Maine is going to need a lot more transmission lines if it hopes to hit its goal of having a carbon neutral grid by 2050. That’s the gist of this article I came across at the Maine Public Radio site. Of course, the same could be said about the rest of New England, and indeed the article is inspired by a report by ISO New England that says so much. Here’s an excerpt from the article about the report’s findings:
“Under one scenario outlined in the report, the electrical demand on the grid could peak at 57 gigawatts in the winter of 2050, which is more than double the highest peak load ever recorded. In order to create a grid that can reliably handle such a large demand, the report says it would cost up to $26 billion through 2050.”
As it stands, New England is heavily reliant on fossil fuels. In 2022, 53 percent of the region’s electricity came from natural gas. 12 percent came from renewables, including controversial bio fuels.
It’s clear that Maine should build more power lines. The problem, however, is that the state has a wretched history of holding up common-sense transmission projects.
Most notoriously, the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission corridor has been hamstrung for years by opposition groups to the detriment of the entire planet. For those unfamiliar with the project, NECEC is a transmission line that is intended to connect Quebec hydro power to the New England grid. The NECEC would have a big impact on Massachusetts’ energy portfolio, in particular. The transmission project promised to transport 9.45 million MWh of electricity from Hydro-Quebec to Massachusetts every year. That would account for around 8% of the electricity used in all of New England, powering close to 1.2 million homes.
However, The project was held up in 2021 by a group of 50 Maine legislators, representing the 59% of Maine voters who had voted no on a ballot initiative earlier that same year. Then, this past April, the jury of a Maine state court ruled that the New England Clean Energy Connect project (NECEC) could indeed advance.
From the news I’ve read on the ruling, it isn’t exactly clear what swayed the jury in favor of the transmission project. However, it’s likely that rerouting the proposed power lines away from beloved state forests to out of the way timberland helped. Ensuring some of the energy would go to Maine customers, as opposed to just using the state as a corridor, also probably assuaged the concerns of the jury.
The example of this back and forth between the Maine residents and the power companies serves to show how tricky a massive, rapid transmission build out would be for the country. On one hand, building a robust transmission system in a short period of time, which is what we desperately need if we are to curtail climate change, can’t happen with current community input mechanisms. However, as we see in Maine, those community input mechanisms do sometimes correct pretty big oversights by utilities and developers.
Despite our community input mechanisms succeeding in Maine to find a fair compromise, I still think we’d be better off rapidly developing our transmission infrastructure and accepting some unfortunate planning oversights.
I’m going to pull form an LA Times article to give you an idea how important transmission lines are to America’s energy transition:
“How significant is the need for new transmission? The REPEAT Project, which is led by Princeton University researchers, reported last year that 80% of the potential cuts in carbon pollution made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act — the climate bill signed by President Biden — could be lost if the U.S. fails to accelerate the build-out of its electric grid.”
“One, from the Clean Air Task Force, lays out the arduous approval process at the Public Utilities Commission, with environmental reviews required by the California Environmental Quality Act that can take as long as four years. The other report, from consulting firm GridLab and clean energy advocacy group CEERT, notes that it took 12 years for Edison to finish a project to bring thousands of megawatts of wind power from the Tehachapi area in Kern County to the Los Angeles Basin.”