A new major power transmission project through NH and VT
www.twinstatescleanenergylink.com
Looks to me that the developers have decided that VT will be friendlier to the project than NH which is a quite a shift as VT has been the "graveyard" of major projects in the past. They must have quite the plan to get act 250 approval but routing it through the Northeast Kingdom under and an existing road is probably a good start. The NH portion project looks to run parallel to existing overhead lines. Knowing that the state highway down the CT river on the VT side is decidedly "rural", they are effectively going to be rebuilding the highway to get a cable into the right of way. It looks like they are making a much better thought out concept than the Eversource quick and cheap NP and hopefully they learned something. I think the NH governor's thoughts are now far more focused on national office or he would have had his fingers in it to shift the underground run to route 3 but I expect given the NP battle, that would have been a tough sell and he wants to green up his credibility. Lot of NH old school politicians are probably grumbling about the loss out of their district but others will crop up to replace them in other districts.
It is interesting that they claim 1200 MW capacity, that is quite larger than the claimed 900 MW limit for underground cables claimed by Northern Pass. The new route has mostly stayed away from core of the WMNF so AMC will probably not sign up to oppose. They are keeping it underground in Dalton (home of a high profile early opposer of NP, Jim Dannis). I wonder if SPNHF will decide its worth the effort as it does stay away from a lot of their hot buttons (new aerial corridors). A lot of the smaller rural towns along the NH side probably will not object strongly to widening and filling out existing Aerial transmission right of ways and appreciate the tax revenue.
This also appears to be a public powerline project compared to the merchant project proposed by HQ so that is somewhat better for the gird as its not monopolized by one entity. The tradeoff is unlike the other sefl funded project this one is funded by the federal government.
At this point it seems to be a lot of pluses and not a lot of minuses except it still suffers from high exposure of a major power corridor to vandalism/terrorism as anyone with a deer rifle can take out the lines a with couple of shots in the right place. It still fundamentally is a "brown" hydro supply but given the power generation issues in Mass and CT, its probably the best Not in My country solution. Hopefully it does not derail offshore power generation for the region.
Twin States Clean Energy Link | For a Greener New England Grid
The Twin States Clean Energy Link is a proposed renewable energy transmission project in Vermont and New Hampshire
www.twinstatescleanenergylink.com
Looks to me that the developers have decided that VT will be friendlier to the project than NH which is a quite a shift as VT has been the "graveyard" of major projects in the past. They must have quite the plan to get act 250 approval but routing it through the Northeast Kingdom under and an existing road is probably a good start. The NH portion project looks to run parallel to existing overhead lines. Knowing that the state highway down the CT river on the VT side is decidedly "rural", they are effectively going to be rebuilding the highway to get a cable into the right of way. It looks like they are making a much better thought out concept than the Eversource quick and cheap NP and hopefully they learned something. I think the NH governor's thoughts are now far more focused on national office or he would have had his fingers in it to shift the underground run to route 3 but I expect given the NP battle, that would have been a tough sell and he wants to green up his credibility. Lot of NH old school politicians are probably grumbling about the loss out of their district but others will crop up to replace them in other districts.
It is interesting that they claim 1200 MW capacity, that is quite larger than the claimed 900 MW limit for underground cables claimed by Northern Pass. The new route has mostly stayed away from core of the WMNF so AMC will probably not sign up to oppose. They are keeping it underground in Dalton (home of a high profile early opposer of NP, Jim Dannis). I wonder if SPNHF will decide its worth the effort as it does stay away from a lot of their hot buttons (new aerial corridors). A lot of the smaller rural towns along the NH side probably will not object strongly to widening and filling out existing Aerial transmission right of ways and appreciate the tax revenue.
This also appears to be a public powerline project compared to the merchant project proposed by HQ so that is somewhat better for the gird as its not monopolized by one entity. The tradeoff is unlike the other sefl funded project this one is funded by the federal government.
At this point it seems to be a lot of pluses and not a lot of minuses except it still suffers from high exposure of a major power corridor to vandalism/terrorism as anyone with a deer rifle can take out the lines a with couple of shots in the right place. It still fundamentally is a "brown" hydro supply but given the power generation issues in Mass and CT, its probably the best Not in My country solution. Hopefully it does not derail offshore power generation for the region.
