- Sophie Bruchu, the Hydro-Quebec CEO, will exit in April after leading the company for three years.
- The company board is yet to recommend a candidate who will take Bruchu’s position.
- Last year, the utility firm proposed to Canada’s energy regulator to suspend the power supply allocation planned for the blockchain industry.
The CEO of Hydro-Quebec, the utility firm of the province of Quebec, Sophie Bruchu, who proposed the suspension of new power supply to the blockchain industry last year, is departing the company on April 11, according to a statement released on January 10.
The board chair Jacynthe Cote noted in a statement that:
“Under Sophie Bruchu’s leadership, a new strategic plan was developed in collaboration with several internal contributors and representatives of Quebec society, demonstrating her ability to bring people together.”
Bruchu joined the platform in April 2020 as CEO. However, Hydro-Quebec did not reveal who will take over Bruchu’s position but noted that the board would recommend its candidate, with the ultimate appointment to come from the Quebec Cabinet.
Previously, the utility platform proposed to Canada’s energy regulator to suspend the allocation of new 270 megawatts (MW) power supply planned for the blockchain industry last year. The firm’s proposal should have included which part of the industry was targeted. However, the Canadian province has been stipulated to be an ideal place for crypto miners to set up because of its abundant sources of clean and renewable energy.
Some miners who operate in the province, including Argo Blockchain (ARBK) and Bitfirms (BITF), stressed that after communicating with Hydro-Quebec, they revealed that their access to power would remain intact.
Notably, energy is one of the highest costs for crypto firms and miners; hence, they tend to build their operations in regions that offer affordable electricity sources, including Texas and Quebec.
The Unending Debate On Enormous Power Consumption
However, the crypto industry’s vast power consumption has led to an endless debate among policymakers around the globe. In early October, a group of seven Democratic lawmakers in Washington D.C., led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, were looking into the energy usage and carbon emissions of the Bitcoin mining industry in Texas and its impact on the grid of local consumers.
The group expressed their concerns in a letter addressed to Pablo Vegas, the CEO of the Electic Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), saying that bitcoin mining’s enormous demand for energy in Texas is straining the state’s grid, adversely affecting the consumers and the U.S. climate. The letter noted:
“Crypto mining is adding significant demand to an unreliable grid and contributing to the global climate crisis. The miners benefit at the expense of consumers from huge ERCOT subsidies in the form of demand response agreement.”
ERCOT manages the Texas electricity grid, which operates independently from the rest of the country. Noteworthy, the demand response programs mean that when the demand for energy across the grid is high, miners power down their operations in exchange for energy credits that they can use in the future, releasing power back to the struggling grid.
In 2021, various bitcoin miners flocked to Texas following a ban on the industry in China, leading to it becoming one of the largest hubs for crypto mining globally due to its seemingly abundant energy and tight regulation. Meanwhile, crypto miner supporters say that their operations absorb excess energy from the grid and incentivize more renewable power sources.
