The big power line that Iberdrola wants to connect the United States and Canada sees the light after nearly two years. Through its US subsidiary Avangrid, the Basque multinational plans to resume construction in 2023 of the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) project, which will supply more than 1.2 million homes in New England with clean energy brought in from Canada, which will include An investment of 1,300 million euros.
Iberdrola has already started evaluating the new construction schedule. And that was, last May, a suspension A permit from the Environmental Protection Department Maine, required to resume electrical interconnection construction.
The first NECEC works began in January 2021. In November of the same year, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection decided to suspend Iberdrola’s construction permit, after an opposition group—led by Next-Era and the Alliance of Fossil Fuel Companies—promoted a referendum among Maine residents to decide the future of interconnection . At that time, about half of the project was done, approx An investment of 450 million.
In August 2022, the Maine Court of Justice overturned the referendum, after Iberdrola denounced it as illegal. Business can continue as long as it is proven to be advanced and thus established Grandpa enough before taking a vote.
To continue the proceedings, the Supreme Court referred the case to the Business and Consumer Court, and last April, the judges again agreed with the multinational company led by Ignacio Galán. The lawsuit centered around determining whether there was a connection between the project’s accelerated construction schedule and the executives’ efforts to obtain grandparent rights.
Avangrid’s lawyer argued that the project’s schedule proceeded with the goal of meeting its planned commercial operation date of December 2022. Moreover, he asserted, the company could have met that deadline had it not been for the efforts of the project’s opponents. All permits over the years.
shrinkage
NECEC will allow the transmission of renewable energy from Quebec (Canada) to Maine (USA), as well as to the New England region’s common grid, thanks to the construction of a 233-kilometer high-voltage line and 1200 megawatts of transmission capacity.
According to Iberdrola itself, the project will generate approximately €900 million in economic benefits in Maine, through employment in construction, cost savings in electricity, local property taxes and increased economic growth. the 20-year contracts in Massachusetts through 2043as well as independent agreements with Hydro Quebec You could see the benefits of supply in Maine and the region extend into 2063, or even longer.
