Hydro-Québec Peak Events

The Hydro-Québec Peak Events integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more] tracks winter peak demand events (événements de pointe) published by Hydro-Québec, the electricity utility of Québec, Canada.

Peak events occur during Québec winters (December 1 to March 31). Hydro-Québec announces them when cold weather drives electricity demand high. Customers enrolled in a peak savings offer, such as the Winter Credit Option or Rate Flex D, reduce their consumption during these events. In return, they receive bill credits or lower rates. This integration exposes the event schedule so your automations can prepare for and react to peak events. For example, you can preheat your home before an event starts and lower thermostats while one is in progress.

The integration uses Hydro-Québec’s public open data. It does not connect to your Hydro-Québec account and requires no credentials.

Configuration

To add the Hydro-Québec Peak Events service to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

To track more than one offer, add the integration again and select another offer. Each configured offer appears as its own device with its own set of entities.

Supported functionality

For each configured offer, the integration provides the following entities. Events are published by Hydro-Québec a few hours before they occur, typically the day before.

Binary sensors

• Peak event in progress
  • Description: On while a peak event is in progress.
• Peak event today AM and Peak event today PM
  • Description: On when a morning or evening peak event is scheduled for today. Useful for residential offers with fixed event windows, where only whether an event occurs changes from day to day.
• Peak event tomorrow AM and Peak event tomorrow PM
  • Description: On when a morning or evening peak event is scheduled for tomorrow. For example, you can decide in the evening whether to charge your car overnight or preheat early.

Sensors

• Peak event begins
  • Description: Start time of the peak event in progress, or of the next upcoming event. The state is unknown when no event is scheduled.
• Peak event ends
  • Description: End time of the peak event in progress, or of the next upcoming event. The state is unknown when no event is scheduled.

Hydro-Québec Peak Events automation examples

Automation: Run actions around a peak event

This blueprint runs actions at three moments: a configurable time before a peak event begins, when the event begins, and when the event ends. For example, the automation can preheat the home ahead of the event, lower the thermostats when it begins, and restore the normal temperature when it ends. Hydro-Québec recommends preheating about two hours before an event begins.

Prefer to configure this automation manually? Use the YAML below.

alias: 'Hydro-Québec Peak Events: run actions around a peak event'
triggers:
  - trigger: time
    id: before
    at:
      entity_id: YOUR_EVENT_BEGIN
      offset: "-02:00:00"
  - trigger: time
    id: begin
    at: YOUR_EVENT_BEGIN
  - trigger: time
    id: end
    at: YOUR_EVENT_END

actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: before
        sequence: []
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: begin
        sequence: []
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id: end
        sequence: []

mode: queued
max_exceeded: silent

Data updates

The integration pollsData polling is the process of querying a device or service at regular intervals to check for updates or retrieve data. By defining a custom polling interval, you can control how frequently your system checks for new data, which can help optimize performance and reduce unnecessary network traffic. [Learn more] Hydro-Québec’s open data every 15 minutes. Between updates, the entities also refresh automatically when an event starts or ends, and at midnight, so the information stays current.

Known limitations

• Event availability, timing, and lead time are determined entirely by Hydro-Québec. The integration displays the data as published. Outside the winter season (December through March), no events are published for most offers.
• This integration covers Hydro-Québec peak events only. It is not related to the Hilo demand response program, which is a separate service with its own eligibility and scheduling.
• The integration provides the event schedule only. It does not report your consumption or the credits you earn; those are available in your Hydro-Québec account.

Removing the integration

This integration follows standard integration removal. No extra steps are required.

To remove an integration instance from Home Assistant

1. Go to Settings > Devices & services and select the integration card.
2. Next to the entry you want to remove, select the three dots menu. Then, select Delete.
   • Depending on the integration, the entries are listed under one of the following headings:
     • Devices
     • Hubs
     • Services
     • Integration entries
3. To confirm, select Delete.
   • Home Assistant also deletes the devices and entities of the entry.
4. If Home Assistant asks you to restart, restart Home Assistant.
5. If Home Assistant asks whether to also delete the application credentials, select Remove or Keep.
   • If you keep them, Home Assistant uses them automatically when you add the integration again.
   • To delete them later, refer to Deleting application credentials.