FYI: Northern Pass High Voltage Transmission Project

[peakbagger]

For those who want to get a flavor on how much reading would be required to keep up with this project, Pre filed testimony before the SEC is located here http://www.nhsec.nh.gov/projects/2015-06/2015-06_prefiled_testimony.htm. Will Abbotts (SPNHF) description of the lengths and costs that the project went through to buy right of ways in Northern NH is quite revealing. Some of the smaller interveners testimony are sadly probably just a blip in road for the project

Interesting to see that AMC and Sierra Club did not prefile any testimony.

How these proceedings will ever get wrapped up by sometimes in the fall of 2017 is beyond me.

 

[CaptCaper]

I see they are clearing trees,marking,surveying power lines etc getting ready for the project to start.

 

[ChrisB]

How these proceedings will ever get wrapped up by sometimes in the fall of 2017 is beyond me.

And in the meantime, TDI-New England in Vermont seem to be moving foward nicely....

But they have yet to name their power provider.
cb

 

[peakbagger]

The latest controversy http://www.nh1.com/news/doe-suddenly-delays-northern-pass-meetings-that-were-closed-to-public-press/

 

[skiguy]

And in the meantime, TDI-New England in Vermont seem to be moving foward nicely....

But they have yet to name their power provider.
cb

Anybody ask the Marine Life how they feel if it's moving forward nicely?

 

[peakbagger]

Strangely for VT, opposition to the project has been quite muted. Lake Champlain is having a serious issue with nutrient overloading from agricultural operations to the point where some parts of the lake are unsafe to enter. The VT powerline project has pledged initial and ongoing substantial support to the state and I believe a big portion is dedicated to lake issues. In general the VT developer seems to have adopted a far more collaborative approach than NP has. To date I haven't seen a lot of discussion on the long term impact to the bottom environment.

 

[Vermonster]

Anybody ask the Marine Life how they feel if it's moving forward nicely?

Actually the zebra muscles are looking forward to the new structure.

TDI has stepped up with more than $700 million in payments to the state and ratepayers over the 40 year life of the project. This includes more than $250 for lake cleanup and recreational improvements.

NP has offered perhaps 1/3 as much, and with strings--despite the fact that the impact to communities and the environment will be orders of magnitude greater.

Edited to add: 3 towns in Coos County submitted their pre-filed testimony as video. It is well worth watching to understand what is at stake.
https://youtu.be/mAR2X846lEA

 

[peakbagger]

https://www.forestsociety.org/blog-post/northern-pass-seeks-muzzle-testimony

 

[peakbagger]

A new tangent on opposition to the project. Town rights being ignored were brought up in the past but this is first organized formal attempt at forcing the issue. http://www.colebrookchronicle.com/Dec232016.pdf

Unlike SPNHFs prior unsuccessful attempt at arguing that the landowners retained rights under public right of ways, this is a lot stronger argument that the towns retain control over the right of ways. At a minimum I expect this opens up another round of legal maneuvering.

Given the delays in the project I am curious when NP is going to try to shift the project to a federal critical transmission infrastructure project where FERC takes over and ignores state and local regulations? To date these projects have still run into state roadblocks but given the new governors strong support for NP and the shift in national politics it may be a back door. The other driver is that ISO New England is predicting possible power interruptions in the region as early as this winter but most likely when the Pilgrim nuclear power plant closes down if certain weather conditions line up. I expect that projects like NP are going to get hyped as the solution.

 

[Vermonster]

I am about as far as a person can get from being a lawyer, but I don't understand how this matter (along with the lack of many other permits) would seem to raise the issue of whether the application to the SEC is complete. Since all permits and permissions must be submitted as part of the application and are not, why is the SEC reviewing the project at great cost to the state and the time of SEC members (some of whom are volunteers)?

 

[peakbagger]

I am also not a lawyer. I have had to sit in front of prior iteration of the SEC to get a waiver from the full process. I and the others in the group got prepped an assisted by an ex SEC chairmen (who just happened to be a consultant available for hire) my understanding of the original intent was to make NH business friendly by speeded up project approvals. Unlike other states where there would be endless hearings in front of every state department that had potentially regulatory authority, the goal of the SEC was to have one set of hearings to fast track the process. The makeup was the head of each state department would sit on the SEC. As the original SEC was regarded as a "rubber stamp" body that was in bed with big business there were moves made to make it more representative including more public participation. Sounded good until one of the largest and what has become to be the most controversial project ended up on their doorstep before they really had established the new makeup.

