The New Hampshire legislature has tabled a bill that would have impeded Hartford energy giant Northeast Utilities’ plan to bring low-cost, no-carbon hydroelectric power from Canada into New England via its $1.1 billion Northern Pass transmission line.
The New Hampshire General Court was considering a bill to keep projects such as Northern Pass from using the state’s eminent domain law to acquire the right-of-way necessary to build the transmission line.
The legislation — House Bill 648 was re-referred to committee on Thursday and likely won’t be considered again until 2012, said Martin Murray, Northern Pass spokesman.
NU and its project partners — Boston-based NStar and Canada-based Hydro-Quebec — have run into issues with residents in northern New England opposed to the heavy power lines near their property. The group is currently reworking the proposed route for the transmission line through northern New Hampshire, and finalized the route in southern New Hampshire to follow existing power line rights-of-way.
NU and NStar must obtain state and federal permits before starting on the transmission line. The U.S. Department of Energy is giving the public until June 14 to comment on the project’s environmental impact.
The project will wait until it obtains the federal approval before applying for the New Hampshire permit, likely in 2012 or 2013, said Martin.
The $1.1 billion Northern Pass project links the New England power grid to the hydroelectric power offered by Hydro-Quebec. Once the permits are obtained, the construction process will take three years. The optimistic in-service date is 2015, Martin said.
Hydropower is one of the cheapest forms of energy and emits very little greenhouse gases, although it requires flooding of land surrounding major waterways.
