With the Central Maine Energy Co. hall stalled and in authorized jeopardy, the Massachusetts vitality regulators who maintain the keys to the mission are making ready alternate options within the occasion of its potential defeat.
Ten months in the past in August, the top of the $1 billion hydropower hall warned regulators {that a} nine-month development delay would make it inconceivable to satisfy its end-of-2023 completion deadline. Maine voters rejected the mission in a November transfer that halted development with the perimeters nonetheless ready for the state’s excessive court docket to concern selections in two main instances.
In Massachusetts, which is commissioning the regional mission as a part of an enormous clean-power plan, Gov. Charlie Baker’s vitality workplace famous in a June report that whereas the hall is a “essential part” of the state’s vitality future, it’ll want extra renewable energy to achieve a aim of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Each that and delays on the mission have Massachusetts policymakers beginning to look tougher at a variety of potential alternate options, together with a newly proposed transmission line by way of Aroostook County that has been pitched as a Maine-centered electrical energy mission however could grow to be a a lot greater deal within the New England vitality image.
“We’d like to have the ability from Quebec,” Massachusetts state Rep. Jeffrey Roy, D-Franklin, who co-chairs the Legislature’s vitality committee, mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s as much as the Maine supreme court docket at this level. We’re all anxiously awaiting this choice.”
Roy underscored that his state is weighing choices round the right way to diversify its energy combine — together with a heavy give attention to offshore wind — out of a must discover all alternate options and never merely due to mission delays.
The commonwealth has been stymied because it handed a legislation in 2016 permitting the state to buy extra electrical energy from renewable assets. Its first try, a collaboration between Hydro-Quebec and Eversource of New Hampshire, died after a panel in that state denied the proposal in 2018, a transfer upheld by New Hampshire’s excessive court docket.
A Massachusetts Division of Vitality Assets spokesperson mentioned the workplace was persevering with to observe the Maine court docket instances over the legality of the November referendum and state land leases granted for the mission.
Baker’s plan additionally famous pursuing transmission to different assets in neighboring states can be the “subsequent most inexpensive possibility” — and that changing the contracted quantity of vitality from NECEC might require an extra 8 gigawatts of ground-mounted photo voltaic arrays.
However Maine vitality will not be out of the working. Roy mentioned the state is contemplating a northern Maine transmission line connecting renewables to the New England grid as licensed by the Legislature as a possible different. One of many proposals, Maine Energy Hyperlink, would generate 1,200 megawatts, the identical quantity NECEC is predicted to create.
The specifics round that line won’t be recognized till no less than November, when the Maine Public Utilities Fee selects a bid. However Public Advocate William Harwood mentioned regulators would set the value of vitality, and Massachusetts would then possible want to hunt its personal approval to purchase electrical energy from it. The 2 states will possible want to barter a contract.
“If the Supreme Court docket places a nail on this mission, then the [northern Maine] proposal begins to look much more fascinating,” he mentioned.
The Maine Energy hyperlink is to this point meant to answer Maine electrical energy clients’ wants, mentioned Marie Berninger, the enterprise improvement director at New York-based Con Edison Transmission. She declined to say if Massachusetts had expressed curiosity within the mission.
The hall faces each existential and sensible challenges. Relying on how the rulings come down, delays might be exacerbated or the mission might be nixed altogether. Within the Franklin County city of New Sharon, CMP and its allies have already needed to reapply for a allow to construct by way of the city after it expired as a result of work had not been accomplished.
Getting development again on-line would require restarting work with a number of firms concerned and mobilizing lots of of employees, mentioned Lynn St-Laurent, a spokesperson for Hydro-Quebec, which might provide the ability to the Maine line. However the firm was not involved that the mission would face main delays.
“We’re placing each effort in direction of our mission administration technique to have the ability to ship this mission by HQ and NECEC Transmission’s focused 2024 commissioning date,” she mentioned.
Massachusetts proponents are nonetheless hopeful the mission will come by way of. However the temper on Beacon Hill towards Maine appears to have soured after the November vote, in accordance with Assistant Massachusetts Senate Majority Chief Mike Barrett, D-Lexington.
He mentioned there are few choices that might change the mission outright, though the state is exploring them, calling the November vote right here a “slap within the face” to Massachusetts residents who spend cash supporting Maine’s tourism business.
“I personally am an important fan of your state — or was,” he advised a reporter. “However my enthusiasm has considerably waned.”
