New Hampshire's electric transmission siting agency has rejected Eversource Energy's request to reconsider the denial of a siting permit for its proposed Northern Pass transmission line.
The New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee, or SEC, voted May 24 against Eversource's request, four months after first denying the permit for the proposed high-voltage, direct current line. According to Eversource, the 192-mile cross-border transmission project has received all the major permits required by American, Canadian and state governments other than the SEC's siting permit.
In wake of the denied reconsideration, Bill Quinlan, president of Eversource New Hampshire, said the company still intends to pursue "all options" for making Northern Pass a reality. The company already refiled a new siting application and previously said it will take the matter to court if needed.
The SEC decision comes on the heels of a May 22 decision by the New Hampshire Supreme Court that ruled the state's Public Utilities Commission erred in rejecting a natural gas capacity contract between Eversource and a subsidiary of Enbridge (US) Inc. that would have funded the now-shelved Access Northeast pipeline expansion project. The court remanded the petition back to the commission, finding that since Eversource's gas capacity proposal seeks to reduce costs for electricity consumers it does not violate the state's restructuring law.
Eversource had expressed hope that the court decision, and its endorsement of contracts and projects that reduce energy costs, would breathe life back into a power purchase agreement between the utility and Hydro-Québec to resell 100 MW of the 1,090 MW of hydropower that was slated to be transmitted over Northern Pass. The commission had denied the power supply contract in March 2017 for the same reasons as the gas capacity contract.
Despite being selected in a clean energy solicitation by Massachusetts electric distribution companies, Northern Pass was denied a siting permit by the SEC and subsequently lost its contracts with those companies. According to Eversource, the denial of the power purchase agreement with Hydro-Quebec impacted the siting decision by reducing the economic benefits of the project.
