When the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line started carrying electricity from Canada into Maine in January, supporters hailed the project as a triumph for renewable power. Now, after nearly six months of operations, the early numbers raise questions about whether the project will be able to advance the region’s energy transition as much as advertised.
Energy flow into New England is up just marginally, and there have been roughly 27 days when no power at all traveled along the new line, commonly called NECEC. If current trends hold, New England will receive less hydropower this year over two transmission lines than it did over just one line in 2023 and previous years.
“What we’ve seen so far is not what some people expected to see,” said Joseph LaRusso, manager of the Clean Grid Program at climate nonprofit Acadia Center. Potentially putting further strain on the supply of Canadian hydropower is the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a transmission line that started sending electricity from Quebec into New York City this month.
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The operations have not had the smoothest start. NECEC was completely inactive for several spans — from a half day on April 28 to nearly two weeks at the end of May and beginning of June. The most recent outage was due to “technical difficulties,” Hydro-Québec spokesperson Lynn St-Laurent said in a written statement.
“Once repairs were completed, deliveries resumed,” she said. “With any new transmission infrastructure, a period of optimization and fine-tuning is to be expected.” Still, most of the time, hydropower has flowed steadily on the new infrastructure. Through the end of April, Hydro-Québec exported about 2.4 terawatt-hours of power on the transmission line.
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