PORTLAND, Maine — Partners on a $1 billion undertaking aimed toward bringing Canadian hydropower to the New England energy grid try to kind out how value will increase throughout prolonged litigation will likely be shared, in hopes of getting the stalled undertaking shifting.
A provision in a spending invoice permitted Thursday by the Massachusetts House would open the door to a renegotiation of the transmission undertaking between the builders and Massachusetts utilities. The authentic contract known as for the undertaking to be funded completely by Massachusetts ratepayers; negotiations would decide how any further prices could be shared.
Lauren Diggin from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources mentioned she was grateful to the House for together with language wanted to jump-start the so-called New England Clean Energy Connect.
“Completion of the NECEC line is important for Massachusetts customers. This project will help stabilize our electric rates, provide clean, reliable winter energy supply, and reduce the state’s emissions,” Diggin mentioned an announcement.
The invoice should nonetheless be permitted by the Massachusetts Senate and signed by Gov. Maura Healey earlier than changing into regulation.
The state of Maine lifted its stop-work order practically two months in the past, however building has not but resumed on the undertaking, which has had a tortured historical past regardless of being backed by sitting Republican and Democratic governors in Maine and clearing each regulatory hurdle.
The ultimate impediment was a lawsuit by builders over a Maine referendum wherein 59% of voters rebuked the undertaking, inflicting building to halt.
In April, a jury in Maine dominated that builders, Central Maine Power’s company father or mother and Hydro-Quebec, accomplished sufficient work to have a vested rights to complete the undertaking. A month later, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection restored permits for the undertaking.
Avangrid, CMP’s father or mother, declined remark. A Hydro-Quebec spokesperson mentioned work has resumed at {an electrical} converter web site and that crews are being mobilized for transmission line work on the Canadian aspect of the border.
Avangrid and Hydro-Quebec partnered on the undertaking to construct an influence line to function a conduit for as much as 1,200 megawatts of Canadian hydropower with a aim of assembly inexperienced power targets in Massachusetts. That represents sufficient electrical energy for about 1 million houses.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”