A route through Northeastern VT running along the current HQ HVDC corridor to Littleton does skip the current most contentious section of NP, but only for now. In my opinion, given that a right of way didnt exist in northern NH, the people against the project from southern NH and the areas immediately west of the the WMNF who would get impacted decided that the best defense was to block the route in the north country. SPNHF probably didnt mind the visibility and lightning rod that allowed them to collect record amounts of money to forward their long term agenda of protecting forest lands from development.
I expect that opposition dollars will flow to the northeast kingdom of VT quite quickly if it looks like the NP is heading that way. The govenor of VT may be a supporter of renewable, but to date the approach VT has followed is high cost distributed (AKA local) generation. Velco the regional grid operator has flat out told the state that billions of dollars of investment are required to get the VT grid to the point where it meets federal reliability standards and to date the state has elected to ignore the recomendations predominantly due to resistance to building a lot of new high voltage transmission lines. VT does use HQ power already but it mostly is via current transmission lines. Given the former Champion lands which are now off limits to development and the Silvio Conte national wildlife refuge along with other conservation lands, I expect running a right of way is still quite a challenge. Not sure how ACT 250 and other rules impact the timing but given the years of effort to run a new transmission line to the Burlington area a few years back, I expect its significant.
Unfortunately unless NP is run all the way south to Mass along the current HQ corridor, the Littleton connection via the current right of way still requires going through areas with high levels of opposition to NP, like Sugar hill and Franconia and still requires getting a new special use permit to cross the WMNF south of the South Kinsman. It also still means that the current right of way south of the WMNF is going to be widened substantially and the impacts to those along their right of ways will still be significant. The net result is the "front" of the battle will move south but the majority of the opposition will remain.
I personally still believe that there is a plan C where the current and upcoming future significant grid limitations in Coos county will be "solved" by PSNH by adding a substation north of the whites to allow locally generated renewable power to be exported via the NP line. This step then gives PSNH the right back to use eminent domain and all the SPNHF money spent is moot unless the land is quickly wrapped into a federal entity like Silvio Conte which is not subject to eminent domain. Given that the majority of the SPNHF purchaes were development rights I dont know if donating it to the feds has the same protections as fee ownership. I expect that if PSNH elects to bury the line thru the WMNF and run it through Kinsman notch on the current state of NH highway right of way, that getting a special use permit will not be a significant issue especially since the line would become essential to the north country rather than a strictly commerical entity.
Given the resources PSNH has brought to bear to date, I expect there is alternatives d,e,f,g,h etc all the way to z.
