Massachusetts selected Northern Pass last week over other competing projects in the region that would bring power from Canada to the Bay State.
On Thursday, New Hampshire regulators threw that decision in doubt when they denied Northern Pass a permit on the grounds that the Eversource, the developer, hasn’t proven it would benefit industries in New Hampshire.
The move could put back in the running a competing proposal for a high-voltage line to carry Canadian hydropower to Massachusetts via a route that would go under Lake Champlain and underground through part of Vermont. Gov. Phil Scott had hoped revenue from that project could help pay for Lake Champlain cleanup. Massachusetts’ recent selection of the New Hampshire project appeared to be a serious blow to that vision.
Environmentalists say they expect Eversource to ask the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee to reconsider the decision, but said they’re pleased state regulators denied the permit.
“Northern Pass has been a flawed project right from the start,” said Jack Savage, vice president of outreach and communications with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
There are flaws with the project, Savage said, but the application itself was flawed as well.
“Even at the end they didn’t have accurate surveys showing where it would be,” he said.
A report Eversource submitted with the application, purporting to show that it would bolster orderly development in the region was fatally flawed, Savage said.
New Hampshire authorities found it “not credible,” he said.
Without trustworthy documentation showing the project won’t harm New Hampshire, the siting committee had no choice but to deny the permit, Savage said.
The Northern Pass transmission project would run a 1,100-megawatt power cable through New Hampshire and supply Massachusetts with 9.45 terawatt-hours of electricity each year, about enough to power 1 million homes.
Savage described it as “a large-scale industrial high-voltage set of more than 1,000 transmission towers up to 160 feet high strung across 192 miles of the landscape.”
The move by New Hampshire regulators could reopen the possibility of Vermont hosting its own similar but far preferable power cable, said Sandy Levine, senior attorney with Conservation Law Foundation.
“I think the rejection of Northern Pass by the New Hampshire regulators certainly opens up the field for 44 other projects that are in line to meet the power requirements for Massachusetts,” Levine said.
For instance, there’s a proposal by Transmission Developers Inc. that would carry the same amount of power through Vermont in an underground cable, unlike the New Hampshire cable that would be strung high in the air for most of its length.
Levine’s organization secured for Vermont more than $100 million in payments meant to mitigate the cable’s environmental harms, and overall the TDI project would contribute more than $200 million to the state.
Scott has talked up hopes that these payments will fund efforts to reduce water pollution in Lake Champlain.
That project remains ready to go, said TDI-New England CEO Don Jessome.
“TDI-NE offers a fully permitted, fully supported, fully underground and viable, shovel-ready solution to help the state of Massachusetts meet its clean energy goals with low-cost electricity,” he said. “We stand ready to assist the commonwealth as it achieves these targets.”
Massachusetts received 45 bids after asking in March 2017 for proposals to supply 9.45 terawatt-hours of renewable energy annually to the state, to aid in reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by state residents.
Massachusetts regulators last week selected Northern Pass from among them to supply the entirety of that power.
Levine said the selection “was probably the worst of the projects for Massachusetts to pick.”
A contract from the state won’t be executed until late March, and Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs office spokesman Peter Lorenz said a contract will be contingent upon successful permitting.
“Massachusetts’ recently selected clean energy procurement project remains conditional on necessary siting approvals and EEA will continue to monitor and evaluate developments in New Hampshire as the administration works to ensure a clean and affordable energy future that progresses toward greenhouse gas emissions reductions,” Lorenz said.
Quebec’s state-owned power company, Hydro-Québec, was partnered with Eversource on the Northern Pass project, but the Canadian energy giant is equally partnered with the TDI project and another, similar cable in Maine.
In all three projects, Hydro-Québec would build a transmission line to the American border, where a partner company would tie in and transmit power to Massachusetts. Hydro-Québec would sell hydropower or a combination of hydropower and wind power to the state through the cables.
Massachusetts’ approval of the Northern Pass project, even with the complications from New Hampshire, shows that hydropower can play an important role in Massachusetts’ bid to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, said Lynn St-Laurent, a public affairs and media adviser at HQ.
The New Hampshire decision came as a surprise, St-Laurent said, “but it was a known risk. Siting infrastructure projects always has a risk component to it.”
Hydro-Québec remains committed to the Northern Pass project, but the company offered Massachusetts several options and “those partners remain interested,” she said.