An "audacious" plan to lay a multibillion-dollar wind power
transmission spine under the seabed from southern Virginia to the New
York City area took a step forward in January with an announcement
of plans for the first leg, a 189-mile segment running from Jersey City
to a spot south of Atlantic City.
The proposed backbone ... is intended to link future wind farms
far offshore, sparing them the expense and regulatory problems of
bringing power lines all the way to shore individually, and to move
power to land-based sources. The project’s backers, which include Google
and other prominent investors, argue that the buried offshore spine,
impervious to storms, could also come in handy in an emergency,
providing a backup for hospitals and police stations and restarting
power plants in blacked-out areas.
The latter selling point has gained importance for the line’s promoters
as interest in offshore wind has suffered setbacks, including the
declining price of natural gas, a competing energy source.
The Atlantic Wind Connection,
the project’s sponsor, says the first segment would run from a
substation called Cardiff, near Pomona, N.J., operated by Atlantic City
Electric, out into the ocean 12 to 14 miles....
Executives at Atlantic Wind say they chose to begin with a segment
solely in New Jersey because the project could level the big price
differences for electricity within the state, yielding an economic
benefit that could justify at least some of the first leg’s $1.3 billion
construction cost. Remaining within one state simplifies the regulatory
process, they added, and political support for offshore wind farms is
relatively strong in New Jersey.
The state has mandated that 22.5 percent of its electricity must come
from renewable sources by 2021, and the bulk of that is expected to come
from wind, some of which may come from outside New Jersey. Very few
onshore sites in the state are suitable for wind, however. New Jersey’s
Offshore Wind Economic Development Act calls for
at least 1,100 megawatts of offshore wind, but backers say it could go
as high as 3,000 megawatts. Atlantic Wind hopes to secure regulatory
approval and get the financing in place by mid-2015 and to start
construction at the end of that year.... In 2011, 11 companies expressed interest in building wind farms, although progress all over the East Coast has been quite slow.
Even if those farms do not materialize as fast as was once imagined, the
sponsors argue that the transmission line is justified because it would
allow faster recovery from crippling storms like Hurricane Sandy.
...
For the project to be built, New Jersey would have to submit a request to the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection.
The first step for PJM would be to determine how much money the line
would save by importing cheap power from southern New Jersey into
northern New Jersey. Another factor is how much prices in southern New
Jersey would rise as a result of its exports. Such transfers are now
limited by congestion on the grid. Once the economic value of the line had been established, a sum related
to that value would be charged to all PJM customers, including those in
New Jersey. If the estimated construction cost of an estimated $1.3
billion exceeded that, which seems likely, the balance would be charged
to New Jersey ratepayers as an environmental project, to meet the
state’s renewable energy goals.
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
FOR FULL STORY GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/bfrdly3
Published January 14, 2014
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