CORPORATE SURROGATES for Massachusetts have spent close to $17 million so far battling a referendum question in Maine that seeks to block the importation of hydroelectricity from Quebec using a power line running through wilderness areas in the western part of the state.

The referendum battle is in some ways the dark underbelly of a push for clean energy in Massachusetts. Two years ago, after regulators in New Hampshire nixed a similar power line running through the White Mountains, Massachusetts struck a deal with a Maine utility and Hydro-Quebec to run a 145-mile transmission line from the Quebec border down to Lewiston, where it would feed into the regional power grid.

The deal would give Massachusetts relatively cheap renewable energy while leaving all of the environmental impact in Maine. Pete Didisheim, advocacy director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said many residents in his state are seething with anger at how Massachusetts could force this unwanted project on them.

“The Massachusetts component of this project really gets in people’s craw,” Didisheim said. “We’re just the landscape across which this extension cord will go.”

Didisheim said the three utilities who negotiated the contract on behalf of the state of Massachusetts should have gone with a similar proposal in Vermont that would have run the power line from Quebec underneath Lake Champlain and underground where it came ashore. Didisheim said the three Massachusetts utilities, with the blessing of the Baker administration, went with the cheaper option running the power line above ground in Maine.

The power line through Maine won a key permit from the Maine Public Utilities Commission in May 2019, a decision that was upheld this year on an appeal to the courts. The referendum question seeks to overturn the commission’s decision and deny the permit.

The key players behind the project are Central Maine Power, a utility owned by Avangrid Renewables, which in turn is owned by a Spanish company, and Hydro-Quebec, a utility owned by the province of Quebec. A group calling itself Clean Energy Matters has spent $10.5 million to back the project and defeat the referendum – with almost all the money coming from Avangrid and Central Maine Power. A second group, called Hydro-Quebec Maine Partnership, has spent $6.2 million, with all of the money coming from Hydro-Quebec.

The message of project proponents is centered around the economic and environmental benefits of the project. Building the power line will generate 1,600 construction jobs, increase the state’s gross domestic product by $573 million, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in New England by 3 million metric tons. There are also benefits tied directly to the project — $6 million for education programs, $140 million for electric rate relief, $200 million for the energy grid, and $15 million each for electric vehicle infrastructure, heat pumps, and broadband infrastructure in western Maine.

“The entire cost of the project will be paid for by Massachusetts ratepayers. And that’s not just us saying it, it’s how the law was written. Period,” according to the website of Clean Energy Matters.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine said the $16.8 million spent to date by project proponents far exceeds the $9.4 million record amount spent in 2018 by out-of-state casino companies seeking support for a casino in Maine. The environmental group said the money has gone for advertising, polling, lawyers, private detectives, political consultants, and an opposition research firm.

All of that money and the additional funds that are likely to be spent between now and November is coming indirectly from ratepayers of three Massachusetts utilities – Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil. The Bangor Daily News has reported Hydro-Quebec stands to make $12.4 billion and Central Maine Power $2.9 billion over the 20-year life of the contracts with the three utilities.

Jon Breed, executive director of Clean Energy Matters, said the opposition to the power line through Maine is coming primarily from three out-of-state companies – Nextera Energy, Calpine, and Vistra – operating gas-fired power plants in the state. Breed said even the Natural Resources Council of Maine has received some money from a fossil fuel-funded-group called Stop the Corridor, which refuses to disclose its source of funding.

Dan Dolan, the president of the New England Power Generators Association, said Massachusetts’ messy entanglement in another state’s internal politics could be avoided if Massachusetts placed a price on carbon and then allowed power-generating companies to compete to supply electricity rather than doing one-off deals for individual projects.

The hydro deal has divided the environmental community, which believes clean energy is desperately needed to combat climate change but worries about the long-term environmental and economic benefits of hydro. Elizabeth Henry, the executive director of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, calls the hydro project a “modest step” in the right direction during a climate crisis.

“But our future can’t be powering New England with Canadian hydro,” she said. “Our future is powering the region with offshore wind and solar.”

Maine Superior Court Judge Thomas Warren on June 29 issued a decision allowing the referendum on the ballot question to proceed, even though he appeared to share the concerns of Maine’s secretary of state that a referendum overturning a project-specific regulatory decision upheld by the courts could face a serious constitutional challenge on separation-of-powers grounds.

