As the draft Environmental Impact Statement for Northern Pass nears release, recent entries at ISO-New England, overseer of the region's electric power system, indicate Northern Pass is floating an alternative in the form of a smaller transmission line.
Company spokespersons, however, aren't talking and what it means has some Northern Pass watchers intrigued.
A Feb. 17 entry on ISO-New England's elective transmission upgrades (ETU) queue reflects the project as originally proposed - a 1,200 megawatt-capacity line extending from the Hydro-Quebec substation in Quebec to the Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) substation in Deerfield. It states an operation date of Dec. 1, 2018.
A Feb. 16 ETU queue entry, however, shows a transmission line with a capacity of 1,090 megawatts and an operation date of June 1, 2018.
"It's hard to know exactly what to think of this, but it could be indicative of Northern Pass looking at other options," Christopher Courchesne, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which opposes Northern Pass in its overhead form, said Tuesday.
As originally proposed, the $1.4 billion 1,200-megawatt elective Northern Pass transmission line that would entail about 180 miles of steel towers some 100 feet high faces fierce critics in New Hampshire and likely legal challenges as it moves into its fifth year.
"The fact that it's there is interesting," Bob Baker, a member of Responsible Energy Action LLC, said of the 1,090-megawatt entry. "It may indicate they've heard there is going to be a problem with their project and they are lining up an alternative."
Baker also pointed to proposed transmission lines in New York and Vermont and noted the plan in those states is to use underground cable at slightly less than 1,200 megawatts.
Transmission Developers Inc. is advancing the Champlain-Hudson Power Express, a $2.2 billion 1,000-megawatt transmission line that includes burial under Lake Champlain as well as more than 130 miles of burial along transportation corridors.
In October 2013, TDI New England announced a proposal called the New England Clean Power Link, a 1,000-megawatt, $1.2 billion HVDC transmission line that would import hydro-power from Canada to New England along 100 miles of submarine cable under Lake Champlain and 50 miles of line buried in transportation corridors.
On Tuesday, Northern Pass spokespersons Martin Murray and Lauren Collins were contacted about the two entries at ISO-New England and asked about the difference between them.
Specifically, they were asked if the 1,090-megawatt entry reflects an alternative Northern Pass project with shorter towers, additional line burial and/or a partially different route, and if the smaller line is being proposed as a backup project in the event the line as originally proposed - now three years behind schedule - faces additional delays.
They did not respond.
ISO-New England's queue is where private investors propose generation projects or elective transmission projects, said ISO spokeswoman Lacey Girard. Outside the entries on the queue, additional details are confidential, she said.
ISO's queue also shows a Feb. 17 entry for an interconnection location that states "PSNH Coos area transmission" and an operation date of July 1, 2016. No further information was available.
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