The brand new $6 billion cable bringing energy from Canada to New York City has been turned off for 10 days — and officials now say the problem is a cable failure somewhere in the Empire State.
The new details on the power failure emerged in the midst of a heatwave, with temperatures expected to hit 97 degrees on Wednesday. Hydro-Quebec, a company wholly owned by the Canadian government that powers the so-called Champlain Hudson Power Express, said the failure on the 339-mile transmission line occurred on the New York side of the cable. The energy firm said they are in the process of making repairs.
“Restoring service to the cable as quickly as possible remains a priority for all involved with the CHPE project,” said Peter Ross, spokesperson for Hydro-Quebec. “We will continue to provide regular updates as more information becomes available.”
For more than a week, Hydro-Quebec said it didn’t know what the problem was.
This is the second time this month the transmission lines have failed. In June, Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a ribbon cutting of sorts for the mostly subterranean line, touting it as one of the state’s largest contributions to its renewable energy supply. She called the project a massive victory for the state’s energy grid and climate goals.
But the line was largely inactive in June because of a contract issue. Hydro-Quebec said at the time that in July, the line would be up and running. So far this month, power has flowed through the lines for about three days. State officials have directed inquiries to the company, which has shared scant details about what is causing the problems.
”This is a very unusual outcome for a competent utility,” said Robert McCullough, principal of McCullough Research, an energy consulting firm. “ When something like this happens, the engineers from the vendor show up immediately.”
The first failure was attributed to a technical failure on the Canadian end of operations. Hydro-Quebec did not provide the cause of the current failure or a timeline for when power will resume flowing to New York City.
The outage comes at a time when New York’s energy grid could use a boost. Earlier this year, the New York Independent System Operator said it would have a particularly slim cushion of power to address peak demand over the summer. The predicament is a result of higher demand and the retirement of older power sources.
The international power lines bring 1.25 gigawatts of energy, roughly the size of a commercial nuclear reactor or enough electricity for 1 million households. Under the 25-year contract, the Canadian company is supposed to provide power May through October.
The line connects the Big Apple to a network of 61 hydroelectric plants in Canada.