Our power grid operator, ISO New England, plays a critical role in making sure the region’s lights stay on throughout the year. A tough task to be sure, but the ISO’s continued reliance on polluting fossil fuels is cause for concern.
The ISO’s failure to join the fight against climate change has pushed New England states to step up and lead the transition to clean energy, including planning for new transmission projects, which is a critical step in getting more clean energy like wind and solar onto the grid. While an enhanced role for the states is a positive development, it raises important questions about the role and future of the ISO.
Power grids and transmission lines have been the subject of increasing scrutiny in recent years. The Texas power grid failure in the winter of 2021 made national headlines, but the truth is almost every region of the country is feeling the heat when it comes to the need for new energy infrastructure as well as challenges with properly planning, siting and building it.
The Grain Belt Express, which aims to incorporate wind energy into the power grids of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, has been coming up against roadblocks for the past decade and received approval from policymakers in Illinois only a few months ago. The SunZia wind power project in New Mexico and Arizona has been in the works since 2008, and the TransWest Express, a transmission line that brought wind power from Wyoming to Arizona, was approved a few months ago after 18 years of deliberation, with an actual completion date set for 2028.
Experts say the United States needs to expand its current grid by 57% by 2035 to meet demand, and that without new transmission lines, 80% of the environmental benefits set to come from the standards put forward by the Inflation Reduction Act will be lost.
But New England is in a unique and advantageous position. Unlike many other parts of the country, the New England states have demonstrated that they’re willing to work together to address our region’s changing energy needs, especially in contexts where the regional grid operator is spinning its wheels.
For instance, Maine and Massachusetts began a partnership earlier this year to build a 170-tower wind farm in Aroostook County in northern Maine. The project, called King Pine, would supply 1,000 megawatts of clean electricity to Maine and Massachusetts, with Massachusetts receiving enough to power 180,000 homes.
New England states are also working in tandem to secure federal money for transmission projects. Earlier this year, policymakers from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island put forward a funding proposal to integrate energy generated from offshore wind into the New England power grid.
Meanwhile, Vermont advanced a proposal supporting funding for a transmission line that would allow the bi-directional flow of electricity between Quebec and New England, in an effort to share clean-energy resources at times of need in each region. Vermont and New Hampshire appear to support a similar “power sharing” project with Quebec in the proposed Twin States Clean Energy Link project.
All this state-driven activity on transmission projects is occurring as the Massachusetts-funded New England Clean Energy Connect project, located in Maine, resumes construction and looks to begin operation in 2024. These clean-energy projects will help ensure that New England’s electricity supply is clean, affordable and reliable.
In some respects, states taking the initiative to fill a void left by a complacent ISO should come as no surprise. Our region has a long history of being at the forefront of clean-energy initiatives in the United States and even around the globe, and it’s been policymakers, advocacy groups and concerned citizens at the state level who have consistently spearheaded these efforts, not the ISO.
This doesn’t mean that the ISO doesn’t have a critical role to play, but our states are making a clear statement as they repeatedly take action in the face of ISO intransigence on climate – this region’s clean-energy revolution will occur with ISO or without it.
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