Eversource Energy notified New Hampshire regulators that it plans to file an updated proposal to replace a rejected gas capacity purchase agreement for Enbridge Inc.'s now-shelved Access Northeast pipeline expansion project.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled May 22 that the state Public Utilities Commission erred in blocking Eversource from buying pipeline capacity for electric generators as a means of funding the project.
On the premise that the PUC had used the same reasoning when it dismissed a power purchase agreement, or PPA, between Eversource and Canadian utility Hydro-Québec, Eversource on June 11 also asked the commission to vacate its March 2017 dismissal of the PPA to resell 100 MW of the 1,090 MW of hydroelectric power from Hydro-Québec to be carried over Eversource's proposed Northern Pass transmission line.
The May 22 court ruling said the legislative intent of a 1998 electric industry restructuring law, which separated a utility's power generation functions from transmission and distribution and unbundled the rates of each service from the other, was to drive down consumer costs. The court said regulators wrongly interpreted discretionary restructuring guidelines of the statute as a mandatory directive to elevate the principle of "functional separation" over other principles in the statute, including reduced costs.
The New England utility said the PUC dismissal of the PPA prevented its significant benefits, including lowered energy costs, from being considered in Northern Pass' siting application that was subsequently rejected by the state Site Evaluation Committee on May 24. Northern Pass, a 192-mile cross-border transmission project, has received all major permits required by U.S., Canadian and state governments other than the state siting permit.
