This week, North America’s largest renewable energy producer, Canadian hydropower giant Hydro-Québec announced that it, together with Blackstone portfolio company Transmission Developers have proposed two power generation and transmission solutions to help New York State meet its renewable energy and climate emissions reduction goals under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
The companies intend to supply New York City with clean power from Upstate New York and Canada, delivered via the new Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), a transmission line linking Hydro-Québec’s hydropower facilities as well as upstate renewable generation to New York City. In a formal pitch to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) this week, the companies have proposed providing either 100 percent hydropower deliveries from Québec via CHPE, or a combination of New York-generated renewable energy and Québec hydropower via an additional converter to be based in New Scotland, NY.
“Hydro-Québec has supplied New York State with clean, always-on, affordable hydropower for decades,” Hydro-Québec President and CEO Sophie Brochu said this week. “The CHPE proposal can expand this relationship to help the state and city meet their world-leading climate goals, all the while supporting the coordinated US-Canada approach to encourage the development of cross-border clean electricity transmission.”
“Our permitted, fully buried, construction-ready transmission project is certainly the most viable option for New York. CHPE provides a vital link to unleash low-carbon, cost-effective electricity from the Québec system and Upstate to decarbonize New York City” added Transmission Developers CEO Don Jessome.
Going big
Hydro-Québec says both proposals would supply New York City with up to 1,250 MW of renewable power, enough electricity for more than 1.2 million homes, and reducing carbon emissions by 3.9 million metric tons each year, or the equivalent of taking 44 percent of all car traffic off the streets of New York.
Hydro-Québec says CHPE will decrease localized air pollutants emitted from fossil fuel electricity generation by 20 percent across New York state in just its first year of operations. Half of this decrease will occur in New York City, where, the company notes, most fossil-fuel peaker plants are located in or adjacent to disadvantaged communities (what New York has designated as “environmental justice communities,” due to the disproportionate impact on respiratory health in low-income areas from high local levels of harmful air pollutants generated by peakers).
The permitted CHPE transmission line is the only project advanced enough to begin construction in 2021 and become operational by 2025. The new transmission line is entirely underground or underwater, originating in southern Québec, making its way under Lake Champlain and the Hudson and Harlem rivers to a substation in Astoria, Queens.
Hydro-Québec says this clean energy infrastructure project is expected to create more than 1,400 new construction jobs for New Yorkers, and generate some $50 billion in total economic benefits for the state from 2021 to 2050. Moreover, renewable energy delivered over CHPE can replace over half of the emission free power generated by the recently retired Indian Point nuclear facility. The loss of Indian Point has resulted in an increased use of fossil generation, particularly in New York City where, by the end of this year, as much as 85-90 percent of the power produced will come from carbon emitting sources.
Delivering base-load clean power from Hydro-Québec and Upstate renewables into NYC can reduce fossil-fuel use and provide a flexible energy resource that can maximize New York’s ability to efficiently integrate the planned development of offshore wind. Over the long-term, Hydro-Québec’s existing hydropower system can act as a natural battery to complement New York’s future buildouts of local renewables such as Upstate wind, solar and offshore wind.
The proposal also includes the creation of a Green Economy Fund (GEF). The GEF will help create a new green-energy workforce by funding clean-energy job training programs for disadvantaged and frontline communities and those currently underrepresented in the construction industry, including BIPOC and women, as well as provide access to retraining for those currently employed in the fossil fuel industry.
