Manitoba Hydro revives international consulting arm discontinued under previous board in 2021

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Peggy

Manitoba Hydro’s discontinued international consulting business is back effective immediately, and the province says the inflow of cash is expected to lower hydro rates in the province within five years.

“Today we are announcing that Manitoba Hydro International — a longstanding subsidiary of Manitoba Hydro — will be resuming operations of its international consulting line of business,” Ben Graham, board chair of the Crown corporation, said at a Monday news conference.

The business’s operations, which began in 1998, were ended by Hydro’s previous board in 2021 under the previous Progressive Conservative government.

Graham says Hydro’s new board, introduced after the NDP took office last fall, saw the business’s continued potential during a subsequent review of the public utility, as it had netted an average of $6 million to $8 million annually in the two decades that it was in operation.

The move will allow Manitoba Hydro to share its over century-old experience with the world and provide additional dollars to go directly toward lowering hydro rates for Manitobans, he said.

“Manitoba is back on the map for utility consulting and technological services,” Graham said.

“Getting back into the market means that we can boost Manitoba’s profile on the international stage and shine a well-deserved light on the talent and expertise that exists here in our province.”

The return of the international consulting business also comes amid staggering financial deficits for the Crown corporation, which projected a $190-million loss for the 2023-24 fiscal year last February.

Finance Minister Adrien Sala says the additional revenue will help keep Manitoba Hydro public.

“It will also allow Manitoba to share our expertise with the world, further cementing our role as a leader in the low-carbon economy and the transition to a greener future,” he said at the news conference.

Manitoba doesn’t need to choose between lowering costs for residents and growing lower carbon energy, he said.

“Today, we are taking a step that will do both at the same time.”

Results ‘going to take a little while’

There were about 30 opportunities that MHI was not able to respond to over the last year, which Graham estimated were worth tens of millions of dollars, though it’s not certain that Hydro would have secured each project.

“We saw a large number of opportunities pass us by. We were asked to submit applications and proposals for a large number of jobs and we just had to let them go,” he said.

Graham said there were between 140 to 260 staff employed by the consulting business, and a lot of them stayed with the Crown corporation after the business halted operations and will be transferred back. There could be about 20 or more positions added in the next two years.

“We’re very proud of this restart, but we’re going to be very prudent, very methodical in the contracts that we take on, so you might start to see those positive returns starting to flow through in say, four to five years,” he said.

“This isn’t going to be an overnight thing, so it’s going to take a little while to ramp this up over time, but the previous staff of MHI are very excited by this opportunity.”