By William Opalka
The developers of an underwater transmission project that would deliver hydroelectric and wind power into New England filed for permits last week for the New York section of the project (16-T-0260).
Anbaric Transmission and National Grid filed for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need with the New York Public Service Commission for their Vermont Green Line. The project would connect 400 MW of wind generation to be developed in northern New York to Vermont through buried lines under Lake Champlain. The wind power would be supplemented by hydropower from Quebec, to provide firm power to ISO-NE.
The northern New York-Vermont border runs down the middle of the lake. The HVDC system would run from the New York Power Authority’s Plattsburgh substation in Beekmantown, Clinton County, to Vermont Electric Power Co.’s New Haven substation in Addison County. The New York portion of the project includes 6.7 miles of buried HVDC cable from a converter station to the shoreline of Lake Champlain at Point Au Roche State Park and about 4.9 miles underwater on the New York side of Lake Champlain.
The Vermont section of the project will include 35.2 miles of underwater HVDC cable, a converter station and 13.3 miles of buried line to the New Haven substation.
The project will also need approval from the Vermont Public Service Board. Bryan Sanderson, senior vice president of Anbaric Transmission, told RTO Insider on Wednesday that the companies plan to file with Vermont this summer.
Invenergy is developing the Bull Run Wind Energy Center in Clinton County, pending approval from state regulators. The proposed development would have as many as 140 turbines, with an in-service date projected for 2019.
The overall project, with energy also supplied by Hydro-Quebec, has been dubbed the “wind-hydro response” to the request for proposals solicited by three New England states to procure renewable energy for the region. The proposal is one of about 30 submitted to Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island now under review. (See State-Sponsored Energy Procurement Moves Ahead in NE.)
The hydro generation would flow into New York via a transmission connection between Hydro-Quebec and NYISO at Chateauguay, Quebec, according to Sanderson.
If the project is selected, the developers would then file with FERC for negotiated rate authority, he added.
“We think the Vermont Green project is well timed to provide the region with a reliable, clean energy source of hydro firming wind,” Sanderson said.
While the wind project is aimed at the New England market, developers say it will provide benefits to New York as well, including meeting the state’s goal to procure 50% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.
“The project will provide an ‘energy bridge’ that will allow additional development of new wind energy in upstate New York that would otherwise be constrained and uneconomic given the existing infrastructure for delivery to load centers in New York,” according to an economic analysis filed with the NYPSC.
When the hydroelectricity from Canada is more than what is needed to firm the wind energy destined for New England, that excess would be available to the New York market, according to the analysis.