A $6 billion power line from Canada to New York City will resume transmission on Saturday after weeks of repairs performed right after it went into service.
Canadian power company Hydro-Quebec said the segment of damaged cable that caused the 339-mile subterranean power line to shut down on July 4 has been replaced and tested. Hydro-Quebec did not provide the location of the damaged segment. The energy firm has shipped the faulty cable back to the manufacturer for evaluation in a laboratory to determine what caused the damage.
“A full root cause analysis is underway,” said Peter Rose, spokesperson for Hydro-Quebec. “The timeline for that evaluation is still being finalized.”
The Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line was completed in mid-May and went into full service on July 1. Gov. Kathy Hochul had touted the project as critical to New York’s energy transition away from fossil fuels. Experts have said the line is a vital new source of power for the city’s energy grid, which faces heightened risk of blackout due to increasing demand and the retirement of energy sources.
But the line has been marred by problems since the first day it was to go into full service, on July 1. That day, the power line stopped working due to an unspecified technical issue on the Canadian side. Energy began flowing again around midday the next day. But two days later, the transmission line stopped sending power again due to a damaged section of underground cable on the New York side, according to Hydro-Quebec.
During that time, the city was in the midst of a heatwave that caused power outages for about 173,700 residents living in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Westchester. For about 10 days, Hydro-Quebec told the public that it did not know the reason for the outage.
Hydro-Quebec originally estimated that it would take until the end of the month to replace the compromised segment of the 5-inch-diameter cable.
“Gov. Hochul has been clear that the outages the line experienced this month were unacceptable and needed to be addressed quickly and responsibly,” Hochul spokesperson Ken Lovett said. “The administration appreciates that the problem has been resolved and will continue to monitor the situation to ensure that New York City can take advantage of the clean energy it will provide."
The Champlain Hudson Power Express is New York City’s largest power source, providing enough energy for about 1 million households. Con Edison depends on the clean power source to provide 20% of the city’s base power needs and help ease peak demand.
“There's no point in building a line like that if they can't actually keep it running,” said Chris Cayten, senior director at CodeGreen, an energy sustainability consulting firm. “ We're right at the edge of the capacity that New York City's power can currently deliver.”
The project brings power from a network of hydroelectric plants in Quebec to New York City from May through October under a 25-year contract. The transmission lines run underground as well as underwater, buried beneath Lake Champlain and the Hudson, Harlem and East rivers before connecting to a converter station in Astoria, Queens.
"The Champlain Hudson Power Express will play a pivotal role in New York's clean energy future, but that can only happen if it's operating,” Lovett said.
