Growing pains | New England seeks urgent grid plan to handle 40GW offshore wind boom

States in the New England region of the US Northeast have issued an urgent plea for a massively upgraded, planned grid build-out able to handle up to 40GW of offshore wind off their coasts, warning the far smaller volume of projects already advancing have accounted for all the best connection points

Now those states, with the addition of New Hampshire and Maine, have jointly issued a request for information (RFI) on efforts to coordinate transmission grid planning efforts to ensure that the mammoth amounts of offshore wind planned for the region can be securely integrated into the grid at the lowest possible ratepayer impacts.

The RFI was issued by the five under the auspices of the New England States Committee on Electricity (Nescoe), a federally approved electricity consortium appointed by the New England governors to guide regional energy planning.

The RFI solicits comment on planned transmission from interested stakeholders, electric transmission industry representatives, offshore wind developers, and others “regarding changes and upgrades to the regional electric transmission system needed to integrate renewable energy resources, including but not limited to offshore wind resources... developed in areas of the region requiring new transmission to integrate into the New England bulk electric system”.

The need is acute, as a study by New England’s independent systems operator (ISO-NE) indicates that while the grid can handle the influx 5.8GW of the current round of projects, the region could see as much as 40GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050.

“OSW [offshore wind] projects that have been contracted by New England states... are expected to use up all of the existing, available transmission capacity at the most convenient (and cost-effective) points of interconnection along Cape Cod and Rhode Island,” the states said in their RFI.

“ISO-NE studies show that the next tranche of OSW projects would trigger significant transmission upgrades across New England.”

Connecticut alone will need 11GW of offshore wind capacity to meet its clean energy goals, while Massachusetts’ long term planning calls for 15GW of offshore wind, nearly three times the current mandate of 5.4GW.

New Hampshire has taken the lead in pushing BOEM to begin the process for offshore wind leasing in the Gulf of Maine, which the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) sees holding some 65GW of potential plant.

Shift from radial connection

As the US offshore wind industry has so far developed, each project is connected to the onshore grid through one or more points of interconnection (PoI). While this “radial” approach has sufficed for the volume of projects so far in the pipeline, the huge volumes envisioned for the sector will require equally massive buildout of transmission capacity to integrate them effectively and safely into the grid, with a price tag in the billions of dollars.

In a study conducted for renewable energy transmission supplier Anbaric, research consultancy the Brattle Group said that “given the high cost and difficulty of building onshore transmission, a planned approach to developing the offshore grid can significantly reduce the need and costs for onshore upgrades, where there is a history of delays and budget overruns in New England”.

The Brattle Group noted that since 2002 major onshore transmission projects in New England have “on average exceeded budgets by 79% with project duration exceeding five years”.

The RFI backs calls for a planned grid that could consolidate production from multiple projects at sea via an offshore network connected to the onshore grid at fewer, stronger landing points than if each project were tethered to shore by its own export cable.

“A planned approach is likely to result in lower costs in both the near- and longer-term, by lowering risks and costs of onshore upgrades and increasing competition for both offshore transmission and generation,” Brattle Group noted, forecasting savings of $1.1bn in the planned approach.

The New England states' RFI said: “Adopting a new paradigm of planned, regional transmission investment for OSW [offshore wind] integration has the potential to improve access to this and other clean energy resources; improve overall system reliability; and avoid significant, and potentially very costly, reliability upgrades to the landside transmission system paid for by the region as a whole.”

While the RFI asks multiple technical questions, “a major point of focus for the Participating States is securing access to federal funding, especially under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), for any projects that result from possible future procurements”.

The recently passed climate bill contains hundreds of billions towards promoting renewable energy generation and supply chain capacity, but provides little in the way of funding for grid development. Instead, the IIJA passed last year does most of the heavy lifting, with $65bn for transmission upgrades that will be primarily handled by the department of Energy (DoE).

The transmission goals covered by the RFI include “8,400MW from current and future New England leaseholds [and] the Participating States are actively considering HVDC (high voltage direct current) transmission solutions in 1,200 MW increments through 2040”.

Comments are open and will be accepted until 4pm on 14 October.