Hydro-Québec using AI to reduce power outages caused by trees

Charlotte Lepage · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 09, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Montreal's tree-lined streets are 1 of the city's top assets — they cleanable the air, adhd bursts of greenish to the scenery and assistance propulsion the factual background. But erstwhile storms hit, those trees clash with the municipality scenery and are a large origin of powerfulness outages.

That's wherefore Hydro-Québec is present utilizing caller technologies to find a mode for trees to coexist with its powerfulness lines.

Through a concern with the Chaire ArbrenVil astatine the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Hydro-Québec is mapping retired its web utilizing airy detection and ranging laser technology, different known arsenic LiDAR, to scan an country and make 3 dimensional accusation astir it. 

"We're trying to marque a integer duplicate of the web to spot if determination are interactions betwixt the histrion and the network," said Étienne Langdeau, manager of vegetation absorption for Hydro-Québec.

Artificial quality past measures the trees earlier and aft a upwind event, similar a windstorm, to spot which branches broke. The algorithm uses this accusation to get amended astatine predicting which branches are astir apt to snap. In turn, technicians tin preemptively chopped these branches earlier they go a problem.  

While the task is inactive successful the probe and improvement signifier due to the fact that the tools are novel, the results are promising, researchers say. 

According to Christian Messier, the pb researcher connected this task and a biology prof astatine UQAM, the task is astir helping to onslaught a equilibrium betwixt protecting the powerfulness grid portion not getting successful the mode of much trees being planted. 

"They [Hydro-Québec] were funny successful having idiosyncratic who volition analyse however we could amended reconcile the request to person much trees, much canopy successful the metropolis and trim the occupation associated with these trees," said Messier.

"So alternatively of doing what we bash now, what I telephone a benignant of a shotgun attack wherever we destruct arsenic galore branches arsenic possible, we tin present intervene, we hope, successful a much precise way."

Tree maturation manipulation

In St-Bruno-de-Montarville, connected Montreal's South Shore, Hydro-Québec hosts an experimental plantation with hundreds of trees. 

"My enactment is truly trying to get large information connected these trees," said Loïc Charlebois-Vachon, a Hydro-Québec intern who's been moving connected the grove. 

"We tally crushed LiDAR astatine antithetic places successful the plantation to get these ample constituent clouds and beryllium capable to analyse the antithetic particularities of the trees, for example, the histrion diameter, the histrion biomass and the histrion height."

They besides trial retired antithetic maturation manipulation techniques to spot what sticks. One of them uses stakes to get the histrion to turn successful a "y" signifier alternatively of consecutive up. This way, the histrion tin person a ample wide of leaves portion people avoiding the powerfulness lines.

Researchers moving connected the grove stock what they larn with Hydro-Québec technicians to instrumentality successful the field. 

"The extremity is truly to spot which taxon respond the champion to which treatments, spot which attraction is the astir effective," said Charlebois-Vachon.

'We request trees'

With clime change, utmost upwind events volition apt go much frequent, truthful the nationalist inferior is trying to get up of the contented with this project.

"We person much and much large storms … that tin make tons of problems, truthful overmuch truthful that immoderate radical adjacent advocator that we should trim the magnitude of trees that we found successful the cities," said Messier. "But I judge this is wrong. We request trees." 

Trees bring tons of benefits to cities, says Derek Robinson, prof astatine the University of Waterloo's section of geography and biology management. They filter the air, trim flooding risks, enactment arsenic sound filters and overmuch more. 

"The task is exciting," said Robinson, who uses LiDAR exertion for his ain histrion information gathering research. He notes that though immoderate gaps successful accuracy tin originate with the sensors, this is simply a "great application" of the technology.

"That narration betwixt the powerfulness line, the powerfulness poles holding up those powerfulness lines and the trees is thing that LiDAR information is truly bully at." 

When Messier was archetypal approached by Hydro-Québec 15 years ago, determination wasn't overmuch probe connected however to trim the problems caused by trees successful municipality settings. But now, determination are much researchers looking astatine these issues and caller technologies to assistance them, helium says. 

"These caller technologies … are large tools that let america to truly person a amended knowing of however to turn ample trees successful the metropolis portion minimizing the hazard of having harm connected our electrical lines."