About the Project
NECPL
Creating a Shared Renewable Future
NECPL is a proposed 1,000 MW, high voltage direct current (HVDC) bidirectional transmission line with an estimated useful life of more than sixty years. NECPL’s 154-mile route will be fully buried 97 miles underwater in Lake Champlain and 57 miles underground mostly via existing public transportation rights of way.
Benefits
Rate payer cost reduction
Reduction from outage damages
Metric tons of CO2 reduction in 2030’s
Average annual renewable energy curtailment reduction
The Technology
Used worldwide for nearly 80 years, HVDC technology is safe, reliable, and time-tested. HVDC cables are ideal for transporting electricity over long distances with minimal losses compared to traditional high voltage alternating current (HVAC) lines. NECPL will be completely buried, avoiding outage risks that are typical of overhead power lines during extreme weather events. Resource sharing via a bidirectional HVDC line between New England and Eastern Canada will improve New England’s energy system reliability. In an extreme cold simulation, NECPL reduces monetary damage from outages by up to $3.1B.
Economic Benefits and Environmental Impact
New England’s peak electricity demand is forecast to nearly double by 2050, while the states that represent over 85% of the total electricity consumption in the region have established targets to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or earlier. Meeting demand growth and carbon emission reduction targets will require a shift in the energy supply mix toward wind and solar generation which is weather-dependent and, absent long-duration storage, subject to curtailment. NECPL will allow New England to defer investment in over 3.3 GW of alternative clean energy resources, saving ratepayers over $11B (NPV as of 2032) while reducing curtailment by an average of 3.5TWh per year. Additionally, NECPL avoids nearly 3.7M metric tons of CO2 emissions during its first seven years of operations.