Another new Transmission line through NH and VT - Granite State Power

[peakbagger]

http://www.nhbr.com/March-31-2017/National-Grid-proposes-NH-Vt-high-power-transmission-line/

This is "radical" project - Install a second DC powerline along the existing HQ right of way through VT to Monroe NH and then upgrade existing lines south of Monroe to handle to power. Hard to see how NP will be able to compete with this one. Wonder why NP didn't come up with this one?. (hint NP wanted to own the entire project, I believe that they would have to share with others if they did the project as described).

Its battle of two large corporate energy companies Eversource vs National Grid.

Note the last line, the NH PUC rejected NP signing a long term rate contract for NH to get a small portion of the power through the line. I am waiting to hear how NP handles this one

 

[Hammerdee]

Eversource hopes that a Jeb Bradley Senate bill, SB128, gets approved by the NH House. (I am a state Rep. serving on the Science, Technology, and Energy committee). This somewhat controversial bill will modify the existing electric restructuring law to allow the public utilities commission to consider "measures" to lower the cost of electricity while minimizing the risk of stranded costs. It originally included natural gas projects, but gas pipelines are viewed as toxic by many people, so gas was dropped. The bill as it stands today would allow consideration of long-term contracts known as purchase power agreements (PPA) under very narrow circumstances. PPAs have been around for a long time, but recent PUC staff interpretations of the restructuring law have put them in jeopardy, especially with generation divestiture in full swing.

Does NP need a PPA to be approved? No. But it would provide a small measure of rate relief to Eversource customers, and would be nice PR for the company.

 

[peakbagger]

I am not a fan of a PPA for any portion of NP. As you are no doubt aware the grid and its pricing models is very complex and anyone claiming to be able to predict future rates and how a long term PPA will impact those rates is a deluded at best. The ratepayer is already going to get socked with an indirect subsidy for the shell game associated with the regulated side of Eversource leasing ratepayer paid for long term right of ways at a discount to the non regulated side of Eversource so they can lease it at much higher price to NP.

For an example of why PPAs are not a great idea, the Berlin Biomass PPA may have made sense a few years ago but I believe the third party assessor for the Eversource assets valued it at some very high negative value in the range of 100 million. I presume that that's going to get thrown in with the recovery fees ratepayers are already going to get hit with for assets that are being sold.

Then again based on this weeks hearings and the various disclosures on project economics it may be a moot issue. If Mass picks them for the clean power RFQ all the economics change.

 

[Hammerdee]

PPAs are tricky. Two good examples:

1) Vermont utilities have multiple PPAs in place with Hydro-Quebec and Vermont has the second lowest electric rates in New England (Maine is lower) -- in spite of generous subsidies for wind and solar.

2) The Burgess BioPower PPA was granted with a ratepayer protection cap. When the over-market costs of this PPA exceed $100 million, the agreement terminates. Unfortunately, with low regional wholesale power prices, that day looks to be within the next 12-18 months.

What will be worse -- the $100 million hit ratepayers will take, or Burgess BioPower going bankrupt? It's almost an "everybody loses" scenario.

I guess there are good and bad things about any contract.

 

[skiguy]

As informational as this is how does this thread relate to hiking?

 

[peakbagger]

One of the reasons I didn't respond any further

 

[Stan]

As informational as this is how does this thread relate to hiking?

I think it started out as an impact that the NP project might have on areas where hikers and others recreate or on related viewsheds. It seemed to grow from there on what can become tedious details and some rooting against the project. However, I welcome it and appreciate it for a few reasons aside from the hiking and related interest: I respect the opinions of those who have opined on the matter which is more than I can say for other sources of information on this topic and I'm curious about the outcome and how it may eventually impact the areas involved as well as m own utility rates, renewables and capacity.

So I hope the thread continues for it would be like ending an exciting story before the story ends.

 

[skiguy]

I think it started out as an impact that the NP project might have on areas where hikers and others recreate or on related viewsheds. It seemed to grow from there on what can become tedious details and some rooting against the project. However, I welcome it and appreciate it for a few reasons aside from the hiking and related interest: I respect the opinions of those who have opined on the matter which is more than I can say for other sources of information on this topic and I'm curious about the outcome and how it may eventually impact the areas involved as well as m own utility rates, renewables and capacity.

So I hope the thread continues for it would be like ending an exciting story before the story ends.

