East

In a petition submitted last week, two utilities in New England have requested FERC to approve construction of a transmission tie line connecting New England with the Hydro-Québec system in Canada. The utilities- Northeast Utilities Service Company and NSTAR Electric Company have already singed a Memorandum of Agreement with Hydro Québec for the construction of the transmission line to be designed to transmit at least 1,200 MW.

The $440 million price tag to expand the Holtwood hydropower project has forced PPL to withdraw its application filed last year to increase capacity at the existing project.

PPL Corporation had plans to increase the capacity of the existing project by 125 MW.PPL currently has a FERC license that expires in 2014.

The amendment would also have extended the license term for until 2030, in the absence of which PPL will now have to start relicensing process next year.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has released its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the proposal to increase capacity at the Holtwood hydroelectric project (P-1881) on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.The operator of the project has requested to construct a new powerhouse that would house two turbines and other supplementing generating units thereby increasing the capacity of the project from 107.2 MW to

Through a letter issued to Tidewater Associates on November 3, FERC has determined that tidal barrage projects do not qualify for a hydrokinetic pilot license but will have to obtain a license as conventional hydropower. This type of technology requires construction of a dam, which is the reason for such a decision by FERC.A tidal barrage project involves building a barrage (dam) across a body of water such as a bay to retain water during tidal events.