The Superior Court of Maine (United States) has ruled in favor of the construction of a 336 km, 1.2 GW transmission line linking the province of Québec (Canada) and the state of Maine (US). Hydro-Québec and its US partner NECEC Transmission (Avangrid, part of the Iberdrola group) will thus be able to go ahead with their US$1bn New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project, which will allow the sale of hydroelectricity to New England, and notably the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Maine Superior Court found that the project already had the necessary permits prior to being rejected by 59% of voters in a referendum held in November 2021. Work on the project had stopped soon after the results of the referendum. The Maine Supreme Court had ruled that the referendum was unconstitutional in 2022, before handing the matter to the Superior Court. Commissioning of the project was originally planned for the end of 2022.
Hydro-Québec is also developing the 546 km-long, 1.25 GW Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line, which will link Québec to the city of New York in the United States.