The Supreme Court of Maine will hear, Tuesday afternoon, the arguments of defenders and opponents of the Hydro-Quebec interconnection line project in the American state.
The 336 kilometer project that would cross Quebec and Maine to bring electricity to Massachusetts was rejected by 59% by the citizens of Maine during a referendum last November.
The future of the project is now in the hands of the Maine Supreme Court, which will have to determine whether the referendum result is unconstitutional, as claimed by Hydro-Quebec and its partner, NECEC. Work has been suspended since mid-November.
Hydro-Québec and NECEC believe that the project, whose construction began in early 2021, has an acquired right. NECEC has already spent nearly US$450 million, which is 43% of the anticipated costs, according to court filings.
NECEC is contractually obligated to complete the line by August 23, 2024, but could extend that deadline by a year for a penalty of US$10.9 million. The project was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022.
Despite the setbacks encountered by the project, the president and general manager of Hydro-Québec, Sophie Brochu, still believes in its merits. “There’s a line that’s been built, and I think there’s a line that’s going to be built. They [en] need too much,” she said in a parliamentary committee last week.
If the state corporation fails to carry out its project, Hydro-Québec estimates that it will have to record a charge of $536 million in its results, according to its annual report published in March. The contract was also expected to bring in nearly $20 billion in revenue over 20 years. It would reduce greenhouse gases by 3 million metric tons, the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road.
The opinion issued in the annual report does not take into account election expenses of US$22.3 million, the equivalent of $28 million, made by Hydro-Québec, according to data from the Maine ethics commissioner.
In 2019, Hydro-Québec also recorded a charge of $46 million for the abandonment of the Northern Pass line project, which was to carry electricity from Quebec to Massachusetts, via New Hampshire.
The Supreme Court of Maine will at the same time consider another decisive case for the project. Permits for a portion of the 1.6 kilometer line are also in dispute. A Maine Superior Court judge had invalidated the permits in question granted by the government in 2014. The judgment is under appeal.