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VELCO tells Senate committee transmission upgrades and better siting are needed as Vermont electrifies
Summary
Velco told the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee on Jan. 15 that Vermont’s transmission system must be planned and ‘‘right‑sized’’ to accommodate rising load forecasts from electrification, that siting of distributed generation affects costs and that non‑transmission solutions and new grid technologies are part of the toolkit.
Shana Winslow, a communications lead for VELCO (the Vermont Electric Power Company), told the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee on Jan. 15 that Vermont’s long‑range transmission planning work anticipates substantial load growth and will require a mix of transmission upgrades, non‑transmission alternatives and novel grid technologies.
Winslow described VELCO’s role as the statewide transmission operator and the differences between transmission and distribution utilities. She said VELCO manages roughly 14,000 acres of rights of way, operates a 1,600‑mile fiber‑optic network and is adding about 800 more miles of fiber to increase visibility into distributed energy resources. “We are importing most of the time into the state,” Winslow said, adding that expanded distributed generation (principally solar PV) has begun to change daily load profiles and, for the first time in recent years, Vermont has brief periods where it exports small amounts of power.
VELCO’s 2024 long‑range transmission plan, Winslow said, presents two load scenarios and concludes the state must be prepared for substantially higher peak demand driven by electrification. She cited a planning‑level projection of roughly a doubling of loads by 2040 and said the system’s planning capacity is approximately 1,000 megawatts. Winslow described how geographic siting of distributed generation affects transmission capacity: areas with historically cheaper land and active siting have hit local transmission limits, producing congestion in parts of northern Vermont, while other regions have more spare capacity.
Winslow told the committee VELCO is required by regional cost‑allocation rules to explore non‑transmission alternatives. She described ongoing pilots of “grid‑enhancing technologies” — such as dynamic line ratings and digital control devices — and a planned interactive points‑of‑interconnection map for developers to test siting and megawatt scenarios. She said VELCO is partnering with EPRI on a digital control device proposal for northwest Vermont to increase usable capacity without immediately building new transmission.
Winslow also described two transmission projects in different states of development: the Franklin County Line Upgrade Project, a regional rightsizing effort to replace aging wood poles with taller steel monopoles while keeping the line in service; and an exploratory Alliance Transmission joint venture with Hydro‑Québec and developers that would study a roughly 1,200‑megawatt bidirectional transmission link to help move power into and out of Vermont and relieve northern constraints.
Committee members asked about finance, regional cost allocation, storage and cybersecurity. Winslow said regional tariff rules allocate a share of costs regionally and described an ISO New England cost sharing construct she summarized in testimony; she said VELCO does not currently own utility-scale storage but continues to study storage models and noted distribution utilities and some customers are deploying batteries. On cybersecurity, she said VELCO maintains layered controls and employee training and that cybersecurity is a high priority for operations.
No committee action was taken. Winslow offered to provide the committee with the VELCO 2024 long‑range transmission plan and the planned points‑of‑interconnection interactive map for further review.
