Editor’s note: This commentary is by Howard Fairman, of Putney, a native Vermonter who likes to note what was unnoted, ask what was unasked, say what was unsaid about a public issue: sharing food for thought with fellow grassroots Vermonters.
[W]hy did the commonwealth of Massachusetts choose controversial Northern Pass Transmission in New Hampshire instead of welcomed New England Clean Power Link in Vermont to deliver “clean,” renewable hydroelectricity from Hydro-Québec (“the biggest contract of its history”)?
Snap judgment is that the fix was in. Who fixed what?
Now the New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee have unanimously rejected Northern Pass Transmission, surprising even themselves, it seems, for they still have not posted online their written decision: a “material corporate event” regarding a publicly-traded corporation and its potential grounds for appeal (transcript of deliberations). What next?
Advocates naturally assume that their advocacies were influential — or should have been, overlooking what actually was happening.
(“Public” bids that were posted online were too heavily redacted to be informative.)
The commonwealth of Massachusetts selected a winner among five competitors’ proposed international power lines delivering Canadian hydro and wind electricity to Massachusetts. (Twenty-three other Massachusetts Clean Energy competitors proposed domestic hydro, solar and wind alternatives.) Benefits to Massachusetts, not Northern New England, were decisive.
Four of these competitors proposed connecting the Hydro-Québec grid to the New England grid to deliver to Massachusetts similar amounts of electricity generated by Hydro-Québec and its wind-power partners:
• New England Clean Power Link via Vermont (1,000 megawatts);
• Granite State Power Link via Vermont and New Hampshire (1,200 megawatts);
• Northern Pass Transmission via New Hampshire (1,090 megawatts);
• New England Clean Energy Connect via Maine (1,200 megawatts).
Atlantic Link, undersea from New Brunswick to Massachusetts via the Gulf of Maine, proposes connecting Atlantic Canada’s New Brunswick-Nova Scotia-Newfoundland-and-Labrador grid to the New England grid to deliver 1,000 megawatts generated by hydro and wind power.
Winner, then rejected (pending appeal) Northern Pass Transmission via New Hampshire is a subsidiary of Eversource Energy (NYSE: ES), a regulated public utility serving Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire (formerly Northeast Utilities, Public Service Company of New Hampshire and NSTAR).
New England Clean Power link via Vermont is a private merchant power line proposed by Transmission Developers Inc., owned and financed by the $434 billion Blackstone investment fund, successor to Douglas Capital.
Fully permitted and shovel ready, able by itself to power the entire state at peak annual electric load, New England Clean Power Link is too big for Vermont.
It now has a second chance to win the Massachusetts Clean Energy bidding.
Otherwise, it likely will await another opportunity to power Southern New England, possibly in Connecticut.
Granite State Power Link via Vermont and New Hampshire, proposed by regulated public utilities National Grid and Citizens Energy, is a replacement for Northern Pass Transmission via a less controversial route. It, too, now has a second chance to win the Massachusetts Clean Energy bidding.
New England Clean Energy Connect via Maine is proposed by regulated public utility Central Maine Power, a subsidiary of Avangrid Networks, itself a subsidiary of Avangrid, Inc. (formerly Iberdrola USA; NYSE: AGR), a subsidiary of Iberdrola, S.A., of Bilbao, Spain.
Supported by Hydro-Québec along with New England Clean Power Link and Northern Pass Transmission (documented below), it also now has a second chance to win the Massachusetts Clean Energy bidding.
Atlantic Link under the Gulf of Maine is proposed by international public utility Emera of Halifax, Nova Scotia (Nova Scotia Power before 1992 privatization; Toronto Stock Exchange: EMA), in association with NB Power of Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Nalcor Energy of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
A strategic alternative to New England Clean Power Link (see below), it awaits an opportunity to power Southern New England as a free-market competitor of Hydro-Québec.
Why would anyone invest billions in these projects?
Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut are the second, third and fourth most densely populated states (after New Jersey) with a total population of 11.5 million (U.S. Census Bureau: 2017 estimates).
