FYI: Northern Pass High Voltage Transmission Project

[Stan]

I don't understand why it would matter whether there was a quid pro quo anyway. It makes perfect sense to support something that will save your business $200,000/year and, oh, there was a relatively small grant (compared to the numbers we're talking about here) to seed the project. From where I sit, there seem to be a lot of sidebars to this project that have more to do with generating PR and legal fees than they have to do with the merit, which is mostly environmental effects, of the project. In that regard there must be acceptance of some compromise on burial or aerial; hydro from Quebec is cleaner and safer than feasible alternatives. In the end ratepayers will pay and, absent this project, consumers and employers may well be facing brownouts without adequate sources of power. I'd suggest each side quit the circus, bite the bullet and move forward.

 

[Scubahhh]

Sounds to me like Otten is comfortably on their payroll and in their bed:
“Was anything else provided to the Balsams conditioned upon your support?” Manzelli asked.

Otten responded: “There are no other documents that I’m going to discuss or talk about at this juncture and I do not feel I need to support Northern Pass for any reason other than I believe it’s beneficial to me and my business.”

With our old pals the Sununus back in Concord and Trump & Co. in The White House, they can go ahead and start putting up the poles. It'll surprise me if they actually even bury the lines through WMNF.

 

[jniehof]

In the end ratepayers will pay and, absent this project, consumers and employers may well be facing brownouts without adequate sources of power.

The way I'm seeing the setup, in the end New Hampshire ratepayers will pay, and, absent this project, Massachusetts consumers and employers may be facing brownouts, given Mass's (admirable) goals for clean(er) power. I don't want to make Mass The Bad Guy here--we're an interconnected region--but the whole business stinks pretty bad that the people taking the impacts and the people reaping the benefits are pretty widely separated. Mind, I drank Quabbin water for seven years, so I ain't perfect.

 

[peakbagger]

The current financial model of Northern Pass is what is called a merchant project. The owners of the line make a deal to sell the power at whatever rate the market will bear. Therefore the consumer of the power in theory pays the price for the line. Unfortunately in order to up their profit on the deal, Eversource is ripping off the ratepayer by getting creative with lease payments of the right of way. Eversource bought the vast majority of the right of way under eminent domain and with rate payer money. The deal with this type of transaction is that in exchange for using rate payer money, the utility can only make an agreed upon profit. What Eversource is doing is vastly underestimating the value of this ratepayer purchased land and leasing it to a separate Eversource entity that is not regulated. The non regulated Eversource entity makes the profit working with HQ and the ratepayer ends up losing out on the deal. There is much broader argument that the visible impact of the project puts untold burdens upon the folks who live along the right of ways. to date NP has not offered to pay adjoining property owners for visual impacts. Given the scope of the project I don't see that happening. There are no studies I am aware of showing the current impact of NP. Realtors like Peter Pratt in Lancaster has reported that he has many properties that are not selling or have been pulled off the market because buyers are not interested once they hear about the potential impact. I have run into more than a few properties listed in the region where the selling broker conveniently forgets to list potential NP impacts. The locals know but they are hoping to hook a sucker from down south who is looking for a retirement dream.

The alternative approach is a regulated project. There have been several major projects in New England of late like the major transmission line upgrade in Maine that gets footed by everyone paying for power on the grid. There is a lot of pushback currently against the grid operator as the fees (called T&D Transmission and Distribution) for this major work are increasing significantly, far faster than the actual cost for power.

Fundamentally everyone wants power when they want it but they don't want to pay for the infrastructure to get to their house when they need it. Industry can and does threaten to move but it all comes down to what is the fair distribution for these fixed costs.

One of the great experiments soon to come to roost was the shift to privatizing power generation. The utilities no longer own the power plants they just move the electrons around. Private firms rushed into the market to make a killing like a little known public utility ultimately named Enron rushed into the private power business. This has not been a great success and many companies have sold their assets to less secure entities. Many have decided that they would rather buy an existing power plant then take a chance to build a new plant. Its highly unlikely that brownouts will occur in New England unless the transmission system is damaged as there are quite a few oil fired jet turbines in the region spread around that can produce power if needed. The trade off is they are in demand and the price of power is quite high, they also are very inefficient. For those familiar with the Portland area there is large oil fired power plant at Cousins Island in Yarmouth. It burns a low grade fuel oil and is not particularly clean. It will just crank up more often as other plants drop off the grid.

