[T]he developer of a major clean energy transmission line that would run through Addison County failed to win a bid to supply power to the New England market.
The Vermont Green Line development company, a partnership between National Grid and Anbaric, plans to build the project anyway.
A consortium of utilities in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut announced yesterday that they had selected proposals to bring 460 megawatts of clean energy to southern New England.
The Vermont Green Line development company was one of 24 companies vying for the contract.
The utilities chose six proposals, including bids from Ranger Solar and Deepwater Wind. Vermont Green Line was not among them.
Vermont Green Line filed an application with the Public Service Board last week. There are no plans to alter the development schedule for the transmission line, which will terminate at a substation in New Haven, as a result of the lost bid.
“It’s really business as usual for us,” said Joe Rossignoli director of U.S. business development for National Grid. “We’re going to pursue the project with the same intensity had we won the contract.”
“They [VGL] have not I guess thrown in the towel at this point,” said New Haven Selectboard member Steve Dupoise. “We’ll see if they can find another buyer for the power and pursue it from there.”
Rossignoli said there would be other opportunities to bid for contracts especially in Massachusetts, which signed legislation earlier this year requiring utilities to significantly expand their clean energy portfolio. According to Rossignoli, there will be a second round of bidding next April and the company may try to sell power to utilities here in Vermont.
In early October the New Haven Selectboard approved a multimillion-dollar deal with Vermont Green Line to build a converter station on a 60-acre parcel just off Route 7. As part of the deal, National Grid agreed to pay the town $1.4 million annually for 40 years once the project was operational as well as $4 million for improvements to the Fire Department and town Highway Department.
The agreement stipulated that National Grid would compensate homeowners whose property values declined as a result of the 400 megawatt converter station. In order to receive compensation, property owners would be compelled to demonstrate that their property suffered a loss in value “due solely to the presence or operation of the project.”
Dupoise said the town had spent very little of its own resources and the developer had established a fund to pay for legal fees. According to Dupoise the town recently used up the money in that account.
“From the beginning this was always a possibility,” Duopoise said, referring to the news about the contract. “The town is in no different position today than it was yesterday. If it doesn’t happen that’s fine.”
Vermont Green Line has also received approval from Beekmantown in New York state and the Addison County town of Waltham. In addition, the Agency of Natural Resources has agreed to let the developer run the transmission line through Kingsland Bay State Park. Vermont Green Line has committed to paying the state $500,000 for park improvements once the project is operational. The town of Ferrisburgh, through which the transmission line had passed, had not yet finalized an agreement with Vermont Green Line.
“They’re going to have to decide what part of this they’re going to go forward on and what part they’re going to put on hold,” said Richard Saudek, the attorney who represented New Haven in negotiations with National Grid and Anbaric. “There are very substantial costs in a project of this kind when you start ordering equipment and installing it.”
The transmission line would depend in large part on wind energy generated in upstate New York by Bull Run Energy, an affiliate of Invenergy. If approved, the nearly 450 megawatt wind farm would straddle four towns: Clinton, Ellenburg, Mooers and Altona.
Bull Run has filed a preliminary scoping statement but it could be another 12 months to 18 months before the actual application is filed, according to Eric Gustafson, an attorney representing the four towns. The application would need to be approved by New York’s Department of Public Service. Gustafson said he was unsure if Vermont Green Line’s failure to win the contract would impact the size and scope of the proposed wind farm.
A wind farm of that size would not be unusual for the northern reaches of New York state, Gustafson said.
“If you go there now,” he said, “the entire landscape is dotted with these incredibly elegant structures.”