As the SEC is state government body with no municipal ties I expect they vote to continue on as any local control of the local right of ways was assumed to be trumped by the state. In theory the SEC process could continue with the municipal control of the right of ways in question but I expect the issue is that the usual approach from state agencies to do a review process is to verify that local municipal concerns have already been addressed so that the state agency doesn't waste their time. Several of the state agencies have expressed to the SEC that the original and the amended application are incomplete and they can not effectively review the project yet the SEC overrules them and continues on with the hearings.

As for the unfortunate volunteers on the SEC I expect they are overwhelmed as they are the only ones sitting at the table who don't have legions of legal assistance reviewing and summarizing the large volume of filings.

 

[Jazzbo]

Hi PB ... Thanks for the link to SEC testimony. I happened upon George Sansoucy testimony about why doesn't power company just use existing 350' wide corridor currently under-utilized for a new 1000 MW line. I looked at it on Google Earth and it is literally straight shot from Monroe NH to southern terminus. That is interesting option. I remember hiking across that line once hiking from Cardigan to Newfound Lake and wondering why is this corridor so blinking wide. That corridor is WIDE!!! for such pathetic little power lines. I was surprised to see it is HVDC too. He also questions why I-93 isn't used for power corridor. Steady stream of rental payments would look mighty good in NH treasury.

Edit - I've been doing additional reading of Sansoucy testimony for multiple towns. He is really worth reading. He touches many bases. One of which is pointing out real impact of HVDC line on the small towns and municipalities. The underground line would be much like a RR right of way. Anyone wanting to run a pipe or electric line under or over the HVDC would have to apply for many permits. I remember working on project many years ago running a water line under a RR right away. We had to use tunnel jacking.

 

[peakbagger]

Big week coming up for Northern Pass., If the local towns get the declatory ruling retaining control of local roads it could kill the project unless the lines get buried for lot more length of the project.

http://www.colebrookchronicle.com/Jan62017.pdf

With the upcoming Mass RPS standards encouraging very large imports of Canadian hydro to replace instate power generation that is scheduled to go off line, I expect that the Eversource management are spending a lot of time looking at the economics of the project to see what they need to do to salvage the project. Even if they decide to bury, I think an entire new group of folks opposing the project will arise as the impact along rural roads is going to be significant and therefore the project will be delayed no matter what.

 

[peakbagger]

Looks like a trend of late with the SEC. SPNHF makes a request and the SEC rejects it.

http://www.colebrookchronicle.com/Jan202017.pdf

The SEC rejected the petition to do a separate review of NPs right to bury the line under town roads and rejected inquiries to Eversource on how much funding has been provided to the Balsams and details of the agreements. The right to bury can come up again but only as part of the primary hearing.

Given the drumbeat of the new governor and various firms using energy costs for moving out of the region there is a lot of pressure to get the SEC hearing out of way and approved

 

[TJsName]

Looks like a trend of late with the SEC. SPNHF makes a request and the SEC rejects it.

http://www.colebrookchronicle.com/Jan202017.pdf

The SEC rejected the petition to do a separate review of NPs right to bury the line under town roads and rejected inquiries to Eversource on how much funding has been provided to the Balsams and details of the agreements. The right to bury can come up again but only as part of the primary hearing.

Given the drumbeat of the new governor and various firms using energy costs for moving out of the region there is a lot of pressure to get the SEC hearing out of way and approved

I'm curious (in a sincere, non-antagonistic way) which firms left with where energy costs became a stated factor.

 

[peakbagger]

Two firearm manufacturers, H&K is moving outright and Sig Sauer is either moving a production line or building a new one in the southeast. The NH BIA has had several recent new releases, heres one http://web.biaofnh.com/news/newsarticledisplay.aspx?ArticleID=260. The reality is NH has shortage of labor in general and skilled labor in particular, southern states are willing to spend millions to entice manufacturers to relocate and train employees at no cost. The only thing that keeps most of Mass and southern NH are businesses who want access to well educated graduates of the regions schools. The days of smoke stack industries in the region are going away as other regions have lower costs.

