Representatives of electricity customers in New England are raising alarm about the cost of modernizing New Hampshire’s power line.
Eversource Energy plans to replace more than 500 wooden towers with steel towers along a 79-kilometer-long corridor near the White Mountains.
The company said the $384 million project is critical to ensuring reliable power supply to its customers, especially in light of storms exacerbated by climate change.
But Maine State Public Advocate Bill Harwood said Eversource’s plans went far beyond what was necessary. The company had identified several dozen worn-out power poles that needed replacing but opted instead to upgrade the entire line, he added.
Regional electricity customers are sharing the cost of the transmission projects, so electricity customers in Maine and other states will see the cost of the upgrades on their electricity bills, Harwood said.
“New Hampshire will only pay 9% of the project costs, the other 90% will be passed on to other ratepayers,” he added.
In Maine, the cost could be about $32 million, according to Harwood.
Harwood and consumer advocates from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire recently wrote to Eversource to pressure them to slow the expansion. The company is still in the process of obtaining permits for the project.
“So far, Eversource has been stubborn and said we’re going to move forward with the project. So we’ve reached out to them again and asked them to reconsider,” Harwood said.
William Hinkle, a spokesman for Eversource, said replacing the line between Whitefield and Campton in western New Hampshire is critical to reliability.
Rebuilding the line immediately would be more efficient and reduce the impact on customers and the environment, Hinkle added.
“Our initial analysis of a stripped-down alternative that would leave some components of the line in place showed that such an approach would ultimately result in higher costs over time as we would eventually have to replace these other, aging components,” he added.
