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He lives in Dorchester.During the 2017-2018 winter, ISO-New England was worried about the system’s ability to meet electricity demand, but not until the danger passed did the agency tell the public about the precarious situation it had faced.
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Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. Both projections are about 2 percent lower than what was forecasted last year, but longer term the demand for electricity is expected to grow as electricity is used increasingly in the transportation and building sectors.īruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. ISO-New England is forecasting that demand for electricity will peak at 19,710 megawatts during average winter weather conditions of 10 degrees farenheit, and 20,349 megawatts if temperatures reach below average conditions of 5 degrees farenheit. “We shouldn’t think of Quebec as the final answer to the problem. He said the region needs more offshore wind, more solar, more battery storage, and possibly even green hydrogen to fuel power plants. Van Welie also cautioned that hydroelectricity from Quebec won’t solve New England’s energy and climate challenges. If you bury them, then you remove that objection but of course you then incur a much higher price tag on the lines.” For the most part, the objection to the transmission lines is people don’t want to see them. “If it doesn’t go ahead, I think we’ll find other paths and I think the one thing we’re going to have to do is recognize that we’re going to have to spend more in order to get these transmission lines sited.
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“I’m disappointed with the outcome there,” van Welie said, referring to the situation in Maine. The case is now headed for court where a judge will determine whether the law is constitutional. The project was nearly halfway through construction in November when voters in Maine passed a law shutting it down. Massachusetts electric ratepayers signed a deal in 2018 with Hydro-Quebec to import hydroelectricity from Quebec over a transmission line running through Maine. “I can see that we could have an extra two to three lines coming into this region, 1,000-1,200 megawatt lines.” “We need to get access to Hydro-Quebec’s energy as part of the solution,” van Welie said. Van Welie said tapping more hydroelectricity from Quebec is one way to decarbonize the region’s electric grid while also giving it more stability during prolonged cold periods.