded that the utility\u2019s outage-tracking site, Info-pannes, provided incorrect restoration timelines for some customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe apologize for that,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know that some people were waiting for their power to be restored and it did not happen as indicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Tordjman, the mayor of C\u00f4te Saint-Luc, said he will work with Hydro-Qu\u00e9bec to make sure they have measures in place to ensure power is re-established more quickly \u2014 before the infrastructure is replaced. <\/p>\n
He pointed out that the lines into his community will only be completed five years from now, in 2031.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to work on mitigation measures to make sure we don\u2019t go through something like this again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-438609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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