Welcome to the new Energy Central — same great community, now with a smoother experience. To login, use your Energy Central email and reset your password.

👉 Watch drones inspect power assets live—click here to register for the June 17 webinar.

Energy Business
Mark Silverstone
Mark Silverstone
 · Posted in Energy Business

Connecting Massachusetts to Quebec Hydropower via Maine: The Saga Continues

The project to connect Massachusetts to 1200 megawatts of hydro power from Quebec, Canada just took a significant step forward. And it may be the poster child for wars in which utilities struggle to connect available green power to the grids where it is needed. So, it is likely a portent of future such conflicts.
 
As previously reported in Energy Central,  though the war may not yet be over, this week a jury helped the utility get closer to approval to complete the $ 1 Billiion  project that was planned in 2017 and originally scheduled to be online in 2022.
 
I understand that these kinds of efforts by utilities often make for strange bedfellows. In this case, for example, the owners of the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant (Next Era) and the Natural Resources Council of Maine NRCM) both oppose the project. And the array of legal and regulatory bodies on both sides are  jockeying for influence and jurisdiction for different aspects of it. It’s not that surprising as it involves the interests of diverse stakeholders, each represented by well funded and organized groups of litigants.  There are many financial and environmental trade- offs that are necessary to make the project move forward. A partial list of litigants include NECEC, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NRCM, NextEra Energy Resources,  and residents in the Kennebec Valley called the West Forks Group, the Sierra Club and the Appalachian Mountain Club, each involved in various courts, local, state and federal.
 
In this case, a jury had to weigh the interests and  complex arguments about the work that was started on the most controversial aspect of the project, the 145 mile corridor in northern Maine.
 
The jury had to consider testimony what lawyers presented over 7 days and contained in about 2 million pages of documents collected over 5 years.
 
In the end, the 9 member jury took 3 hours to reach a unanimous verdict to allow the project to proceed. 
 
The “senior vice president and general counsel for NECEC’s parent company, Avangrid, said in a statement: “The jury’s unanimous verdict affirms the prior rulings of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court that NECEC may lawfully proceed. Even after repeated delays and the costs caused by the change in law, the NECEC project remains the best way to bring low-cost renewable energy to Maine and New England while removing millions of metric tons of carbon from our atmosphere each year.”
 
I think part of the problem is that Maine is being asked to sacrifice some of its own forest resources and is getting no direct benefit, other than the increased power resources available to New England as a whole. It may result in lower electricity costs to the whole region. To be honest, I cannot claim to fully understand the issues, not even the strictly environmental ones, much less the legal issues. 
 
On one issue, all parties are likely to agree: This was but one battle which, although an important one, is not the last.
 
But another issue is lurking and I was not surprised to learn that it involves the interests of the existing nuclear and gas fired power in the region:
 
Before the project to bring hydro power from Canada “…can be completed, the project's developer, Avangrid, needs Seabrook's owner, NextEra, to upgrade a substation it operates to accommodate the new line in Maine."

The substation connects Seabrook to the regional power grid and needs more capacity to handle the addition of the new electricity onto the system. In federal regulatory proceedings, Avangrid, the parent company of Central Maine Power, has accused NextEra of dragging its feet on the work.

So-called legacy generators like gas and nuclear plant owners have long opposed importing Canadian hydropower, which has the potential to lower electricity prices and cut into their profits. The Maine transmission line and Seabrook would compete in the energy markets as some of the region's largest power sources.”

Bottom line: The additional power is not in NextEra’s (the owner of Seabrook Nuclear) financial interest.

"There an ongoing dispute concerning Avangrid’s refusal to fairly reimburse NextEra Energy for the financial impact of work that they have demanded the Seabrook Station perform,"

So, Seabrook wants to get paid because of the impact of the increased supply of power on the energy market.  So much for free market capitalism.

Frankly, I’m astonished that NextEra thinks they are entitled to be compensated for the effects of competition for the entire life of the nuclear plant. 

The NRC is investigating. 

I think the message is not to hold our breath for resolution.Â