 

[Vermonster]

And the nasty fight continues...
Northern Pass Asks Forest Society Who Donated To Oppose the Project

Northern Pass’ data request No. 5 asks the forest society to: “Provide a list of donations that were made by energy companies or power generators, and others, that were made for the specific purpose of opposing Northern Pass.”

And to make sure it didn’t escape the attention of the press, a group called the New Hampshire Coalition for Secure Energy tweeted the requests with No. 5 circled in red to a handful of reporters, including InDepthNH.org, and the Business and Industry Association.

http://indepthnh.org/2017/01/25/35677/

 

[Stan]

Going to take a lot of inefficient polluters to make up for Pilgrim.

 

[peakbagger]

Pilgrim is pretty small for a nuke, 685 MW. The current peaker plant of choice is the GE LMS 100 which is a 100 MW unit. Unlike a nuke it can go from cold to full output in 10 minutes. Just needs a big tank of distillate fuel next to it. They are relatively cheap to buy and install. The peakers are usually deployed at old power plant sites that have good grid connections. The preference is to have access to natural gas in addition to distillate. I wouldn't be surprised if the Pilgrim site ends up with some generation after it closes since the grid infrastructure is already in place. The VT Yankee site was proposed for new generation but the gas pipeline proposed to run near there isn't happening.

 

[peakbagger]

Resolution for one of the SPNHF side issues in NPs favor.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20170201/NEWS21/170209920

The VT newscasts this morning led off with headline that the court gave NP the go ahead to start the project. It was bit premature considering the SEC process has long way to go

 

[peakbagger]

SPNHF has a different view of the recent ruling

https://forestsociety.org/blog-post...northern-pass-eminent-domain-issue-unresolved

 

[NHClimber]

Skimming this case quickly, the SPNHF response looks like typical spin by a losing party (both sides guilty of spin no doubt). The fact is that SPNHF did not succeed in the present case, which was to obtain an adjudication today that the proposed NP underground line would (1) per se exceed the scope of the highway easement, thereby requiring the consent of SPNHF, and (2) result in inverse condemnation. Inverse condemnation is related to the eminent domain concept, except that rather than the govt taking your land through an ED process, the govt permits some use of your land that you believe substantially diminishes its value or use such that you seek compensation from the govt. In any event, in reaching its conclusion, the court noted that an underground utility is, as a matter of law, within the scope of “use” of a public highway easement and that the NHDOT has the exclusive authority to determine whether to allow a particular proposed underground utility within the easement. Thus, SPNHF sought a determination by the court that NP's proposed use of the easement would per se exceed the easement such that DOT wouldn't even be permitted as a matter of law to approve NP's proposed use. SPNHF lost on that claim and the law seems crystal clear such that the claim appears to have been merely a delay tactic. The court went further to state that if the DOT were to approve the NP proposal in the future, then at that time the court could be called upon to adjudicate whether that decision would be tantamount to inverse condemnation. The court noted that in connection with SPNHF's inverse condemnation claim, which wasn’t ripe yet, SPNHF offered no evidence that that NP’s proposed use would specifically harm its property, so it will be interesting to see how SPNHF addresses this next time. SPNHF will get another bite at the apple if the DOT approves the NP plan, but to be clear SPNHF lost the current battle aimed at preventing NP from using the highway easement at all.

 

[peakbagger]

https://forestsociety.org/blog-post/hydro-quebec-having-second-thoughts-about-northern-pass

There has been a lot of back and forth on this in the press, NP and HQ insists that nothing has changed. Realistically this is just public theatrics while the SEC hearings progress.

The far bigger potential project change is Mass finally issuing a Request For Proposals for 1200 MW of "Clean Canadian Hydro" (basically a big "Not in My Backyard" response on a continental wide basis). NP has referenced that they are very interested when this RFP comes out and others have suggested that it will completely change to economics of the NP project.

