Massachusetts opted last week for one large power line to cover a big chunk of its energy needs for the next 20-plus years.
The Northern Pass proposal beat out other big transmission projects and dozens of smaller options for the right to supply all renewable power the Commonwealth wants.
As NHPR's Annie Ropeik reports, this has analysts and developers wondering what role smaller projects will play in the future of the grid.
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Kevin Foley steps carefully across an icy dirt road in Claremont, N.H. He's at the edge of a snowy field surrounded by forest. On all this, he’s picturing solar panels.
"We’re only looking at this little piece, that’s this field," he says. "The 240 acres is all around us."
Foley works for SunEast Development, which wants to turn this parcel into a utility-scale solar array – 20 megawatts, connected to a substation about a mile away.
“There’s a power line not too far from us, right across those trees,” he says.
SunEast is moving forward on this proposal, and nine others just like it in New England – despite being shut out of Massachusetts’ efforts to procure a huge amount of renewable power.
The Commonwealth picked one big project instead. Eversource’s proposed Northern Pass transmission line would carry 60 times the energy of a single SunEast solar project.
The plan also impacts about 200 miles of land, instead of about 200 acres.
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