By Michael Kuser

Eversource Energy and Hydro-Québec were the big — and only — winners in a solicitation to provide Massachusetts with 9.45 TWh of renewable energy each year, state officials revealed Thursday.

The selection of the companies’ joint Northern Pass transmission project means that an additional 1,090 MW of hydropower will be delivered into the New England grid via a new 192-mile HVDC line.

The project contains no provisions for delivering other forms of renewables and was the only one selected among a handful of proposals dominated by hydroelectric output from Québec. (See Hydro-Québec Dominates Mass. Clean Energy Bids.) A separate Eversource bid that included Canadian wind energy was not accepted.

Massachusetts issued its solicitation for a high volume of hydro and Class I renewables (wind, solar or energy storage) last July.

“We collaborated with the legislature to propose and sign the bipartisan energy legislation that enables today’s procurement, and we look forward to working with all stakeholders involved to ensure it delivers a cost-effective and reliable energy future that makes substantial progress in reducing our carbon emissions,” Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said.

The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources worked with distribution utilities Eversource, National Grid and Unitil on the solicitation. Any contract awarded under the MA 83D request for proposals must be negotiated by March 27 and submitted to the state’s Department of Public Utilities by April 25.

All New Hampshire

Northern Pass would run from Des Cantons, Québec, to Deerfield, N.H., where it will convert to AC and interconnect with ISO-NE.

The New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee is scheduled to complete permit deliberations for the project Feb. 23 and issue a written decision by the end of March.

In a summary of its final application briefing filed with the committee Jan. 19, Eversource said that Northern Pass would “provide New Hampshire residents with more than $3 billion in benefits at no cost to the state’s energy customers,” employ 2,600 people during construction, and “reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions by more than 3.2 million tons per year, equal to the emissions of 670,000 cars.”

The province of Québec last month granted Hydro-Québec a permit to build the project.

Different Takes

“We are pleased with the decision announced today, and appreciate the thorough review by the Massachusetts bid evaluation team,” Eversource Executive Vice President Lee Olivier said in a statement Thursday.

“This is a major milestone in the energy transition underway in the Northeast. … Hydro-Québec’s clean, reliable power, along with our proven delivery capability were highly valued by decision-makers,” said Hydro-Québec CEO Éric Martel.

Brian Murphy, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 104, said that the project “not only brings tremendous clean energy benefits to our region but will also provide opportunity for thousands of working families in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The IBEW looks forward to getting to work on the Northern Pass project in the coming months.”

Not everyone agreed with the Massachusetts decision.

“Providing long-term guarantees to the two largest utilities in the region is the wrong way forward for Massachusetts,” New England Power Generators Association President Dan Dolan said in a statement. “Eversource and Hydro-Québec are asking for Massachusetts consumers to guarantee them revenue through an above-market contract for electricity for the next two decades. Eversource wrote the RFP, and by picking their own project as the winner, have made consumers the losers.”

The Conservation Law Foundation last week tried to sway Baker against the project with a full-page ad in The Boston Globe, saying Northern Pass should be disqualified on environmental and ethical grounds, and accusing the developers of having misrepresented in its bid the level of public support the project enjoys in New Hampshire.

No Wind Today

Northern Pass’s win came one day after Maine Gov. Paul LePage imposed a moratorium on new wind energy projects in western and coastal Maine and set up a commission to study the effect of wind turbines on tourism. Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, called the governor’s action “an attempt to thwart billions of dollars of investment that is looking at Maine,” according to the Portland Press Herald.

Chris O’Neil, a Portland-based consultant and former state representative who often lobbies for wind energy opponents in Maine’s capital, told RTO Insider that Massachusetts did the right thing by ignoring Maine wind in its search for clean energy.

“The RFP scoring is more favorable to dispatchable power that can guarantee 9.4 TWh … because the ISO-NE has lost and is losing some 5,000 MW of baseload and peak load generation,” O’Neil said. “Wind cannot perform these baseload and peak load functions. What New England needs is the good stuff. But the ISO-NE would do well to move forward with the other two HVDC projects also.”

He was referring to Maine-based Emera’s proposed Atlantic Link, a 375-mile submarine HVDC transmission line from New Brunswick to Plymouth, Mass., to deliver 5.69 TWh of clean energy per year; and National Grid and Citizens Energy’s Granite State Power Link, a 59-mile HVDC line from northern Vermont to New Hampshire that would deliver 1,200 MW of new wind power from Canada.

But Wind is Coming

But if wind energy was a loser in the most recent solicitation, its prospects are brighter elsewhere. Baker last year signed a law requiring Massachusetts to contract for 1,200 MW of renewable energy, including hydro, onshore wind and solar. A separate clause in the Act to Promote Energy Diversity mandated that the state solicit proposals for at least 1,600 MW of offshore wind energy, which it did in December. Those projects will be selected in April with contracts due to be submitted at the end of July.

Bay State Wind, a joint venture between Ørsted and Eversource, proposed building either a 400-MW or 800-MW wind farm 25 miles off New Bedford. It would be paired with a 55-MW battery storage facility.

Deepwater Wind proposed two versions of Revolution Wind, a wind farm of consisting of about 25 turbines generating 200 MW, or a project double that size to generate 400 MW. Deepwater is proposing to firm up the project’s output through an agreement with the 1,200-MW Northfield Mountain hydroelectric pumped storage facility operated by FirstLight Power Resources.

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners submitted proposals for 400-MW and 800-MW wind farms, with approximately 50 and 100 turbines, respectively. (See Mass. Receives Three OSW Proposals, Including Storage, Tx.)