One of the many cost differences between New England and other parts of the country is that New England voluntarily elected to put in place the Regional Greenhouse Gas initiative (REGGI), it has a form of carbon trading at a power company level. This raises the overall costs of power in region and redistributes other costs amongst ratepayers. If you heard of the doomed EPA Clean Power Plan which was part of the US's approach to green house gases, the impact to New England was minimal compared to other parts of the country who didn't have a carbon initiative. Most New England states also have a renewable portfolio standard requiring a certain percentage of power used to be renewable. Renewable power is still at a substantial premium compared to fossil fuels when capacity factor is taken into account so New England States end up voluntarily taken on more costs to be greener than elsewhere. Coal is cheap but very high carbon emitting so areas of the country with lots of coal fired generation have cheaper power. Natural gas is also quite cheap in other parts of the country but due to not enough pipeline capacity into the region, its price can swing wildly as the demand exceeds the supply during very cold or very hot conditions. This drives up the overall costs of gas as the firms that use gas have to "hedge" in to cover times when there is gas shortage. The lack of adequate gas also impacts the overall power costs in the region as the regional grid operator has to pay firms to have generators ready to run when the gas plants cant keep up. These capacity payments also drive up the cost of power as other areas of the country don't do this. The risk is brown outs and forced load shedding (Texas has this problem when the wind stops blowing at the wrong time).

NP does not in and off itself solve the issues out there. Hydro Quebec power is regarded as "brown hydro" that doesn't count as renewable due to the social and environmental costs of the Hydro Quebec hydro system. When VT shut down VT yankee they decided HQ was no longer brown, VT linke to trumpet their commitment to renewable power but right now the majority of it proposed up by HQ. Mass and CT currently also classify HQ as brown but are real close to calling it green and once they do, HQ power is far less expensive than most other renewables when capacity factor is taken into account. Capacity factor is how much of the nameplate of the facility is available at any given time. Solar has a low capacity factor as most plants only produce during daylight hours. Wind only generates when the wind is blowing so the capacity factor is much lower. HQ has no real environmental limits on how quickly they can drain their lake network so they can put 1000's of MWs on the grid in minutes. The only issue is some moron with a rifle can shoot an insulator on the power line somewhere between Northern Quebec and Boston and that source of power goes away instantly so the utilities in New England need local generation to back it up just in case which means more cost. Realistically the Champlain Connect Project is way ahead of NP. They already have permits in place so they will most likely be the first supplier of HQ to New England. Unlike HQ and Eversource ,who are in bed with each other, Champlain Express is separate entity that HQ cant control. Champlain Express is not a non profit and I expect that given the shortage of power in New England they will charge a premium for line capacity. Eversource is quite powerful in NH and I wouldn't be surprised if they are asking their friends in industry to chime in on the need for power. Eversource was one of the major contributors to the new NH governors inauguration and luckily the power lines are running one valley west of the Waterville valley so the Sununu's resort isn't impacted. Do note Pilgrim Nuclear and couple of other power plants in the region are scheduled to close in the next two years if not sooner so the drumbeat for NP will remain.

 

[nartreb]

Just yesterday Sig Sauer won a huge ten-year contract to be the primary sidearm for the US Army. ($580 million is the official figure - that works out to about $2,000 per pistol !? Wow! ) What they've been telling the press is that those guns will be built in New Hampshire. (That could be true and they could be planning to move all their other US production elsewhere.)

 

[Scubahhh]

This from the Berlin paper this morning.

http://www.berlindailysun.com/newsx...ail&utm_term=0_3c1b277c13-86cad56e94-39581437

A change in climate (pardon the pun!)?

 

[peakbagger]

I found a bit more detail on the Sig Sauer move http://www.wmur.com/article/sig-sau...tes-power-costs-for-out-of-state-move/8533361

 

[peakbagger]

Les Otten's testimony re Northern Passes support and future support. Sure sounds like he was quite careful with his words.

http://indepthnh.org/2017/01/23/bal...-loan-not-linked-to-support-of-northern-pass/

There were a couple of reports that Les had been strong arming local boards in non public session regarding their non support of NP. Nice of him to take such local interest in an area so far away from normal base of operations.

The source of the article indepthnh.org is making Eversource unhappy. There a few if any real independent sources of news in the region as most of newspapers are ad driven fee papers, the journalists that remain do try hard but are very limited in their ability to chase down detailed news. Eversource has major support from many of the major news sources in southern NH and do not like it when news not tailored to the cause gets out.