Citing growing demand for its fleet charging solutions, Hydro-Québec created the new dedicated subsidiary to more effectively deliver its services and support customers

Commercial fleet operators in Quebec have a new ally in the transition to electric vehicles: Hydro-Québec is now offering a dedicated brand for large-scale charging solutions, Cleo.

The utility’s new subsidiary provides commercial clients with supplier-agnostic turnkey charging solutions for light-, medium- and heavy-duty fleets in the province.

Hydro-Québec actually began offering charging solutions for fleets in province earlier this year. The widespread interest and adoption of the solution is what led to establishing Cleo.

“Hydro-Québec fully assumes its responsibility and critical role in the transition to a low-carbon economy and seeks to act as a catalyst to meet the government’s transportation electrification targets,” said Jeff Desruisseaux, CEO of Cleo, in a press release.

“The market’s response since the launch of our charging solutions has been so positive that it made perfect sense to create a brand to reflect how increasingly important our services are within the ecosystem.”

In addition to offering support and maintenance for the charging infrastructure through a standard turnkey charging service, Cleo also uses and offers a smart platform that “automatically manages the charging of vehicles by anticipating their energy needs,” reads the press release.

Cleo in use

Now that there is a formal brand dedicated to commercial fleet charging solutions, Cleo is inheriting clients like First Student (North America’s largest student transportation provider), Autobus Groupe Séguin in Laval and Groupe Autocar Jeannois in Alma.

The latter two companies have been using Hydro-Québec’s (now Cleo) charging solutions since 2021 and 2022, respectively.

For First Student — which is the parent company of Transco in Quebec — Cleo will be responsible for setting up a charging platform to support 200 electric school buses by the end of this year.

“With the rollout, we intend to reduce our demand on the grid and more efficiently manage the charging of our electric school buses,” said Laurie Henner, area general manager at First Student in a press release. “We chose Cleo for its expertise and agnostic approach.”

The general categories Cleo will offer charging solutions for will include: school transportation, public transit, parcel delivery, utilities, freight transportation and municipal services.