Harnois Énergies, a family business specializing in energy refueling, has built the first hydrogen charging station in Quebec!
Harnois Énergies is a family business specializing in the distribution of several petroleum products. When it was founded in 1958, Claude Harnois, with the help of his wife Lise Robitaille, initially focused on the distribution of home heating oil. Since then, the company has diversified its offer by distributing gasoline and heating oil for sectors as varied as the automobile, aeronautics and residential sectors. Since the arrival of the second generation at the end of the 1980’s, Harnois Énergies has grown on all fronts and has never run out of steam. The 1990s were marked by the development of the independent Harnois service station banner in 1996, and then the corporate convenience store network in 1998, allowing the company to reach a larger pool of customers. At the turn of the millennium, growth continued as the company signed agreements with Imperial Oil and then with ESSO. For the past fifteen years, Harnois Énergies has also grown through acquisitions, expanding its presence in several regions of Quebec by buying out several independent banners. In recent years, to face the eventual decline of its traditional activities, the family business has begun to diversify its service offering by developing, among other things, the aviation and electric vehicle sectors. Committed to sustainable development, Harnois Énergies is investing in hydrogen, a green energy, which allows it to diversify its portfolio and meet the needs of future consumers. In partnership with Toyota, HTEC and three levels of government, Harnois Énergies built the first hydrogen charging station in Quebec in 2019. Since then, it has won two government tenders to build new stations in Montreal and Quebec City by the end of 2021. The family business, which won the Gold Recognition in Canada’s Best Managed Companies competition in 2018 and 2021 with its 920 employees, is currently led by Serge Harnois, CEO and son of the founders with his brother and sister as co-owners and managers.
Read the news: ‘Harnois Groupe Petrolier: Canada’s Best Managed Companies 2018’
