Hydro-Québec hearing opens as data centre power bills come under scrutiny

The proposal, put to the Régie de l'énergie, would set an average price of 13 Canadian cents per kilowatt hour for data centres drawing more than five megawatts, according to The Globe and Mail. Data centres in the province currently pay around six cents per kWh as large-power customers.

The hearing pits the utility against technology companies including Google, the Canadian Press report says, along with industry groups such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Hydro-Québec argues that charging the sector more would limit how far rising data centre demand pushes up residential rates.

Power, not chips, is the bottleneck

Quebec's numbers show why the question is not local. Hydro-Québec says the data centres covered by the proposed rate consume 190 MW at peak today and could reach 1,000 MW by 2035. Energy analyst Jean-François Blain told the Globe and Mail that cheap power "creates an exceptional draw that benefits Quebec, as long as they can supply those companies", while warning the utility may not be able to hold that price as demand grows.

The same arithmetic is playing out in Texas. On 30 September, Inside Climate News reported that administrative law judges recommended the Public Utilities Commission of Texas approve El Paso Electric's 366 MW gas plant for Meta's $10 billion, 1-gigawatt data centre only if ratepayers are shielded from its capital and operating costs. The judges found the utility failed to adequately weigh alternatives and did not issue a request for proposals; the plant would use 813 modular generators from Enchanted Rock at an estimated cost of $499 million. The five commissioners have not scheduled a vote.

Bain and Company put a wider figure on the buildout on 29 September. The consultancy says the AI industry must generate $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify infrastructure spending that could reach $1.5 trillion a year, and that data centre sizes and costs are doubling roughly every 12 to 16 months.

Cooling moves off the grid and into orbit

Some of the industry's answers are unusual. Tom's Hardware reported on 26 September that Google plans to launch a satellite called MVP next week on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying four Tensor Processing Units and one kilowatt of solar power. The chips will run for about 15 minutes before overheating forces a shutdown, and Google's cooling design vents heat directly into space because fans have no air to move.

James Manyika, Google's senior vice president of research, told the New York Times the company does not expect "anything usefully operational in the next few years" and compared the effort to its driverless car programme.

Transparency is a separate fight. POLITICO reported on 30 September that Lighthouse Reports filed a complaint under the Aarhus Convention accusing the European Commission of hiding individual data centres' energy and water use. The Commission's own figures put European data centre electricity use at 20.7 TWh in 2025, up 26% year on year, with water use up 52% to more than 8 million cubic metres. The Commission did not respond to POLITICO's request for comment, and the Aarhus committee decides on admissibility in November.

In the United States, a bipartisan Senate permitting bill unveiled on 30 September could ease transmission bottlenecks that Canary Media says are blocking hundreds of gigawatts of generation, with analysis for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions estimating roughly $7 billion in delivery cost savings by 2035. The House has adjourned until after the November midterms.