By William Opalka

CROMWELL, Conn. — Requests for proposals for the next rounds of multistate clean energy, efficiency and storage procurement were released on Wednesday.

The RFPs were for resources from 2 to 20 MW as well as energy efficiency and energy storage, according to Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Deputy Commissioner for Energy Katie Scharf Dykes.

“It’s clear the transformation in the energy market and the electricity market is really accelerating,” she told the Connecticut Power and Energy Society’s annual Energy, Environment and Development Conference.

In addition to the multistate procurement, DEEP also issued a draft RFP for natural gas resources. The procurements were authorized by the state’s Affordable and Reliable Energy law, passed last year.

Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island last year released an RFP for large-scale renewable energy projects, reasoning that joint proposals and larger projects would obtain lower costs than states could secure on their own. (See New England States Combine on Clean Energy Procurement.)

The selection of successful bidders will begin in late April.

Eversource Energy President of Transmission Jim Muntz said the RFP for large-scale projects provided a glimpse of how market participants would respond to multiple jurisdictions.

“This was really the first real opportunity for folks to put some reality to their idea and try to marry up with the customers who stated a willingness to pay,” he said. “This is somewhat rare to have that in the neighborhood of a big idea.”

Among the proposals is Eversource’s Northern Pass transmission line, which would carry Canadian hydropower into the region.
In total, about 4,200 MW were proposed. But “big ideas” like undersea transmission lines from Canada or large offshore wind projects were noticeably absent.

Although several projects proposed large-scale wind and transmission in Maine, none were paired with any proposals that would build transmission to move energy farther south. Except for relatively small improvements along the New York-New England interface, no solutions were offered to relieve many of the existing choke points.