California’s first offshore wind project got a boost June 30 when FERC granted CalGrid an abandoned plant incentive for a set of OSW-related transmission projects in the Humboldt County area.

The incentive provides some financial protection to CalGrid should its proposed projects be cancelled (ER25-563).

Both are reliability projects and were approved by CAISO in May 2024 as part of CAISO’s 2023/24 transmission planning process. ​​In May 2025, CAISO selected CalGrid’s parent company Viridon to finance, construct, own, operate and maintain both lines. (See CAISO Chooses Viridon to Develop Humboldt OSW Transmission Projects.)

Viridon California is a subsidiary of Viridon Holdings, a portfolio company of Blackstone.

The first project, the NH-C project, includes about 200 miles of new 500-kV transmission line, which will connect a new substation in Humboldt to a new substation in Collinsville. The second, the NH-F project, includes about 100 miles of new 500-kV transmission line from the new substation in Humboldt to a substation on Fern Road in Shasta County.

“The projects face risks beyond CalGrid’s control that could lead to the projects’ abandonment,” the commission wrote in the order. “We find that CalGrid has demonstrated a nexus between its requested incentive and its planned investment, and that CalGrid has tailored its incentive rate request to its identification of risks and challenges associated with the projects.”

The abandoned plant incentive would be available to CalGrid for 100% of prudently incurred costs expended on and after the date of the order if the projects were abandoned for reasons beyond CalGrid’s control, FERC wrote.

The projects face significant risks that “could result in their cancellation,” CalGrid said in its filing. Those include regulatory approval uncertainties and CalGrid’s lack of building experience — i.e., the projects will be the first transmission lines that CalGrid has built.

The abandoned plant incentive will help CalGrid attract financing “by removing the risk that lenders and investors may have to bear prudently incurred costs if the projects are canceled for reasons outside of CalGrid’s control,” the order says.

The projects will cost up to $4.1 billion and are expected to be completed by 2034.

In 2006, FERC issued Order No. 679, which allows applicants to request incentive rate treatment for transmission infrastructure investments that ensure reliability or reduce the cost of delivered power by reducing transmission congestion. CalGrid said the Humboldt projects meet this requirement because they were approved as part of CAISO’s regional planning process. CalGrid also said the projects are beneficial to ratepayers and promote FERC’s pro-competitive policies.

In the order, FERC Chair Mark Christie dissented “for reasons consistent with my previous statements on the subject.” In a May 13 order, Christie said, “As I have said repeatedly over the past four years, it is long past time for this commission to do its job of protecting consumers by cutting back on its unfair practice of handing out ‘FERC candy’ without any serious consideration of the impact on consumers already struggling to pay monthly power bills.”