Advocates for New England electric customers are raising alarm at the cost of a transmission line upgrade in New Hampshire.
Eversource Energy wants to replace more than 500 wooden poles with steel versions on a 49-mile corridor near the White Mountains.
The company said the $384 million project is critical to ensuring it can deliver reliable power to its customers, especially in the face of more intense storms driven by climate change.
But Maine Public Advocate Bill Harwood said Eversource's plans go far beyond what's needed. The company identified a few dozen worn out transmission poles to replace, but decided to upgrade the entire line instead, he added.
Regional electricity customers share the cost of transmission projects. So ratepayers in Maine and other states will see the price of the upgrade on their electric bills, Harwood said.
“New Hampshire only pays 9% of the cost of the project, the other 90% is exported 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 the company to scale back the upgrade. The company is still in the process of getting permits for the project.
"So far Eversource has dug in their heels and said we are going to go ahead with the project so that is why we have reached out to them one more time urging them to reconsider," Harwood said.
Eversource spokesperson William Hinkle said that replacing the line between Whitefield and Campton in western New Hampshire is crucial for reliability.
Rebuilding the line all at once is more efficient and will reduce impacts to customers and the environment, Hinkle added.
"Our initial analysis of a pared-back alternative that would leave some component of the line in-place indicated that such an approach would ultimately result in higher costs over time as we would eventually need to go back and replace those other aging components," he added.
