This is an interesting proposal, but I am concerned with one particular aspect of the proposal:
"the Participating States will require bidders to design their transmission project proposals to accommodate the ability to integrate multiterminal HVDC technology as that technology becomes commercially available."
It's unclear to me how close this technology is to being commercially available and will it be commercially operational in a time-frame that will ensure our ability to meet State energy targets
The proposal does acknowledge the risks of depending on non-existent and projected future multiterminal HVDC technologies.
This funding opportunity seeks innovative approaches to addressing transmission reliability and
resilience issues; innovative solutions, however, have attendant risks. For example, other than
the smaller-scale 30 MW Block Island project off the coast of Rhode Island, there are no utilityscale
offshore wind farms currently operating in U.S. waters.13 Further, effective development
of the vast capacities of U.S. offshore wind leaseholds will require use of HVDC technologies
due to the distance from the resources to load centers. However, HVDC transmission lines are
not extensively used in the U.S. and make up only about 1.5% of high voltage lines in the U.S.
(2,370 miles versus over 160,000 miles HVAC) and only three short underwater HVDC cables
have been commissioned from 2002 to 2010. There are no multiterminal HVDC lines at all.
While the European Union and the People’s Republic of China have made significant advances,
there remain many challenging technological gaps in the U.S. with respect to HVDC connected
offshore wind projects. This is especially true for the question of how multiple lines should be
meshed and the proper application of multi-terminal voltage source converter technology.
I certainly do see the political value of this proposal, but I'm not sure this is the most efficient and effective way to achieve State Energy goals and address resource adequacy needs to ensure grid reliability for New England.
Were any other project proposals considered to achieve State Energy Goals that did not depend on future non-existent technologies?