For twenty years the story north of the border has been simple: Québec makes far more electricity than it needs and sells the surplus south. This month the story ran in reverse, and it landed in federal court in Boston.
Developments dated August 23 – September 22, 2026 — the first scan to cover Québec and New Brunswick alongside Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. See the About page for why the two provinces are here.
Québec: a net importer, then a lawsuit both ways
Hydro-Québec’s big reservoirs work like a battery — water banked behind a dam instead of charge in a cell — and that battery has been draining for three years running. The province’s maximum energy in storage has fallen from 97 terawatt-hours in 2024 to 91 in 2025 to 86 as of January 1, 2026 (a terawatt-hour is a billion kilowatt-hours, a unit for measuring very large amounts of electricity). Hydro-Québec confirmed to La Presse that the Caniapiscau reservoir, its largest, sits well below normal, while adding that one strong production month — June 2026 was up 5.7% year over year — doesn’t mean the drought is over. The utility now expects its stock to recover to 100.5 TWh by January 2027, with autumn rainfall deciding how close it gets.
The practical result: for the first time in its history, Hydro-Québec became a net importer of electricity in 2025, buying power to cover Québec’s own demand while still honoring its export contracts to Boston and New York. It stayed a net importer through the first half of 2026, taking in about 2 TWh more than it sent out.
That squeeze is the backdrop to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston this month. Eversource, National Grid and Unitil say Hydro-Québec’s American subsidiary cut off contracted power deliveries for parts of 12 days in January and February — January 24–31 and February 6–9 — during a severe cold snap, just eight days after a new transmission line into Massachusetts had gone into service. The utilities say they spent $40 million US on dirtier replacement power to keep the lights on, that Hydro-Québec kept billing for power it didn’t deliver, and that it never gave the contractually required notice before cutting the line. Hydro-Québec filed its own suit the same week, arguing the cold snap was a genuine emergency covered by a force-majeure clause and that the three utilities in fact owe it $50 million US for power it says it did deliver. Both sides want a judge to settle it — Hydro-Québec wants payment, the utilities want a standing order that the power keeps flowing.
It’s a small dollar dispute by grid standards, but it’s a direct test of what a “firm” contract with Hydro-Québec is worth when Québec itself is short of water — and Québec is currently negotiating to send still more of its future hydro output, from a possible new station at Gull Island in Labrador, toward New York as well as New England.
New Brunswick: conditional approval for a 500 MW gas plant
New Brunswick’s environment minister gave conditional approval on August 28 to a 500 MW power plant proposed by U.S.-based ProEnergy in rural Tantramar — ten refurbished jet turbines burning natural gas, with the ability to switch to diesel when gas isn’t available, under a 25-year contract with NB Power. The New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board (NBEUB, the province’s utility regulator) had already approved the underlying deal in May; this month’s action was the separate environmental sign-off, attached to 45 conditions including air- and water-quality monitoring and a requirement to file a net-zero plan after the plant’s first full year running.
The government says the plant is needed to avoid rolling blackouts within two years. Opponents, including NB Media Co-op — openly advocacy-adjacent on energy issues, worth noting as you read it — say a 25-year gas contract cuts against the province’s own climate targets. Both things can be true: New Brunswick’s argument is about reliability on a two-year horizon, and the objection is about what gets locked in for the 23 years after that. Target in-service is 2028; ProEnergy has three years to start construction.
Maine: CMP asks for an interim bump on the way to $189 million
Central Maine Power is asking the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC, the state agency that sets electric and gas rates) for a $69.3 million temporary rate increase — a down payment inside the $189 million general rate case CMP filed in April, which would eventually add roughly $18 a month to a typical bill. CMP points to a credit-rating outlook downgrade from S&P and a roughly $100 million cash-flow shortfall, and says more than two-thirds of the temporary request is to recover the cost of infrastructure it has already built. Commissioners are expected to set the temporary rate at an October 6 hearing; if the final case comes in lower, the difference is refundable, though that outcome is considered unlikely.
New Hampshire: a data center still isn’t official, and a rate case gets a new intervenor
The possible 350 MW hyperscale data center at the retired Merrimack Station coal site in Bow — first reported in early September — is still just that: a viability study Eversource is running for Granite Shore Power, not a filed interconnection request or a named developer. Governor Ayotte has said she’ll push for a moratorium on AI data centers in the state’s next budget.
Separately, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander won intervenor status in Liberty Utilities’ pending rate case, which is seeking a permanent $35.8 million increase plus a temporary bump near $11 million that could take effect November 1. Liberty says it has put more than $145 million into its gas system since its last rate case in 2023; a typical residential heating customer would see roughly 16.5%, or about $26 a month, more.
Vermont: the rule behind the rate
Last month’s scan covered the biennial order that raised Vermont’s net-metering compensation rate. This month, the Vermont Public Utility Commission opened a separate rulemaking, on September 9, to update Rule 5.100 — the regulation governing how net-metering systems are actually built and connected, as distinct from what they get paid. A public workshop is scheduled for October 2. The docket doesn’t yet say what’s prompting the update.
The region’s first apples-to-apples number
One thing the five-jurisdiction scope makes possible for the first time: a comparison that actually holds up. The federal Alternative Fuels Data Center counts public EV charging stations in Canada the same way it counts them in the U.S., which makes station counts the one adoption figure this site can compare across the border without caveats.
| Public charging stations | |
|---|---|
| Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont (combined) | 1,485 |
| Québec | 5,126 |
| New Brunswick | 288 |
Québec alone has more than three times the public charging infrastructure of the three states combined — a reminder of why this site reports Québec and New Brunswick separately from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont rather than folding everything into one regional number. A single blended total would mostly just be a Québec number wearing a regional label.
Source: DOE/NREL Alternative Fuels Data Center station API, queried September 22, 2026. Station-level freshness varies more in New Brunswick than Québec — some New Brunswick records were last confirmed over two years ago — so treat the totals as solid but individual station listings as less current.
Worth watching next month
- Québec — the general election on October 5, and what it means for the Gull Island/Churchill Falls hydro agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador, which still needs an environmental assessment and Indigenous consultation before it can proceed.
- Maine — the PUC’s October 6 decision on CMP’s temporary rate request.
- New Hampshire — whether the state’s nuclear road map, due on a “preliminary September” deadline, actually gets published.
- Vermont — the October 2 workshop on the Rule 5.100 net-metering rulemaking.
- New Brunswick — the Legislature returns October 20, with NB Power’s 2026 Integrated Resource Plan still awaiting approval.
- Regional — ISO-New England’s October 1 webinar on the transmission procurement targeting northern Maine’s new wind capacity, and the still-pending final report on its preferred route.