October 2014, Vol. 69, No. 10
Newsline
Regulators Approve Canada-to-NYC Power Line
The U.S. Department of Energy has completed its environmental review of a $2.2 billion project that will run a 330-mile electric line from Canada to New York City.
The 1,000-megawatt transmission cables will have a five-inch diameter and run underwater or underground for the line’s entire length to minimize impacts to local communities and the environment. The project, called the Champlain Hudson Power Express, will siphon hydro and wind-produced energy from the Canadian border to a converter station that will be built in Astoria, Queens, and feed into the Consolidated Edison system.
Transmission Developers Inc., the Albany-based company developing the project, claims the transmission line would reduce energy costs for customers by as much as $650 million per year, creating an average of 300 construction jobs over the four years it takes to build.
“We are extremely pleased that, after years of comprehensive review, the Department of Energy has released the Final Environmental Impact Statement,” TDI CEO Donald Jessome said. “We welcomed the review and dialogue it generated with federal and state agencies as well as local stakeholders.”
The company agreed to avoid an environmentally sensitive area of the Hudson River by running 126 miles underground upstate to Catskill, where it re-enters the river. It then comes back ashore for seven miles to bypass Haverstraw Bay. TDI agreed to establish a $117 mitigation fund for the preservation of aquatic wildlife in the waterways as part of an agreement with environmental groups Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper. Those groups intervened in hearings last year with the state’s utilities regulator, the Public Service Commission.
The funding for the project will not come from revenue from ratepayers, TDI said. The company expects the transmission line to be in service by 2017.
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