New York on July 3 imported the most electricity from Canada since January 2025 as a strong heat wave drove electricity demand for the area, according to an analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) imported 52 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity from Canada that day, as Canadian imports fulfilled nine per cent of electricity demand for the NYISO. Some of the imported electricity flowed along the new Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) transmission line between Quebec and New York City. The line only officially began commercial operations in May after three years of construction. A daily average of 1,400 megawatts per hour comes from Hydro-Québec and 800 megawatts per hour from the Independent Electric System Operator in Ontario . The new CHPE transmission line connecting Hydro-Québec’s grid and the NYISO grid has a capacity of 1,250 megawatts, which was fully utilized on July 3. Electricity demand for the NYISO was up during the first week of July due to a strong heat wave with an hourly peak load of 31,097 megawatts on July 2 at 7:00 p.m. Last summer, the hourly peak load from June through August was 31,857 megawatts on June 24, 2025, at 7:00 p.m., while the all-time record load of 33,956 megawatts occurred in July 2013. The new transmission line from Québec is expected to meet up to 20 per cent of New York City’s power demand, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Although the transmission line supplied power to New York during the heat wave in July, an outage that occurred in June resulted in the transmission line being taken offline again on July 4 for further repairs. In recent years, both ISO-New England and NYISO have relied less on electricity imports from Canada as drought conditions have limited hydroelectric generation. However, both regional grids have built high voltage transmission lines connecting hydropower from Québec to their respective regions, which could reverse the trend if hydroelectric generation increases. Opinion: We need more honesty in electricity pricingAtlantic provinces urged to pursue regional electricity grid: report • Email: dpaglinawan@postmedia.com