No way found to bury more of power lines in Connecticut
By Pam Dawkins, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport -- Dec. 22
The committee charged with finding out if burying more than 24 miles of new high-voltage power lines between Norwalk and Middletown is feasible reported late Monday that it's not.
The council will rule in April on phase two of CL&P and UI's plans to
upgrade inadequate power transmission lines between Middletown and Norwalk with
345-kilovolt lines capable of handling southwest Connecticut's power demands.
Some groups want more than 24 miles of the cables buried, citing reasons
including the potential health hazard of overhead lines they worry will generate
electro-magnetic fields.
ISO, the region's power grid operator, in June objected to the original plan
to bury 24 of the 69 miles of power lines, because it was unsure the buried
lines would be reliable, which led to the forming of the ROC.
But the report released Monday included upgrades, such as using a different
type of cable and replacing a number of surge arresters to protect against
excess voltage at substations, that make burying up to 24 miles of lines --
between the Norwalk substation and the East Devon substation in Milford --
technologically feasible.
"Anything additional would not operate reliably," ISO spokeswoman
Ellen Foley said Tuesday of the report's finding.
But Gov. M. Jodi Rell was "deeply disappointed" that the committee
didn't offer other alternatives.
In a news release, the governor said, "This report is a long and
technical explanation of all the things we cannot do. I had hoped to see more
alternatives -- not a laundry list of reasons why other proposals won't
work." Rell spokesman Rich Harris said Tuesday the governor wanted
suggestions to mediate some residents' concerns about the physical impact
above-ground power lines will have on their communities.
But, "We did look at other alternatives," UI spokeswoman Marcia
Wellman said Tuesday.
She described the ROC's task as finding ways to maximize the amount of
underground transmission lines, and said, "While overhead wire and
underground cable do the same thing -- they do so differently -- [underground]
cable introduces far more complexity into the system --" At more than 24
miles, underground cable is more likely to fail and deliver power spikes than
overhead wires, said Wellman, citing what she called "the physics of
electricity." The utilities are now updating their original cost estimate
of $600 million to bury 24 miles of transmission lines, Wellman said, to reflect
the difference in cable and adjustments to existing substations. The utilities
expect to submit those numbers sometime next week, according to Wellman.
The Siting Council, which meets at 10 Franklin Square, New Britain, holds its
next public hearing on the lines from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Jan. 5. The council
begins hearings on the ROC report on Jan. 11, according to its Web site.
For hearing information, visit www.ct.gov/csc.
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