Warren, however, said he couldn’t preempt the holding of the referendum, which means the project could theoretically be voted down by voters and then be thrown out as unconstitutional by a judge.

FEDERAL REGULATORS on Tuesday released a detailed, 420-page environmental assessment of the proposed Vineyard Wind project that includes predictions about the future of wind energy along the East Coast and suggests the impact on commercial fishing of six possible wind farm configurations would be roughly the same.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management put Vineyard Wind on hold last year to take a look at the project through the broader lens of what’s going on in offshore wind overall along the East Coast.  The resulting assessment, called a supplementl to the company’s draft environmental impact statement, forecasts 22 gigawatts of offshore wind development along the East Coast over the next 10 years, the equivalent of about 2 percent of current electricity production. The analysis estimates as many as 2,000 wind turbines will be installed over the 10-year period.

Vineyard Wind would be located off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and consist of between 57 and 100 turbines producing 800 megawatts of power. The project is jointly owned by Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management studied the environmental impacts of six different layouts for the wind farm, including one that had not been previously considered. The new layout, put forward by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which represents fishing interests, called for a navigation lane four miles wide cutting through the wind farm area to provide a more direct and safer route for fishing vessels headed primarily from New Bedford to George’s Bank.

The analysis found none of the alternative layouts provided any significant advantage for the fishing industry. “The overall cumulative impacts of any alternative when combined with past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities on commercial fisheries and for-hire recreational fishing would be major,” the report said. “This impact rating is driven mostly by changes to fish distribution/availability due to climate change, reduced stock levels due to fishing mortality, and permanent impacts due to the presence of structures (cable protection measures and foundations).”

The assessment also found that the configuration with a navigation lane reduced the amount of power produced by the wind farm areas in Rhode Island and Massachusetts by about 3,300 megawatts.

Mark Kresowik, regional director of the Sierra Club, said he compared the new environmental impact assessment released on Tuesday to the one that had been done previously. He said the difference in environmental impacts between the two were minimal.

“What the offshore wind developer has proposed is probably the best,” he said, referring to a proposal to place the farm on an east-west orientation and maintain spacing of one mile between turbines.

The environmental assessment identifies dozens and dozens of impacts from the wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts and others coming along the coast. Five impacts were identified as major – on the area where the power cable from the wind farm comes ashore in Yarmouth, on navigation,on  fisheries, on scientific research, and on military and national security.

Anne Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, said she was still studying the environmental assessment. “At a first glance, RODA sincerely thanks BOEM and the Secretary of Interior for considering additional alternatives that would provide much-needed safe transit options for fishermen,” she said in a statement. “As is clear from our previous comments, we also agree with the re-characterization of fisheries impacts as ‘major’ and will provide more detailed comments as to these impacts and the content of the supplemental environmental impact statement in the near future.”

According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, it intends to take public comment on the supplemental environmental impact statement over the next few months and issue a final decision on the best way forward in December.

Vineyard Wind originally said it planned to begin construction this year and complete work in late 2021. The company, which couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday, has said it is still committed to the project.

ATTORNEY GENERAL MAURA HEALEY released a white paper on Monday that calls for the creation of a New England task force to explore expanded use of carbon pricing in electricity generation to achieve region-wide greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The white paper’s recommendation is drawing attention because it mirrors what the region’s power grid operator has been saying for years. Healey in the past has been critical of the grid operator, ISO New England, for failing to design a wholesale market system that embraces renewables and moves the region away from reliance on fossil fuels in the production of electricity.

Now, it appears, the attorney general and ISO New England are more in sync.

The wholesale electricity market consists of two major sub-markets. One is a day-ahead energy market, which sets the price for electricity delivered to the power grid the next day. The other is a forward capacity market, which sets prices for what are essentially options to purchase electricity three years out. In both markets, ISO New England estimates how much power is needed and then hosts auctions to fill that need. Between the two markets, generators are expected to recover the cost of constructing and operating their facilities.

Over the last 15 years, the wholesale power markets worked relatively well. Generating plants powered by relatively cheap natural gas crowded out plants fueled by coal and oil. This transformation kept prices in check and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and all the risks associated with this market change were borne by the power generators.

