Electric utility United Illuminating said Wednesday that the cost of designing and building a proposed underground transmission system from Bridgeport to Fairfield would be about $838 million.
That’s about a half-billion dollars more than the estimated cost of rebuilding the overhead transmission system at $306 million.
UI says the aging transmission infrastructure, which runs along Metro-North railroad, needs to be upgraded to maintain current levels of railroad service.
UI has completed three of the five phases of work. Construction on the fourth phase, which runs from New Haven to Milford, is ongoing.
The fifth phase, known as the Fairfield to Congress project, was delayed by a legal challenge by local groups that oppose the overhead transmission lines.
Based on the newly released cost estimate of the underground project, calculated by Dashiell Corporation and HBK Engineering, UI doubled down on its support of the less expensive option.
“At UI, our responsibility – to our 345,000 customers and all our stakeholders across Connecticut – is to design and implement the least-cost solution that best achieves our primary obligation: providing safe, reliable and resilient electricity to our customers,” said Frank Reynolds, president and CEO of UI.
There have been times when UI supported underground projects, he said; however, in this case UI prefers the lower-cost overhead option because the cost differential of the underground alternative would be borne entirely by Connecticut ratepayers.
“We know there has been strong community advocacy for an underground design plan, but because we can achieve our reliability and resiliency objectives with a more affordable overhead route, we have always stood by our preferred alternative for the benefit of the customers we serve,” Reynolds said.
In 2023, UI submitted an application to the state Siting Council for the Fairfield to Congress transmission line project, which is part of the Metro-North Railroad corridor.
The state Siting Council found that “the cost of any underground configuration would result in an unreasonable economic burden on the ratepayers of the state.”
However, local businesses, residents and organizations appealed the Siting Council’s decision.
In an April 23 decision, Judge Matthew J. Budzik in New Britain Superior Court remanded the matter back to the Siting Council for further consideration of the design plan.
The Siting Council will meet at 1 p.m. via Zoom on Thursday. Although the meeting will not include public comment, the Fairfield to Congress project is scheduled for discussion.
UI said it tentatively believes a decision will be made at a follow-up meeting on June 26.
UI said it is required to “select the most prudent design: the design that achieves the necessary objectives at the least cost for the company’s customers.”
Based on agreements with Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE), the regional grid operator, costs of regional transmission projects are normally spread across the 14 million ISO-NE customers.
If the Siting Council approved the overhead solution proposed by UI, the roughly $300 million cost would be spread across those 14 million customers. However, if the Siting Council approved the underground option, Connecticut ratepayers would be responsible for the additional $500 million, according to UI.
“With Connecticut’s high electricity rates continually in the news, it is frankly surprising to see so many elected officials and their constituents continue to push for a project design that would add half a billion dollars to Connecticut electric rates,” said Jim Cole, vice president of projects at Avangrid.
UI, a subsidiary of Avangrid, provides electricity to customers in the greater New Haven and Bridgeport areas of the state.
