Group grid study dissolved: One company drops out, SouthCoast remains 

New England’s electric grid operator has dissolved a “cluster study” that would have coordinated the hooking up of energy from two separate wind farms into the region’s grid because one of the companies—not yet identified—withdrew its plans.

SouthCoast Wind, which is looking to route 1,200 megawatts of power through Falmouth, was the other company in the study; it will now be studied individually. The results of the study will determine if and how the project moves forward.

Because SouthCoast would feed more power into the Cape’s grid than current capacity allows, the company must pay for upgrades to safely move its excess power to the mainland. ISO New England’s study will determine what those upgrades are and their cost.

ISO New England does not approve or reject projects, but, because upgrades can be prohibitively expensive, projects may not move forward following a feasibility study, ISO’s lead communication specialist Matthew M. Kakley said.

Mr. Kakley was not authorized to reveal the name of the company that withdrew from the study or say why they withdrew.
SouthCoast Wind Falmouth Cable Route

SouthCoast Wind’s cables would make landfall in Falmouth Heights and then travel north to connect with the grid off Sam Turner Road. COURTESY MAYFLOWER WIND

SouthCoast Wind has proposed connecting to the grid off Sam Turner Road in Falmouth and sending its power up to an existing substation off Jarvis Road in Bourne adjacent to the Cape Cod Canal. The company is waiting on ISO’s study results before moving the project forward.

“That’s really the crux of all of this,” said SouthCoast Wind’s media representative Joyce McMahon. “What ISO comes out with … and what determination they make, are really going to set the stage for decision-making going forward.”

Mr. Kakley said neither SouthCoast nor the other generator originally involved in the cluster study asked ISO New England to study the possibility of connecting at the fossil fuel Canal Generating Plant in Sandwich. Opponents of a Falmouth Heights cable landfall have claimed the canal plant (located at the eastern end of the canal) is a more appropriate connection site, since the area is already industrialized.

The new owner of the canal power plant, the Japanese company JERA, feels it is well-situated to host additional power from clean energy projects.

“JERA Americas acquired the canal generating facility in Sandwich with the idea of it serving as a foothold for supporting large-scale renewable energy facilities and decarbonized energy technologies,” John O’Brien from the regulatory office of JERA’s American subsidiary wrote in an email.

SouthCoast maintains that because the canal plant is currently in service, its “grid connection lacks the capacity to meet the needs of the SouthCoast Wind Project.”

Mr. O’Brien said his company is currently “exploring the necessary regulatory requirements” for additional generators to connect into their existing infrastructure. He believes his company can both generate power onsite and host power from offsite.

SouthCoast Wind has pointed out that where a company connects to the grid and where its cable makes landfall are separate decisions. The company maintains that running a cable through the Cape Cod Canal—a narrow, frequently dredged and busy waterway—is a poor and likely not possible option.

The Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency with jurisdiction over the canal, did not reply to the Enterprise’s request for comment as to whether running electric cables up the canal is possible.

“Based on all the information available and the studies to date, Falmouth, and this route, made sense from so many different factors,” Ms. McMahon said. “But, again, it comes down to what ISO New England says about the grid.”

A lawyer with SouthCoast Wind wrote state regulators that it “remains unclear” how much longer ISO New England’s study will take. ISO says it does “not have a timeline” for the study.

Some opponents of a Falmouth Heights cable landfall say it will be more expensive to run a longer subsea cable up to the canal plant in Sandwich and this is why SouthCoast is not pursuing it. The company says that is not true: that technical and environmental considerations drove the selection of a Falmouth Heights’ landfall and a land-based route up to the canal-side substation in Bourne.

In December, the Falmouth select board denied SouthCoast Wind permission to dig soil test pits in Falmouth Heights to collect data required by state regulators, citing poor communication from the company. Town Meeting supported that decision this month. The select board’s denial did not alter SouthCoast’s intent to connect through Falmouth.

Although SouthCoast Wind is pursuing a waiver from the state Department of Public Utilities to override many of Falmouth’s local zoning laws, Falmouth still has the ability, under Article 97 of the state constitution, to deny SouthCoast the easement it needs to route its cable under Falmouth Heights Beach and into Central Park or Worcester Park, all publicly held lands.

What if Falmouth denies the easement?

“There’s obvious incentives for us to want to deliver that 1,200 MW of our lease area somewhere,” SouthCoast Wind community liaison Kelsey Perry said. “So we would look for another place. But as of now, we still believe that Falmouth is the right spot.”

SouthCoast Wind plans to connect 1,200 megawatts of power into the grid in both Somerset and Falmouth. Grid capacity parameters demand two interconnection points. Other federal wind lease sites are shown in gray. COURTESY SOUTHCOAST WIND

Regulators and state officials across New England say that regional planning is needed to efficiently route the huge amount of power that will flow from the nine federal offshore wind lease sites south of Martha’s Vineyard. Southeast New England’s grid is not built to safely accept that much power. Insufficient grid capacity is stalling the construction of renewable energy projects across the county. Experts say an offshore grid that consolidates offshore wind transmission cables and moves power straight to areas of greatest demand—cities—is urgently needed to realize the potential of New England offshore wind energy in averting the worst effects of climate change.

The Brattle Group, a consulting group that specializes in complex economic and regulatory problems, published a study in January that states a regional ocean grid would yield billions in transmission cost savings, cut the amount of undersea cable construction in half, avert costly onshore transmission systems upgrades and greatly reduce the number of cable landfall sites.

Many in Falmouth Heights say their residential neighborhood is an inappropriate place to bring high-voltage electric cables ashore, and that waiting for an offshore grid to be developed will spare Falmouth—and other communities—the negative impacts of cable onboarding, as well as, in Falmouth, the construction of SouthCoast’s six-acre power converter station, proposed for either the Lawrence-Lynch property off Gifford Street or the Cape Cod Aggregates property on Thomas B. Landers Road.

David T. Buzanoski, the president of the Falmouth Heights – Maravista Neighborhood Association, said a regional offshore transmission approach will lesson the onshore environmental impacts of offshore wind. “Our position from day one is that we supported that 100 percent,” he said. “There’s no reason to come in at seven to eight landing places when it could be consolidated into two.”

He added, “It makes sense to go where ISO New England says, ‘Yes, the infrastructure exists to accept that power, rather than plugging into the south shore of Cape Cod where the grid is not built for it.”

Mr. Kakley said ISO New England, a nonprofit, is helping officials design a regional, offshore grid and figure out “what we need to do to move things around more efficiently.” But in the meantime, he said, the grid, pending upgrades, could accept some of the power from those federal lease sites on Cape Cod. “There’s an ability to do both,” he said.

SouthCoast Wind (formerly called Mayflower Wind) says clean energy is needed as soon as possible.

“The ocean grid concept is a novel and potentially promising idea but it is still a concept and the estimated timeline for approvals, financing and constructing such a grid, as well as its onshore connections, is likely a decade or more out,” SouthCoast wrote the Enterprise. “The demand for affordable, renewable energy is urgent and until the ocean grid concept is proven and approved by Federal and State regulatory authorities, we must continue moving forward with our projects to meet our obligations to supply clean energy to the residents and businesses of New England in accordance with Federal and State goals and legislative mandates.”

SouthCoast Wind is a joint business venture between the British energy company Shell and the offshore wind company Ocean Winds, itself a venture between ENGIE, a French multinational energy company, and the Madrid-based company EDPR, the world’s fourth-largest wind energy producer, according to the Ocean Winds website.