Offshore Transmission in New England: The Benefits of a Better Planned Grid

We qualitatively and quantitatively examined two approaches to developing offshore transmission and associated onshore upgrades to reach New England’s offshore wind (OSW) development goals.

1. The current approach wherein OSW developers compete primarily on cost to develop incremental amounts of offshore generation and association project-specific generator lead lines (GLLs)
2. An alternative “planned” approach wherein transmission is developed independently from generation. Offshore transmission and onshore upgrades are planned to minimize overall risks and costs.

We conduct analyses of potential OSW-interconnection configurations for two levels of future offshore wind development. While other transmission configurations are possible, those captured here are representative of likely outcomes.

• The analyses reflect current trends in how and where developers cite generator lead lines
• We highlight an alternative outcome that is unlikely to occur without a planning process

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