I certainly agree from an information standpoint but I do not agree with the political undertones being allowed on this board. I have previously stated my opinions on this matter and have been batted down by the Moderators. I can accept that although I think some posters are given more latitude than others. This is a great board and some of us have been around for awhile. A lot of us have also supported this board financially and I encourage others to do so in order to preserve the experience.

 

[NHClimber]

So I hope the thread continues for it would be like ending an exciting story before the story ends.

I certainly agree from an information standpoint but I do not agree with the political undertones being allowed on this board.

As someone who considers himself solidly independent from either political party, I agree with both of these sentiments but the reality is that there is always going to be political bias in how folks articulate their perspectives. And as a private forum, the moderators, who undoubtedly have their own bias, have their own levels of tolerance and intolerance of various view points with which we may not agree. Not much we can do about it except recognize it and move on, informing ourselves as best we can and considering various perspectives. Our only other choice is to not participate if we feel that the discussion is unfairly biased. Bottom line: go in with eyes wide open. Overall, I find the information in this thread and other threads relating to north country development to be informative, regardless of whether I agree with all of the perspectives that are expressed.

 

[Raven]

I don't associate with any political party. IMO, anything with the potential to affect the visual landscape and watershed of NH is relevant to the hiking community. These projects have the potential to have long lasting effects on the very land we walk and the water we drink. I have no issues with people discussing these publicly here on this forum. It's best for the community when there is transparency and when those people who may be affected are aware of what is changing around them. Thanks for posting them regardless of whether pro or con.

 

[sierra]

My 2 cents. I could live without this thread, The NP thread and the Balsams thread. Saying they are related to hiking is a stretch at best. Ok, they affect the views, but other then that there are other places where they could be researched and discussed. The hotel on Washington, now that has a direct impact on many facets of hiking, so that belongs. Ok, maybe 4 cents worth.

 

[DayTrip]

I personally like the threads on just about any Northern topic because I live in CT and am not really up to speed at all on the "goings on" up there with planning, local politics, etc so info and opinions from residents and people "in the know" is nice. These threads often go way beyond the level of information I need or want (or understand ) but I can simply skip the threads if I get a popsicle headache and come back to it down the road when I'm interested in an update, much like any other topic. The high level of detail and thoroughness that topics of all types get on this forum is outstanding and a huge benefit. Seems like there are experts able and willing to contribute on virtually every topic discussed. Wouldn't want that to get "muzzled".

 

[bikehikeskifish]

FWIW, the politics rule exists to allow moderation when things get out of hand. As long as there aren't political "cheap shots" and the topic is generally relevant, then the moderators are not going to stop conversation. Just remain civil and things will likely be fine.

Politics is always a judgement call and we are not immune from our own leanings. Too much moderation and we get 'complaints' and too little we get them too.

Tim

 

[TJsName]

FWIW, the politics rule exists to allow moderation when things get out of hand. As long as there aren't political "cheap shots" and the topic is generally relevant, then the moderators are not going to stop conversation. Just remain civil and things will likely be fine.

Politics is always a judgement call and we are not immune from our own leanings. Too much moderation and we get 'complaints' and too little we get them too.

Tim

Agreed, and much appreciated. Generally when things get politically heated it involved people throwing conclusions/value judgements at one another with little substance behind them. I've generally found these threads to have enough focus on the details and happenings related to the process that I find them useful. Anything that doesn't pass the sniff test or conflicts with my current understanding I will usually look-up on my own. Of course, if everything posted matches my understanding then I'm either right about everything (unlikely), or I'm not being challenged. Dissent is very valuable for keeping things on the up-and-up.

As for this threads topic - it's incredibly hard to have a fully informed opinion given there are so many factors. This group seems to be more interested in the aesthetics piece (understandably), but the economic and infrastructure concerns are also incredibly important, and balancing all of those concerns is very difficult even for those who are fully informed. All options have a litany of pros can cons, and choosing to do nothing may not be an option.

One of the interesting points raised by Hammerdee was the generation divestiture taking place. I.E., the power company doesn't produce power - they just buy it from generators and resell it, passing all costs onto the consumer. I believe the pro-deregulation argument was that this would make electricity cheaper, but it's not clear to be how that is incentivized. Adding in a middleman feels like arguing that buying at a re-seller is cheaper than buying wholesale. I believe rates in MA are about 25% more than they are in NH (and MA started their deregulation in 1997). I'd be curious if anyone has more details on that comparison (especially prior to '97).