New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, however, ranking 21st, 31st and 38th by population density and having a total population of 3.3 million, must be crossed to import abundant hydro and wind power from sparsely populated Québec to densely populated southern New England, and may reap largesse for permitting this.
How northern New England, too, can import more abundant, renewable Canadian electricity is an unasked question.
The New England grid is unified by a 345,000-volt (AC) interstate highway for electricity — paid for by ratepayers — also connected to neighboring electric grids in New York state and New Brunswick, and via a 932-mile overall direct connection to Hydro-Québec’s vast James Bay hydropower development in subarctic Nouveau Québec (450,000 volts DC).
Closures of New England nuclear power plants are freeing some of the capacity of the New England interstate highway for electricity that proposed international power lines plan to employ to import electricity from Canada.
Five competitors propose to connect the Hydro-Québec and the Atlantic Canada grids to the New England interstate highway for electricity as follows:
• New England Clean Power Link at Ludlow, Vermont;
• Granite State Power Link at Londonderry, New Hampshire (via an upgraded, existing power line southward from Monroe, New Hampshire);
• Northern Pass Transmission at Deerfield, New Hampshire;
• New England Clean Power Connect at Lewiston, Maine;
• Atlantic Link at Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The New England interstate highway for electricity is administered and engineered by ISO-New England, which has authority to authorize connecting these “elective transmission upgrades” to the New England grid (2017 Regional System Plan, pp. 87–88).
The government of Québec owns Hydro-Québec and its vast present and future hydroelectric resources and surplus.
Surprisingly, the two interconnections currently importing electricity from Hydro-Québec to the New England grid date from 1985 (Vermont) and 1990 (Massachusetts).
“To meet Massachusetts’ energy needs, Hydro-Québec is proposing six options — either 100% hydropower or a hydro-wind supply blend — offered over one of three proposed new transmission lines”: New England Clean Power Link; Northern Pass Transmission; or New England Clean Energy Connect (press release, July 27, 2017; emphasis added).
It is unclear whether Hydro-Québec also supports proposed Northern Pass Transmission replacement Granite State Power Link.
Hydro-Québec formerly did not support New England Clean Power Link (press release, June 12, 2014).
Its Canadian developers attempted to force Hydro-Québec to deliver to New England electricity generated in Atlantic Canada, instead of buying it cheaply at provincial borders, then reselling it lucratively at market rates, as I documented and published a while ago (Sunday Rutland Herald and Sunday Times Argus, Dec. 27, 2015).
Hydro-Québec instead forced New England Clean Power Link to compete for selection by Massachusetts to deliver Hydro-Québec’s electricity there.
Depending on regulators, contracts and relative demand, however, merchant New England Clean Power Link may profitably buy Hydro-Québec’s surplus electricity low at the Canadian border, then resell it high on the New England grid, despite sophisticated domestic competition.
Meanwhile, Atlantic Link pluckily proposes bypassing Hydro-Québec to deliver electricity generated in Atlantic Canada directly to Massachusetts for sale at market rates.
New England electric ratepayers have paid for building, maintaining and enhancing the New England grid for our common good.
Similarly, New Englanders have paid gasoline- and diesel-fuel taxes funding construction and maintenance of interstate highways.
Turnpikes included in the interstate highway system are instead funded by investors buying government bonds repaid by tolls.
Similarly, a proposed international power line can be funded by investors repaid by electric ratepayers, but …
It is an electricity turnpike minimizing its length and cost by taking advantage of connecting conveniently to the ratepayer-supported New England interstate highway for electricity and its newly freed transmission capacity.
Formerly, ratepayers would instead pay to extend the New England interstate highway for electricity northerly to the Canadian border via existing rights-of-way for our common good.
Why extending the New England interstate highway for electricity northward to Québec is ignored in favor of dedicated, elective transmission upgrades delivering electricity directly to southern New England is an unasked question.
What if an elective turnpike crossing northern New England were similarly restricted to southbound vehicles traveling from Québec only to southern New England?
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont are at risk of becoming high-cost electricity hinterlands passed over by “their” future (southern) New England grid (although perhaps feeling virtuous about being locavores of electricity).
