The beauty of a hydroelectric facility is its long lifespan. When properly maintained, a hydroelectric plant can last a long time. At Hydro‑Québec, we operate facilities that have been in service for over 100 years and that continue to generate affordable energy for clients, since these facilities can pay for themselves.
Good maintenance is indeed necessary. In Quebec, we have an extremely well‑established ecosystem of companies that provide excellent services for all the maintenance and repair work that we carry out at our plants. This ecosystem is firmly in place.
Moreover, this ecosystem has helped us to increase our initial figure of 2,000 megawatts to 2,400 megawatts in the course of upgrading our power plants. This ecosystem has made that possible. This industry in Quebec has been able to further optimize its equipment. We just increased the number of megawatts from our current facilities. We owe it to this industry and its firmly established presence.
This industry, with its wealth of experience, also means that we can look forward to a steady stream of power plant upgrade projects over the next 15 to 20 years, one after the other, with a high level of predictability. That's an asset for us.