Calgary: The National Energy Board (NEB) announced its approval January 19 of the Lake Erie Connector Project, an approximately 117-kilometre, 1,000 megawatt, high-voltage direct current, bi-directional electric transmission interconnection to transfer electricity between Nanticoke in Ontario and Erie County, Pennsylvania.
A week earlier on the US side, the proponent, ITC Lake Erie Connector LLC, announced that it had received approval of a Presidential Permit from the U.S. Department of Energy for the project. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ITC Holdings Corp.
A 345kV alternating current underground transmission line would connect the Erie converter station to Penelec’s existing Erie West substation, while a 500kV AC line would tie the Nanticoke converter station to Hydro One’s Nanticoke substation. The majority of the transmission line would be buried beneath Lake Erie or underground using existing roadway rights-of-way.
Remaining milestones in the project this year, the proponent says, include receiving additional major permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in a joint application, completing project cost refinements and securing favorable transmission service agreements with prospective counterparties. ITC would then proceed with construction, with the goal of having the line in service in late 2020.
The estimated capital cost for the 49-kilometre Canadian portion of the project is $543.5 million. The proponent estimates that project construction in Ontario will generate $21.4 million in employment income, $38.2 million in gross domestic product, $8.8 million in government tax revenues, and a total of 331 jobs.
The project will be the first direct interconnection between the Independent Electricity System Operator market in Ontario and the PJM Interconnection LLC electricity market, which coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in 13 states and the District of Columbia (representing over 61 million people).
Before the hearing, the NEB contacted 33 Indigenous groups who were potentially affected by the project and offered to meet and explain the NEB's regulatory process, how to participate in it, and provided information on the NEB's Participant Funding Program.
In making its decision that this project is in the public interest, the NEB imposed 42 conditions on proponent ITC Lake Erie LLC, covering a wide range of topics such as environmental protection, safety and socio-economic matters.
With the conditions and the proponent's commitments, the NEB concluded that the project is unlikely to have significant adverse environmental effects. The NEB also determined that the project would provide benefits to Indigenous, local, regional, and provincial economies, allow greater flexibility for two large energy markets to meet changing energy needs, and increase market efficiency for Ontario and its rate payers.