Gridlock could stymie renewable generation: Transmission lines backed up

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.telegram.com/article/20080323/NEWS/803230672/1002/BUSINESS

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Gridlock could stymie renewable generation

Transmission lines backed up

By Norma Love THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CONCORD, N.H.— Northern New England is turning to the sun, wind and waste wood for clean, renewable power, but there’s a serious problem: the threat of gridlock on electricity “highways.”

A prime example is New Hampshire’s northern Coos County, where there are proposals to build renewable energy plants with roughly 460 megawatts of capacity — two-thirds of the proposed renewable projects in the state — to run over a transmission line that can only handle 100 megawatts.

The bottleneck is in Whitefield, the end of a transmission loop that runs through Berlin and Lost Nation.

Projects are approved on a first-come, first-served basis, and the first in line, Noble Environmental Power, stands ready to claim the entire 100 megawatts in 2009 for a wind park. That will leave the other proposals to wither and die if investors, electricity consumers or the government don’t spend $200 million to upgrade 100 miles of line.

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