New York City has a lot to celebrate this week. The Knicks are in the finals, the Mets actually won a game, and the city is now a big step closer to meeting its clean energy targets.
Tons of clean electricity is finally flowing from Canada to New York City via the 1.25-gigawatt Champlain Hudson Power Express, a big power line also known as CHPE (pronounced “chippy”). The city is now able to power all of its government operations and cover 20% of citywide electricity demand — equivalent to that from 1 million homes — with hydro shipped in by utility Hydro-Québec.
CHPE, along with the eventual completion of the Empire Wind project off Brooklyn, is essential to attaining New York City’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050. Last year, the city got nearly 90% of its electricity from fossil fuels, and just a measly 3% from hydro.
It’s a long journey from Quebec down to Queens, but it’s been an even longer one to get the power line built. Plans for CHPE began more than a decade ago, and the project faced opposition from environmental groups and residents as discussions progressed. But in the end, CHPE came online a few weeks earlier than expected, just in time to shore up power supplies ahead of summer’s demand spikes.