 

[Vermonster]

I don't claim to fully understand this ruling...and I am sure that Eversource will appeal...but it seems to me the supposed cost savings of supplying HQ power to NH came with a pretty big BUT as the NH ratepayers look to be on the hook for any losses (via stranded cost recovery mechanism).

PUC dismisses Eversource petition for deal with HydroQuebec

By PAUL FEELY
New Hampshire Union Leader

CONCORD — The state’s Public Utilities Commission on Monday ruled against a petition filed last June by Eversource seeking approval of a proposed 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with Hydro Renewable Energy, after determining the proposal is “inconsistent with New Hampshire law.”

Eversource announced in June 2016 it had reached an agreement with HydroQuebec (HQ) guaranteeing at least 100 megawatts from the proposed Northern Pass project would be available to New Hampshire consumers at lower-than-market prices.

Eversource cited the possibility of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with HQ as one of the benefits of the controversial transmission project, that would run 192 miles from the Canadian border to Deerfield.

Under the terms of the proposed PPA, Hydro Renewable Energy would sell, and Eversource would buy, approximately 100 megawatts of on-peak electric energy delivered to Eversource’s Deerfield Substation over the proposed Northern Pass transmission line. This energy would then be resold into the ISO-New England wholesale energy market by Eversource. Under the terms of Eversource’s proposal, net gains or losses from the purchase and subsequent resale of the energy would be accounted for through the Stranded Cost Recovery Charge (SCRC) rate.

Full article:
http://www.unionleader.com/energy/PUC-dismisses-Eversource-petition-for-power-purchase-deal-03282017

 

[peakbagger]

http://www.unionleader.com/energy/N...l-National-Grid-transmission-project-03292017

Interesting to note the comment that NP is the most uncertain of all three projects. The other interesting point is that the HQ transmission line is less than 4 miles away from the PSNH right of way in the Franklin area. Considering that the transmission lines were both designed to bring power to southern New England, the HQ line upgrade from the border to Frnaklin could be used to skip most of the destructive aspects of NP. By splitting the power between the PSNH and the National Grid lines, both utilities would get a taste of the project and the needed upgrades to two lines would be less than on one line. Unfortunately I expect this is game of checkers between two huge corporations and I expect they are unwilling to play well together. Eversource's CEO has staked his personal credibility multiple times over several years that NP is going to go and expect his board and investors would not treat him well over what will be massive write off of costs if NP goes down the drain. At a minimum I expect Eversource NH is going to have lot of new faces.

 

[Jazzbo]

George Sansoucy Pre-file testimony to SEC discusses this under-utilized other corridor of which Eversource is 33% part owner. I highly recommend reading his testimony. It is clear and well written. Maybe this testimony is what woke up National Grid and HQ to this far better alternative to meet this public need. Current Eversource top dog deserves to be sacked for wasting his company's reputation and resources and generating so much public discord.

This is just one small extract of Northern Pass Transmission Project Pre-filed Direct Testimony of George E. Sansoucy. I highly recommend digging this up and reading the rest. I see no harm in posting this here as it matter of public record.

Q 13. What is your conclusion regarding the need for Northern Pass at this time?

A 13. My overall conclusion is that Northern Pass is not needed at this time. It faces competition from other import lines from Canada through Maine, Vermont, and New York (Lake Champlain), and is redundant to an already existing DC Hydro Quebec transmission line in New Hampshire found in Exhibit 4. The facts surrounding this application, when weighed against the disruption Northern Pass is and will cause in New Hampshire, do not warrant the negative impacts that Northern Pass will have on the state.

Q 14. Do you believe that these SEC hearings and this proposal is even necessary at this time?

A 14. No. I do not. The SEC should terminate these hearings at this time and should request that the company file a full blown explanation why it cannot use the existing high voltage DC Hydro Quebec Phase 2 corridor through the state of New Hampshire. There is no reason to open a new high voltage corridor proposed by Northern Pass through the state when one already exists.

Q 15. What do you believe the SEC should do?

A 15. If Eversource wants to continue to propose Northern Pass, the SEC should open a new proceeding forcing Eversource to analyze the use of the existing Hydro Quebec Phase 2 corridor of which it owns 33.71% of the existing line, and forcing National Grid, the majority owner of Hydro Quebec Phase 2, and Northeast Utilities the minority owner of Hydro Quebec Phase 2 to explain why they will not use a that they both currently jointly own and explain whether or not Hydro Quebec Phase 2 is fully used and useful at this time.

