Four New England states are pursuing federal funding for an integrated, high-capacity offshore wind transmission network as the U.S. Energy Department readies billions of dollars in assistance for innovative grid projects.
The states — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — are looking to tap into the funding to support a proactively planned, high-voltage direct-current transmission system that cuts costs and bolsters the New England region's energy security.
"This is really the next phase of offshore wind transmission that is needed," Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Energy & Environmental Protection, said in a Jan. 26 interview.
Energy and environmental offices representing the four states submitted a preliminary proposal for the transmission network Jan. 13 in response to a DOE request for concept papers issued as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
The infrastructure law authorized up to $5 billion in DOE funding through fiscal year 2026 for innovative projects that boost grid resilience, enhance collaborative transmission planning and improve cost-effectiveness, among other objectives. Up to $2 billion is available through fiscal year 2023, with selected projects eligible for up to $250 million in assistance.
The New England coalition hopes that its concept paper, developed through a five-state initiative launched in September 2022, ticks all of the DOE's boxes.
Moving away from 'build-as-usual' approach
A series of studies released in recent years have urged coastal U.S. states with high offshore wind potential to move away from a "build-as-usual" approach that relies on individual point-to-point generator lead lines that land onshore.
That approach has worked so far for New England's first commercial-scale projects, but it is quickly approaching its limits.
Avangrid Renewables LLC expects its 800-MW Vineyard Offshore Wind Project project, about 20 miles from the southwest corner of Martha's Vineyard, to start delivering electricity to Cape Cod, Mass., in 2023 and achieve full commercial operation in 2024. The Iberdrola SA subsidiary has also proposed a two-phase project next to the Vineyard site totaling up to 2,600 MW in nameplate capacity.
Massachusetts intends to solicit 5.6 GW of total offshore wind power by 2027, while Connecticut and Rhode Island have also set bold offshore wind targets as part of their decarbonization plans.
However, the Jan. 13 concept paper warned that "no significant additional wind will be able to interconnect without significant land-based upgrades that would add millions, if not billions, of dollars of costs to wind projects."
Cape Cod, a narrow peninsula, and nearby areas are the closest landfall points to New England's offshore wind leasehold, which could support up to 14 GW of generation capacity. Additional build-as-usual projects would be "extremely difficult to site or require costly offshore cabling around the Cape into Boston," according to the concept paper.
"We knew this day would be coming as we run out of those easy points of interconnection," Dykes said.
The commissioner acknowledged that $250 million would represent only a fraction of an offshore wind project's total costs. But "it would be an important down payment," Dykes said.
Submitting a concept paper is the first step in the DOE's funding process. The DOE expects to provide responses in March, with full applications due May 19.
Multistate planning effort
To help unlock New England's full offshore wind potential, the coalition's concept paper envisions a multistate transmission planning effort aimed at identifying a broad set of transmission solutions through a competitive bidding process.
The benefits associated with such an initiative were underscored in a Jan. 24 report from The Brattle Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. Transmission planning over the next several decades could save the U.S. up to $20 billion in transmission costs, according to the report.
"This is exactly the kind of effort that we are calling for," Johannes Pfeifenberger, a Brattle principal and one of the report's co-authors, said in an interview.
Pfeifenberger likened the challenge to jumping between two moving trains. "We need to jump from using the conventional way to interconnect offshore wind to a more planned way to interconnect offshore wind," Pfeifenberger said.
The Jan. 13 concept paper proposed an initial solicitation, conditioned upon receiving DOE funding, for one to three HVDC lines. The states would work with ISO New England, the region's interstate grid operator, to identify optimal interconnection points and evaluate costs and benefits.
A similar process conducted on behalf of New Jersey by the PJM Interconnection LLC, the mid-Atlantic region's grid operator, produced 80 proposals from 13 applicants.
New England's solicitation would also seek proposals that could eventually accommodate the nation's first "meshed" multiterminal, high-voltage direct-current, or MTDC, system.
To date, MTDC systems have only been deployed at a commercial scale in China. But the technology is also in advanced stages of development in Europe, demonstrating its feasibility, the concept paper said.
"A fully networked MTDC system would provide greater reliability and resiliency benefits and improve regional (and eventually interregional) capacity transfers and set the path for the possibility of an innovative offshore backbone system along the Atlantic coast," the paper said.
Pfeifenberger noted the concept paper comes as the DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office looks to develop the nation's first MTDC standards. In December 2022, the DOE singled out MTDC technology in a $28 million funding announcement for projects that address barriers to wind energy deployment.
In a separate concept paper, Vermont's Department of Public Service proposed another submission that would request DOE assistance for Transmission Developers Inc.'s stalled New England Clean Power Link project. If built, the 1,000-MW transmission line would run entirely underground and underwater from the Canadian border through Lake Champlain and the state of Vermont.
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