 

[peakbagger]

You are hanging out the bait so I will bite. Regulated utilities are very good for stockholders and keep things simple for the consumer but generally it is more costly than competitive power. Its hard to make comparisons of power rates in New England as New England voluntarily adopted the Regional Greenhouse Gas initiative. This raised power rates region wide. Combined with that new cost is also Renewable Portfolio Standards adopted by most New England states. A RPS forces anyone selling power in a particular state to prove that a certain percentage of power sold is renewable and further carves out that a certain percentage must be solar. The utility has a choice, they can put in their own generation or buy it from elsewhere. That's the reason why so many windmills are being built in Me and NH. The power isn't used locally its exported to Mass and other southern New England states where utilities buy the rights to the renewable power. These rights are called SRECs. Each state establishes a "stick" which is very high fee that the utility has to pay if the utility is short on renewable generation. Mass has set their stick quite steep, it varies but was up over $300 a MW hour for solar, NH has set the bar low and our stick is $50. Considering that conventional power sells for less than $10 a MW the utilities want to be reimbursed for the difference in costs and the states have given them permission to charge a surcharge on the transmission and distribution side of the power bill. There is also a big push to increase efficiency in the use of fossil fuels by incentivizing Combined Heat and Power plants where an industrial or institutional customer generates electric power and uses waste heat to heat and cool their facility or run equipment. Those incentives are paid by the utilities upfront to build the plants and ongoing as incentives for exceeding a base line efficiency. That effectively reduces the amount of greenhouse gases but the utility also gets to hand the bill to the ratepayers for those incentives. The combination of all those incentives plus additional costs to move power all over new England and something called capacity payments is where the major increase in costs are, actual wholesale power rates have actually gone down. The utilities were pretty well known for producing expensive power, their labor costs were quite high with great legacy benefits, full pensions generally after 30 years, retiree medical in some cases and premium heath care. Great gig if you can get it but most of us in the real world realize that benefits like these are a thing of the past. They were also rewarded by the public utility commissions to spend money, every dime they spent they were guaranteed a profit. The Bow power plant elected to put in a new to the US emissions control technology on their coal boilers, the original estimate was 200 million and the final cost was reportedly over $400 million, the utility got some flack but were rewarded a fixed profit on the overrun. So called merchant plants survive by reducing costs to the minimum, unlike a regulated utility, they aren't rewarded for wasting money, the result is they can sell power for less than a utility. The regulators have figured this out and came up with deregulation, unfortunately although it worked on the generation portion of the bill, the utilities figured out that generation wasn't the place to be so they switched over to the transmission distribution side which is still regulated. Politicians want to keep their constituents happy so they passed all sorts of green laws and handed the billing to the utilities. I have heard estimates that the T&D portion of Mass bills will go up 30% in the next 5 years which is directly related to efficiency initiatives that have been passed in the state. The firm I work for is involved to an extent in this market and we tell customers they have choice either pay to install solar panels or pay for their neighbors to put them up.

To tie it back into NH transmission lines, up until recently, Canadian hydro was regarded as "brown" hydro that didn't count toward renewables generation. Hydro Quebec has offered to sell as much power as New England will buy at a price that is speculated at around $100 a MW. Compared to solar it is cheap renewable and more importantly they can turn it on and off 24/7. There are some serious environmental effects associated with this but they occur far away in northern quebec so most politicians conveniently ignore this so it becomes a international Nimby. VT was desperate to shut down VT Yankee so they were the first to cave and declare HQ green and Mass is on the cusp, with CT soon to follow. The problem is getting the power to Mass, and NH is the shortest route plus Eversource owns rights from north to south so they in theory could build the lowest cost line. Their strategy was use long term political connections to build a quick and dirty route but they had unexpected opposition which has cost them to date a couple of years. The Champlain express project was permitted proactively in VT and spent time and a lot of money buying support. The NG project is using mostly existing corridors so the impact is far less. They also have Citizens Energy (Joe Kennedys employer) as minority partner for PR.

The EPAs approach for the Paris climate accords were the Clean Power Plan that is now off the table. Under the CPP New England had substantially met the requirements, other parts of the country with dirty power and no incentives for renewables and efficiency were looking at major economic costs which would have raised their power rates to above New England rates. They tended to vote for the current administration. its pretty simple now in New England to reduce power costs, roll back all the green rules and the price of power will go down eventually although all the incentives are long term so it will take awhile to get rid of the costs unless the states retroactively change the rules. Run several DC power lines up to Northern Quebec and let HQ wipe out a few more watersheds the size of New England for new dams and we will be all set.