Q 16. Who owns the majority of the Hydro Quebec DC line at this time in New Hampshire?

A 16. National Grid, the owner of New England Power Company owns 53.7% of the existing 450,000 volt DC line in New Hampshire. Eversource owns 33.71% of the DC line. National Grid, through the ownership of New England Power Company, its subsidiary owns the underlying right-of-way.

Q 17. What do you believe the two jurisdictional companies should do in the state of New Hampshire?

A 17. As stated previously, the creation of a second DC corridor in New Hampshire makes no sense at this time, and has not made sense since from the beginning of this proposal from Northern Pass. The existing Hydro Quebec Phase 2 corridor is generally 350 feet wide its entire distance from Monroe, NH to Hudson, NH. There exists the new 450,000 volt DC, 2000 MW line, as shown in Exhibit 4, in the corridor, and there exists the original 1930 construction of 690 MW of twin 230,000 volt AC lines that deliver hydroelectric power to Massachusetts from Fifteen Mile Falls. There is no reason that the twin 230s cannot be rebuilt into one double circuit 230, thereby opening up one third of this right-of-way for a complete transmission line of 1,090 MW for Northern Pass, either above or below ground. This would constitute an efficient use of the resource, an efficient use of the right-of-way, and a moderate expansion of the visual impact that already exists, and an efficient implementation of new rate base only when Northern Pass is actually needed.

Q 18. When you say “only when Northern Pass is needed”, what are you referring to?

A 18. It is not clear from National Grid’s reporting, but highly likely, that even Hydro Quebec Phase 2 at 2000 MW of capacity is not flowing full and maximized for its use in New England at this time.

Q 19. Do you believe that the state of New Hampshire would, for all practical purposes, need to order this consideration under the circumstances should Eversource want to continue the Northern Pass proposal?

A 19. Yes. It is impossible to understand why Eversource has attempted to develop a new highly controversial corridor through northern New Hampshire for a nearly identical line as Hydro Quebec Phase 2 when it already owns a portion of the Phase 2 line located in an existing state-wide electric corridor. I would imagine Eversource will have a multitude of excuses for not seriously considering this option, but it is an option that would be superior to the construction of Northern Pass as proposed at this time.

Q 20. How could the state of New Hampshire order this marriage?

A 20. I believe the state ultimately would have the right, if necessary, to seize by eminent domain the right-of-way corridor and thereby enable the marriage of the existing line and the proposed line, both from Hydro Quebec. In this instance, time is on the side of the state of New Hampshire as Northern Pass is not yet needed.

 

[peakbagger]

The ownership arrangement would definitely be a disadvantage to NP as a big part of the profit would come from renting right of ways previously paid for by the ratepayers at a much higher cost than they were going to pay the ratepayers for use. I expect Hydro Quebec is definitely looking over their options and perhaps the Mass RFP will accelerate NP going away.

Of course the Champlain Express line got permitted quickly as they had been courting the state of VT and many NGOs in the state, if NG tries to widen the line through the Northeast Kingdom of VT and the stretch to where the right of way widens out without suitable discourse (and occasional big checks), it could rapidly become a similar contested project. Unlike NH which advocates fast track permitting, VT has the infamous act 250 and several other acts that can be used to delay major projects sometime for years. The Walmart Project in the Northeast Kingdom took over 10 years to get a act 250 permit.

Politically this will be unpopular in NH as many politicians are on the dole from Eversource, more importantly a lot of rural towns were looking forward to getting big property tax checks for the new right of ways and many local contractors were planning on supporting the NP construction as their last project before retirement. There will still be work in some areas but much of the rural work will shift west into VT.

 

[peakbagger]

Lots of details in Colebrook Chronicle http://www.colebrookchronicle.com/March312017.pdf. The article reveals a potential key player, Joe Kennedy and Citizens Energy "who has pledged half their profits to fund energy assistance programs for Me NH and VT". Kind of blows the door off the NP offer to finance 200 million of yet to be named (except Balsams) economic projects in northern NH.

