Power Sharing Pitched To Ease Clean Energy Transition

OCT. 9, 2024…..Policymakers across the northeastern United States and eastern Canada are grappling with the best way to navigate a complicated transition to clean energy, and a group of experts wants them to consider sharing power more directly across the border.

Clean energy advocates and academics laid out a case Wednesday for embracing a “bidirectional” approach, which would split Canadian hydropower and New England offshore wind energy for the two countries depending on fluctuations in availablity and demand.

“Adopting a bidirectional planning approach affords us the opportunity for the region’s whole to become greater than the sum of its parts, which otherwise might look like the states and provinces and their respective system operators acting by themselves,” said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at The Acadia Center.

But turning that concept into reality requires more work, Dickerson and other experts said at a discussion hosted by the Environmental League of Mass., the New England for Offshore Wind coalition and the Acadia Center.

New England governors, including Gov. Maura Healey, and eastern Canadian premiers last month announced they would revive a cross-border energy committee with a goal of boosting regional collaboration and planning.

“It’s happening in pieces, and now it’s about stitching it all together,” Dickerson said.

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