Empire State Connector receives letter of interest for proposed 1,000 MW high-voltage transmission line

Empire State Connector Corp. (ESC) announced Monday that it secured a Letter of Interest (LOI) from a potential anchor customer for capacity on its proposed 1,000-megawatt (MW) high voltage transmission line from Utica to Brooklyn, New York.

This LOI enables ESC to complete Stage Two of its Open Solicitation process, which will confirm and allow participants to update or submit new non-binding indicative renewable energy supply offers. Stage Two will also be the final opportunity for additional customers to procure physical delivery of renewable energy sources through the Open Solicitation process.

Confirmation or updated terms for the non-binding indicative renewable energy supply offers received from developers who participated in Stage One of the Open Solicitation will be due by December 21. New transmission service customers will also have until Dec. 21 to submit non-binding LOI to reserve space on the proposed HVDC line.

ESC expects to finalize the binding agreements in the first half of 2019.

“Signing an LOI with a potential anchor customer represents a major breakthrough for the ESC,” John Douglas, CEO of ESC, said. “Given the passage of time, we want to give developers who submitted non-binding renewable supply offers in Stage One of our Open Solicitation the opportunity to confirm or revise their offers.”

The Empire State Connector project has completed the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) interconnection feasibility study as well as preliminary engineering, environmental pre-feasibility study, route surveys, and routing assessments. A public outreach program is ongoing. ESC plans to file its Article VII application with the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) by the end of 2019 with a target in-service date of 2023.