Brattle’s Testimony on Behalf of Atlantic Wind Connection Cited in Multiple News Publications

The Brattle Group’s Johannes Pfeifenberger and Samuel Newell filed testimony with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on behalf of Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) on December 21, 2010 in support of their proposed offshore transmission project.

The testimony has been cited in multiple news publications since the filing, including Reuters, Restructuring Today, and ClimateWire. Brattle principals Michael Vilbert and Bente Villadsen also filed testimony on behalf of AWC addressing cost of capital, incentive returns, regulatory assets, and other accounting related issues. The AWC Project is a high-voltage direct-current offshore transmission backbone that would span approximately 250 miles from northern New Jersey to southern Virginia. The AWC companies, led by independent transmission company Trans-Elect, engaged Brattle to analyze and quantify some of the public policy, reliability, congestion relief, and other economic benefits associated with the Project. Mr. Pfeifenberger and Dr. Newell’s analysis demonstrated that the AWC Project would provide the following benefits:

• enable states to meet their renewable energy policy requirements and goals through streamlined permitting, greater scale, and lower costs;
• maintain and improve the reliability and operation of the transmission grid; and
• provide congestion relief and other economic benefits in the congested Mid-Atlantic power market.

In addition, compared to the radial interconnection of individual wind plants, the AWC Project would offer total benefits of $9-$15 billion, including the avoided costs of radial transmission lines. These total benefits would far exceed the approximately $5 billion construction cost. For more information about the FERC filing, please visit the Atlantic Wind Connection website. To download an Executive Summary that outlines the conclusions presented in the testimony, please use the link below.

Executive Summary