After years of debate, Avangrid transmission line through Maine gets final permit

Map / Courtesy Iberdrola The $1 billion project broke ground in 2021. The line runs through Franklin and Somerset counties and connects with the grid in Lewiston.

Write a Comment

By Laurie Schreiber

After years of legal and regulatory hurdles, a project to build a 145-mile electricity transmission line through western Maine received its final permit, clearing the path for completion of one of the largest energy projects in the region.

Avangrid Inc. (NYSE: AGR), the Orange, Conn.-based parent company of Central Maine Power, last week obtained the final permit required for the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line project. Avangrid is a subsidiary of Spain-based Iberdrola S.A. (IBE.MC).

The project is expected to deliver 1,200 megawatts of baseload hydropower from Québec to New England, yielding approximately $3 billion in net benefits to Massachusetts electric distribution customers.

The $1 billion project broke ground in 2021 despite legal challenges. The line runs through Franklin and Somerset counties and connects with the grid in Lewiston.

The final permit came from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection after it approved a plan to conserve 50,000 acres of Maine wilderness.

But conservation groups said the plan “fails to meet the requirement to protect mature forest habitat in western Maine,” according to a separate release.

The Appalachian Mountain Club, Maine Audubon, Natural Resources Council of Maine and Trout Unlimited said the plan “fails to comply with the permit requirements and should have been denied, so that an improved plan could be brought forward.”

The groups are considering the option of appealing DEP’s decision to the Board of Environmental Protection.

What's next

The approval puts Avangrid on track to energize the project following testing and commissioning, which is scheduled to conclude by the end of the year, according to a news release.

First proposed in 2017, NECEC is a transmission line designed to bring electricity from existing hydropower facilities in Québec to consumers in Massachusetts as part of the regional electrical grid, according to a separate release.

Construction is nearly complete. It includes a clearing of a 150-foot-wide, 53-mile-long corridor through undeveloped Maine woods between the Canadian border and the Forks in Somerset County.

The transmission line is built on land owned or managed by Central Maine Power. Two-thirds of the route follows existing power lines and the remaining third of the new construction runs through forestry land, according to Iberdrola.

Avangrid serves over 6 million homes and businesses with over 10.5 gigawatts of generation capacity in 24 states and assets including gas and electric utilities throughout the Northeast.

Buffer zones

In comments filed with DEP over the past six months, the conservation groups called on Department of Environmental Protection to require NECEC to augment the plan with at least 10,000 acres of land with larger and older trees, which would be allowed to grow to full maturity, establish a scientifically credible definition of mature forest and require no-cut buffers for the small amount of older forests still remaining within the proposed 50,000-acre plan area.

“The NECEC plan should have been denied because it categorically fails to meet the requirement of providing ‘blocks of habitat for species preferring mature forest,’” the groups said in a joint statement. “The plan fails in large part because of the fundamental challenge of conserving mature forests, as required by the permit, within a proposed 50,000-acre area that is almost completely devoid of mature forest.”

The conservation plan was submitted by CMP on May 9. It places a conservation easement on 50,000 acres of forestland in an area that is bisected by Route 201, south of Jackman.

DEP and BEP requirements for the plan to mitigate impacts of the transmission line include the promotion of habitat connectivity and conservation of mature forest areas; blocks of habitat for species preferring mature forest habitat and comprised of forestland that are at least 5,000 acres, unless adjacent to existing conserved land or if the land has unique values. It must conserve at least 50,000 acres.

But the groups said the 50,000 acres in the plan contains “almost no mature forest as typically recognized by both forest and wildlife ecologists.”

LiDAR documentation shows that the tree canopy in 78% of the area is less than 35 feet tall; 7% of the area is comprised of trees greater than 50 feet tall, according to John Hagan, president of Our Climate Common in the Sagadahoc County town of Georgetown.

LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses lasers.

Read Previous

Boston Fed chief lays out global economic risks, opportunities

Processing Your Payment

Event Info

Award Honorees

Topics

Regions

Biweekly Issues

Special Editions

Event Info

Award Honorees