New Hampshire, as you know, blocked the Northern Pass line to bring roughly a Seabrook Station’s worth of Quebec hydropower into New England, then Maine probably blocked a similar attempt there. We’re perfectly happy to burn natural gas carried on big, noisy, potentially explosive pipelines that come through Southern New England but don’t want big, ugly transmission power lines to come through our states and carry electricity down to them. That irritates some lawmakers.
New England’s reliance on natural gas for electricity generation is expected to cost the region dearly this winter. And in Connecticut, political leaders are suggesting that their northern neighbors are standing in the way of relief.
State Sen. Norm Needleman, co-chair of the legislative Energy and Technology Committee, recently said in a radio interview that efforts to diversify the regional grid’s energy supply by importing more hydropower from Canada have been scuttled by New Hampshire and Maine, which turned down plans for more transmission lines through their states.
“I beseech the people of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where we — with adequate transmission lines coming through their states — could access way more power generation from Hydro-Québec,” Needleman said.
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NH had nothing to gain from the proposed “Northern Pass” except maybe a small reduction as a result of lower wholesale cost. Our distribution cost would have no reason to change since the all the power was to go south and then be sent back to us. Until we can get our own converter station in NH with local distribution, this plan continues to be dead on arrival.
Ct. law requires power lines to be buried. Maybe when Ct. follows it’s own laws in it’s NH proposal the opposition will decline. I support copying Ct.’s law and burying all lines (new and existing) here in NH. I will never support new above ground transmission lines here in NH.
Connecticut does not require transmission or distribution lines to be buried. Individual developments may require them, but there is no statewide requirement.
Burying lines is often a good idea but it’s no panacea – it costs a fortune to do and when lines do fail, it costs a fortune to fix them. You still need rights-of-way for transmission lines even if buried.
A new state law passed during this year’s session of the General Assembly requires that high voltage power lines be buried whenever technically possible (it’s always “technically” possible.
Dated 8/12/2004 here:
https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/ISO-agrees-to-bury-power-lines-in-Fairfield-County-11925053.php
I remember this happening, but I can’t find the law on the CT General Assembly website. Repealed?
The power companies always exaggerate the costs of burying lines. Re-investing in reliability and aesthetics would leave less room for bonuses. They also ignore the costs of power outages for their customers.
Overhead lines are just plain ugly and may have negative health affects for those who live under transmission lines.
FEMA endorses burying lines as a cost effective reliability solution on ther website.
Neverpass could use existing highway and rail rights of way with little to no opposition to invisible, underground, reliable lines.
I also agree with the other person who mentioned the plan being a non-starter without a direct NH converter connection rather than having power sent back from CT.