By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — Federal, regional and local electric industry officials and regulators failed to do their duties to ensure fair and reasonable electric rates, a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court claims.
The suit brought by Kristina Pastoriza, who lives on a 400-acre property in Easton, and Ruth Ward of Stoddard, an owner of the property who is a state Senator, claims federal and regional electric industry regulars and managers failed to follow regional planning requirements and instead exempted large transmission projects from that planning process.
The suit names the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, regional electric grid manager ISO-New England and Eversource and seeks compensatory damages, court and other legal costs and an injunction to stop the rebuilding of the 49-mile, X-178 transmission line between Whitefield and Campton.
The transmission line crosses the Easton property in a 1948 easement granted by previous owners.
While the suit is the first legal action on the project, others, including the state Consumer Advocate, have raised concerns about “asset condition” projects which allow utilities to rebuild or rehabilitate existing regional transmission lines and charge New England ratepayers for the cost with little or no scrutiny to determine long-range needs and costs.
The critics of the process say it is one of the major reasons transmission costs have exploded on customers’ bills over the last decade.
The estimated $385 million project would be a “complete rebuild” replacing existing wooden towers with larger metal structures and the plaintiffs claim the work would exceed the terms of the 1948 easement over the land.
An “asset condition” project, which according to Eversource, who is proposing the upgrade of the transmission line, and system manager ISO-NE does not need to go through a planning process or approval from the state’s Site Evaluation Committee.
The cost of the upgrade would be distributed to electric customers across the New England region.
New Hampshire ratepayers would be responsible for about 10 percent of the cost of the transmission line upgrade that Eversource says needs to be rebuilt due to insect and weather damage to the existing towers and to upgrade technology.
A similar asset condition project along the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River from a Bellows Falls substation to one in Wilder, Vermont by National Grid would cost $470 million and is also under consideration.
New Hampshire Consumer Advocate Donald Kreis said hopefully in the future there will be more scrutiny of the asset condition projects.
“There is no skeptical scrutiny of these projects which are contributing to ever escalating transmission costs,” Kreis said. “The ISO if it were really thorough and if it was completely unnecessary could say ‘No,’ but there are always some reasons for upgrades.”
In the lawsuit, the Plaintiffs note that Eversource is required to file wholesale rates with federal regulators or FERC for “all rates and charges made, demanded or received for or in connection with the transmission and sale of electric energy…shall be just and reasonable” and “no public utility shall, with respect to any transaction or sale…subject any person to any undue prejudice or disadvantage” or “maintain any unreasonable difference in rates, charges, service, facilities, or in any other respect, either as between localities or as between classes of service.”
The plaintiffs claim the federal agency has not done that by not requiring a prior planning process to ensure that ratepayers have the “most efficient and most cost-effective solutions to regional and beyond transmission needs.”
They cite FERC order 1920, which they claim went into effect Aug. 14 requiring a regional transmission planning process to address growing energy demands and advancing technologies, but ISO claims the order is not effective until June 2025.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Arthur Cunningham notes that spending on “in-kind transmission replacements” on the New England grid which are not part of the regional transmission planning process, has been significant, with more than $2.5 billion spent between 2016 and 2022 on existing lines, and an additional $3.12 billion of in-kind replacement projects had been proposed, planned, or are under construction.
New Hampshire’s ratepayers would be responsible for $560 million of the $5.6 billion total.
The filing claims ISO-NE is required by the Federal Power Act and FERC orders to ensure public utilities engage in a transmission planning process to produce the most efficient and cost-effective projects at ratepayer expense producing just and reasonable rates, but instead has exempted large projects updating the current transmission system from oversight.
Eversource said it has followed all regulatory requirements for the asset condition projects.
Media director for Eversource, William Hinkle, said company attorneys are reviewing the lawsuit, which was filed Friday, but do not have a legal response at this time.
“This line rebuild is critical to enhancing reliability for customers as we make the transmission system more resilient to the increasingly extreme weather we’re experiencing in New England and addressing aging infrastructure that in many cases was originally built over 50 years ago,” Hinkle said. “We continue to closely comply with the applicable regulatory review processes for consideration and oversight of these projects, and we’ve also engaged in extensive community outreach efforts, including with local municipalities, for this and other similar projects beyond the requirements of those established processes.”
The project with several alternatives was presented to the ISO-NH Planning Advisory Committee earlier this year, and the preferred alternative was a complete rebuild of that section of the transmission line.
“Rebuilding the entire line at one time will limit impacts to our customers and the environment – resulting in a more efficient, cost-effective and responsible solution to repairing the system,” Hinkle said. “Our initial analysis of a pared-back alternative that would leave some component of the line in-place indicated that such an approach would ultimately result in higher costs over time as we would eventually need to go back and replace those other aging components.”
But Pastoriza and Ward contend the rebuild will be extensively disruptive with wide-ranging environmental and aesthetic impacts, disrupting their enjoyment and use of their land, and would diminish the property’s value.
They claim the replacement of the towers would necessitate new access roads and permanent structures not currently along the easement.
Hinkle said Eversource presents all these kinds of projects to New England stakeholder committees from state agencies, and all New England utilities follow the same process.
He said the project would be subject to local, state and federal environmental and land use reviews and permitting processes, with approvals needed before construction begins.
“We recognize certain stakeholders take issue with the applicable regulatory review processes for these types of projects,” Hinkle said, “and we have been engaged in the conversations to consider potential adjustments to those processes.”
Kreis said he and other consumer advocates in New England and other states are considering a formal complaint to FERC that the resulting transmission rates are not justified as reasonable and expect to seek changes so these projects are subject to greater federal and state scrutiny.
He said the current agreement is expiring this year and there is the opportunity to make changes to the process.
The media office of FERC said the agency does not comment on matters that are in litigation, while the media office of ISO-NE said the agency is still assessing and reviewing the filing, and is not in a position to comment at this time.
A petition was filed earlier this summer by the towns of Easton and Bethlehem asking the Site Evaluation Committee to take jurisdiction of the project as it would for other major utility projects in the state.
The committee will decide whether the project needs the board’s certification after a public hearing scheduled at 1 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Public Utilities Commission’s office on Fruit Street in Concord.
The Consumer Advocate and Eversource have asked to intervene in the case, and the SEC will rule on those requests prior to the public hearing.
Other potential intervenors have until Sept. 3 to file a request with the SEC.
Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.