 

[peakbagger]

The start of the formal SEC hearing is next week for Northern Pass. I expect its going to substantially increase the volume of news coming out of the project.

The senate has resurrected the attempt at allowing Eversource to sign a long term power contract purchasing a portion of the NP capacity. This had been specifically no allowed in a prior law so they amended the law.

 

[peakbagger]

Eversource is optimistic that construction will start in 2018

https://www.rtoinsider.com/eversource-energy-earnings-42650/

Of course the conference calls early on were predicting 2016

 

[ChrisB]

Eversource is optimistic that construction will start in 2018

This article on "covert" land purchases by Eversource shell LLCs raises a question. Why?

What might their motivation be to obfuscate land acquisitions?

cb

 

[peakbagger]

Hi Chris, during the acquisition period in the north country one of the strategies of the opposition to NP was to push the neighbor against neighbor approach in opposing acquisitions. Anyone thought to be dealing with NP was regarded as a potential traitor to the region. The various opposition groups tried to tell their donors and supporters downstate that they weren't trying to stoke up this opposition but that was mostly for out of the region consumption. People from downstate just don't realize the sums of money being thrown around during the right of way acquisition and the lengths that NP would go to buy favor of cash poor land rich rural residents. NP or companies controlled by NP reportedly had several regionally influential employees and consultants whose entire job was to get into the door of landowners targeted for a right of way. The former VP of the Berlin Gorham mills reportedly was on board with NP (or one of their entities) and may still be and he was very careful to go underground and not be associated with NP in public to preserve his ability to negotiate with skittish landowners and local politicians. There are many stories of landowners getting multiple unrequested solicitations from entities that were very careful to disavow any linkage to NP. I expect both sides of the deal could figure out why large amounts were being offered, it just was a convenient way to get in the door. Once in the door, the goal was to assuage the possible guilt of the landowner of potentially selling out and one of the methods was to sell through shell entities. I expect these shell entities got rewarded handsomely for their efforts. NP reported recently that they have spent $197 million to date on the project and that's long before a couple of key permits are in hand so a few hundred thousand here and there really doesn't make a dent.

One thing that I still am not clear on is what side of Eversource actually has bought the right of ways?. Is it the regulated side of the company which effectively means the ratepayers are paying these inflated prices? Or is it the non regulated merchant side of NP making the purchases? There is a big difference in that its already been established that Eversource is inflating the merchant side revenue by leveraging ratepayer financed right of ways. The trick is that the regulated side will rent the rights to the right of ways to the merchant side at a low cost which minimizes revenue to the ratepayer from the project while then turning around and charging much higher costs to the merchant side that flows to the rates that NP charges HQ.

SPHNF was the lead in opposition to NP in the north country, they also were playing the big bucks land acquisitions checker game. They were quite successful and Eversource ended up paying very high prices for parcels that got blocked by SPNHF efforts which are now of no use to Eversource. As SPNHF had far fewer assets to throw at the game they had to work smart and one of the things they did were to follow public records and try to anticipate future moves by Eversource. I expect the LLCs were an effort to delay the transparency of financial transactions. Note that in addition to Eversource making outright payments they also had to make other potentially costly deals that ultimately may cost the ratepayers money. They reportedly had to give guarantees to Bayroot (owned by the Yale University retirement fund hidden behind shell entities) that the northern NH grid would be upgraded to allow additional export capacity to allow another large wind farm north of Dixville Notch. And of course the inadvertently revealed linkage to the initial and future financing of the Balsams project. There was also attempt at buying the favor of the Ride The Wilds ATV network which entailed a large up front payment and transfer of many of the dead ended/surplus Eversource properties (some including camps and homes) and continuing substantial payments to the RTW group. That one backfired when it was revealed that one of the founders and lead director of RTW group was dealing on behalf of RTW without authorization and was thrown out as it turned out that some portion of the landowners whose land the RTW network crossed were not NP supporters.

It may not be a Jack Nicolson movie (Chinatown) but I expect when the dust settles on the project that someone could write a book or at least an extensive business case on the wheeling and dealing used to get the rathr serpentine right of way established through Northern NH . The beginnings of the outline is already in the public record of the SEC.