The guiding principle of the wholesale market is to provide reliable electricity at the least possible cost. But that emphasis on keeping costs low became a problem as state capitols across the region tried to come to grips with climate change, setting ambitious goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions. States needed large amounts of clean, renewable power, but offshore wind and hydro-electric projects have had difficulty breaking into the wholesale electricity markets because they were either too expensive or had huge up-front costs that couldn’t be recouped in the market.

So states like Massachusetts began cutting their own deals with renewable energy suppliers, offering financial incentives to solar developers and 20-year power purchase contracts to hydro-electric and offshore wind developers. These deals, negotiated outside of the wholesale electricity markets, created problems for ISO New England – how do you create a level playing field in a market where power generators are trying to recover their costs while competing against clean energy suppliers with 20-year power purchase agreements that cover most of their costs.

Healey in December launched a campaign to pressure ISO New England to adopt new rules for governing the wholesale markets to promote greater use of clean energy.  “Right now those rules give a leg up to older, dirtier energy sources and make it harder for new, cleaner sources to provide electricity,” said a video Healey released as part of her campaign.

Now a key recommendation of Healey’s white paper – support for exploring carbon pricing – matches up with what ISO New England has been saying for years. The white paper summarizes a symposium Healey hosted in October where stakeholders from across the region met to discuss how to incorporate more clean energy into the power grid. “There was nearly unanimous support for some form of regional carbon pricing that is priced to help create incentives for compliance with the region’s clean energy goals,” the white paper said.

Just last week, Gordon van Welie, the president of ISO New England, said in a briefing with reporters that the best way to incorporate clean energy into the wholesale markets would be by putting a “realistic price on carbon emissions.”

“It will favor the operation of resources that reduce carbon emissions, and drive the clean energy transition desired by the states,” van Welie said. “At the same time, it would improve the overall efficacy of the existing market structure. Carbon pricing has the potential to be a solution that is relatively seamless in implementation, yet effective in helping states meet their renewable energy and carbon reduction goals. To date, there has not been a regional consensus on this approach.”

Healey’s white paper also makes several other recommendations, including a call for the development of electricity rates that better signal the actual price of electricity. Currently, customers pay the same price for electricity no matter when they use it. By charging customers more when demand for electricity is high, the theory is that customers will purchase electricity (run appliances etc.) when demand and prices are low, thus reducing overall demand at peak-demand periods.

Healey’s October symposium and her campaign targeting ISO New England in December were both funded by the Barr Foundation.

A FEDERAL REGULATOR speaking at a conference in Boston on Tuesday posted a slide suggesting Vineyard Wind would be operational in 2023, but the company itself is not saying whether its wind farm will be generating electricity by then.

Vineyward Wind originally hoped to begin construction in 2019 and have half the 800 megawatt wind farm up and running by January 15, 2022, and the remaining half a year later. That timetable was dashed when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management put the project on hold in August 2019 to allow for a broader review of the cumulative impact of the many wind farms being proposed along the East Coast. Last week, the federal agency said its review of Vineyard Wind would be completed this December.

Jim Bennett, the program manager of the renewable energy program at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, gave a slide presentation at a wind energy conference sponsored by the University of Delaware that listed 2023 as the year when Vineyard Wind would be operational. He then quickly added: “Please don’t take these dates as absolutes. They’re estimates based on our regulatory programs.”

The timing issue is significant for the nation’s first large-scale wind farm. Last year, when the project was put on hold, Vineyard Wind said it needed a quick resolution of the federal environmental review or the project might collapse. Since then, the company has indicated its construction plans are moving forward, but officials have declined to comment on how they intend to overcome the many hurdles caused by the regulatory delay.

For example, the power purchase agreements Vineyard Wind signed with the state’s three utilities included project milestones the company is now unlikely to meet. The pricing of Vineyard Wind’s electricity is heavily reliant on federal investment tax credits that are expiring. And Vineyard Wind is also due to receive payments for making its power available to the regional power grid starting in June 2022, a timetable it is now unlikely to meet.

Another uncertainty for Vineyard Wind is what the federal environmental review will conclude. The wind farm developer has proposed a configuration for the turbine layout that is opposed by some fishing groups. If the approach favored by fishing groups prevails, and wider navigation lanes through the turbine area are required by the federal government, that would reduce the number of turbines that could be built and cut into the project’s economic viability.

Michael Clayton, Vineyard Wind’s permitting and compliance manager, who participated in a panel at the conference, declined comment.

