Rate DN
Rate for residential customers served by off-grid systems north of the 53rd parallel (domestic rate)

• Apartment buildings
• Community residences
• Rooming houses
• Bed and breakfasts (9 rooms or less)
• Tourist homes
• Foster families or foster homes (9 people or less)
• Residential outbuildings, that is, any buildings or installations belonging to premises used for habitation purposes,
  • used exclusively by the persons occupying the dwelling or apartment building;
  • used exclusively for purposes related to those of the dwelling or apartment building
• Portion of electricity used for purposes other than habitation (installed capacity 10 kW or less)
• Farms: Land, buildings and equipment used to raise crops or livestock, excluding any dwelling or any facility used for commercial activity or industrial activity
  See the eligibility criteria regarding domestic rates for farms [PDF 693 kB]

• Rates for residential customers whose service address is in a region served by an off-grid system south of the 53rd parallel

  See Rate D

  See Rate DM

• Rates for business customers whose service address is in a region served by an off-grid system north of the 53rd parallel

  See general rates for business customers served by off-grid systems north of the 53rd parallel

• Net Metering for Rate DN customer-generators whose electricity is supplied by an off-grid system – Option III

  See Net Metering for Rate D, DM, DN or G customer-generators whose electricity is supplied by an off-grid system – Option III

If you have a Rate DN service contract, you shouldn’t heat your home and water with electricity, because it will cost you more.

In fact, if you choose to heat your home electrically, you will have to pay, in addition to applicable charges at Rate DN, a “special charge for connecting to an off-grid system [PDF 4.69 MB].”

More specifically, the “special charge for connecting to an off-grid system” applies in the following cases:

• When your connection request concerns an off-grid system located north of the 53rd parallel, except the Schefferville system, and is for electricity used for heating space or water
• When a space- or water-heating system is converted to electricity

It does not apply if your connection request is for temporary use of electric heaters to dry joints and paint during construction work.

Applicable charges

The “special connection charge for off-grid systems” amounts to the following:

• $5,000 for the first 20 kW
• $250 per kilowatt after that

See Section 20.1 of the Conditions of Service [PDF 4.69 MB].

The system access charge, expressed in cents per day for this rate, is a set amount that you pay for electricity service.

As the amount of energy you use varies, the amount billed varies as well.

Hydro-Québec must be able to meet its customers’ maximum power demand at all times. Even though power demand is variable throughout the year and consumption is sometimes minimal, Hydro-Québec’s rates still have to cover the cost of operating and maintaining the power system. For this reason, it’s important that rates for large electricity consumers include billing for maximum power demand. This reflects the costs associated with meeting power demands of varying size and duration.

Calculating billing demand

The demand charge is applied to the greater of these two billing demand values:

• Maximum power demand corresponding to the greater of these two values:
  • Real power
  • 90% of apparent power

or

• Minimum billing demand

For Rate DN, the minimum billing demand is set at 65% of the maximum power demand during a consumption period that falls wholly within the winter period included in the 12 consecutive monthly periods ending with the consumption period in question.

Hydro-Québec grants a supply credit of 0.241¢/kWh to Rate DN customers to whom it supplies electricity at 5 kV or higher.

Domestic rates, like the other rates, assume that electricity will be supplied at low voltage. If you have equipment to step down the voltage of the electricity delivered to you or if you use electricity at medium or high voltage, that means reduced costs for Hydro-Québec. In return, you’re granted a monthly credit.

Rate DN has a multiplier that applies to the system access charge, to the consumption at the various energy price tiers and to the base billing demand.

The multiplier depends on the type of dwelling and is established as follows:

• For apartment buildings or community residences consisting of units, the multiplier corresponds to the number of units (e.g., the multiplier for a community residence consisting of 25 units is 25).
• For a community residence with both dwellings and rooms, the multiplier corresponds to the number of dwellings, plus 1 for the first 9 rooms and 1 for each additional room (for example, the multiplier for a community residence with 5 dwellings and 5 rooms is 6).
• For a rooming house or community residence with 10 rooms or more, the multiplier is 1 for the first 9 rooms, plus 1 for each additional room (for example, the multiplier for a community residence with 15 rooms is 7).