As temperatures approach 90 degrees in Boston that will send electricity demand higher in the coming days, two large renewable energy projects serving Massachusetts are not providing the jolt of power they promised.
The New England Clean Energy Connect project (NECEC), a 145-mile transmission line bringing hydropower from Canada into Massachusetts, was completed in January after a decade-long topsy-turvy political and legal process. Yet the project had not delivered any power into New England for two weeks before it flickered back to life on Tuesday, according to data from ISO New England, the regional grid operator.
And while state leaders have cheered the completion of Vineyard Wind in the face of unprecedented attacks from the Trump administration, the wind farm off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard is producing power at less than half of its expected capacity as it remains mired in litigation with its Massachusetts-based turbine supplier GE Vernova.
The two setbacks are coming as summertime heat is expected across the region later this week that could deepen dependence on natural gas. And they signal the continued challenges ahead for how to bring on new clean energy sources to move off fossil fuels and meet growing power needs while maintaining reliability as Gov. Maura Healey confronts complicated energy politics in pursuit of her “all of the above” approach.
In the case of NECEC, a project that is forecasted to account for 20 percent of Massachusetts’s electricity consumption, no power had been delivered through the transmission line between May 26 and June 8, ISO New England data show, despite no formal announcement from Hydro-Québec, the government-owned utility. Lynn St-Laurent, a spokesperson for Hydro-Québec, told CommonWealth Beacon in a statement on Friday that NECEC had been “offline” due to “technical issues” but that “repairs are currently underway and should conclude shortly.”
Published by MassINC