Vineyard Wind spokesman Brendan Moss issued a statement on Tuesday saying the company is in regular contact with the state’s utilities about the project delay and also working with the US Treasury Department to preserve the project’s investment tax credit eligibility. He declined to comment on the firm’s agreement with the regional power grid, referring to a statement issued last week by Lars Pedersen, the CEO of Vineyard Wind.

“While we need to analyze what a longer permitting timeline will mean for beginning construction, commercial operation in 2022 is no longer expected,” Pedersen said. “We look forward to the clarity that will come with a final environmental impact statement so that Vineyard Wind can deliver this project to Massachusetts and kick off the new US offshore energy industry.”

THE OFFSHORE WIND INDUSTRY took one step forward and one step backward on Tuesday.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its review of the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project would be completed by June 12 and a final decision on the project issued by December 18 – 15 months later than originally projected. That delay, caused by the need to do a cumulative impact analysis of wind farms going up all along the East Coast, is a setback for the industry and a blow to the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The step forward came with the release of power purchase contracts with the state’s second offshore wind farm, Mayflower Wind. As promised, the contracts showed the price of wind-generated electricity is continuing to fall, a promising sign for a state looking for affordable clean energy.

According to documents submitted by state and utility officials to the Department of Public Utilities, the price of electricity generated by Mayflower over the 20-year life of its contracts will be 7.77 cents a kilowatt hour in levelized nominal dollar terms, or 5.85 cents a kilowatt hour in levelized 2019 dollars. The Vineyard Wind price is 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour in 2019 dollars.

Mayflower, a joint venture of Shell New Energies and EDP Renewables, submitted three original bids. One was a low price bid, a second offered a slightly higher price along with infrastructure and innovation investments, and a third offered a higher price along with manufacturing investments. According to Mayflower, all three of its bids featured prices that were lower than Vineyard Wind’s price.

The utilities unanimously chose Mayflower’s lowest-price bid. In their filing with the Department of Public Utilities on Tuesday, the companies said they consulted with the state’s housing and economic development office and concluded the onshore investments in the second and third bids “were not cost effective because the net present value of the investments did not justify the higher contract costs.”

Mayflower estimates its project will generate 5,520 full-time-equivalent jobs in Massachusetts over the 20-year life of the contracts and 930 jobs elsewhere in the region. Officials believe the wind power will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6 million metric tons over the 20-year period.

The company also agreed to pay $55 million to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, provide $10 million for marine science and fisheries research, $7.5 million for port upgrades, and $5 million to the Cape Light Compact to help reduce electricity bills for customers with annual incomes of less than 80 percent of the state median income.

Mayflower does not expect to start generating power until September 2025. By contrast, Vineyard Wind had promised to begin operation in January 2022, with the remainder of the project coming online in January 2023.

With the environmental review by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management not expected to be completed until the end of this year, Lars Pedersen, the CEO of Vineyard Wind, issued a cautious statement that confirmed the project would not begin on time.

“While we need to analyze what a longer permitting timeline will mean for beginning construction, commercial operation in 2022 is no longer expected,” Pedersen said. “We look forward to the clarity that will come with a final environmental impact statement so that Vineyard Wind can deliver this project to Massachusetts and kick off the new US offshore energy industry.”

The expected delay in action on the federal environmental review of Vineyard Wind was first reported February 3 by CommonWealth. Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation have accused the Trump administration of being biased against renewable energy projects, but a spokeswoman for the Interior Department said the delay was necessary and the allegations by the lawmakers were “unfounded and uninformed.”

Both Vineyard Wind and Mayflower are counting on federal investment tax credits that are being phased out. It’s unclear whether the delays will prevent the firms from obtaining the tax credits.

The contracts the wind farm developers have with the state’s three utilities also require the firms to achieve certain milestones or face penalties. In Vineyard Wind’s case, the company was required to open phase one of its project by January 15, 2022. Unless the contract is reopened and the deadline extended, Vineyard Wind could face “delay damages, and, ultimately, contract termination,” according to DPU filings.

Like the Vineyard Wind power purchase contracts, the Mayflower contracts stipulate that the three utilities who negotiated the agreements are entitled to compensation equal to 2.75 percent of the total value of their contracts. The price tag for that provision was not immediately available, but it added up to $168 million on the Vineyard Wind contract.