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Northern Vt. transmission project OK’d
By DAVID GRAM The Associated Press The certificate of public
good issued by the utility-regulating board late last week will allow the
Vermont Electric Power Co. to close a loop that will connect customers from It is expected to improve
reliability of power systems serving areas extending from St. Johnsbury to VELCO handles bulk
transmission of power to The project is expected to
cost about $25 million, Dunn said. He added that the large majority of those
costs will be absorbed by utility ratepayers elsewhere in In at least one respect, the
ruling on the “northern loop project” was an important win for VELCO as it
gears up for what are likely to be contentious board hearings on its proposal
for a much larger “northwest reliability project.” That project, on which board
hearings began last week, involves new and larger power lines extending from In the northern loop case,
the board said “a large degree of uncertainty” about the health effects of
electromagnetic fields was not enough to offset the benefits of the project. “Although the health
impacts of EMF are uncertain, the benefits of increased reliability for all
Vermonters, and in particular, the residents who will be (affected) by the
project, are clear,” the board wrote. Currently, three “radial
lines” — essentially one-way streets for electric transmission — serve
northern The loop will enable power
dispatchers to reroute electricity flows when an outage blocks shipment of power
from its original direction, he said. The only new power line
needed to connect the problem was about six miles of 115 kilovolt
transmission-grade line on about a 6-mile route from Irasburg to Several VELCO substations also will need to be upgraded, Dunn said. |