During the Greater Springfield Reliability Project, as it is called, power is not scheduled not be interrupted.
Northeast Utilities is awaiting approval from Massachusetts regulators to begin an estimated $714 million project in Greater Springfield to upgrade roughly 39 miles of high-voltage power lines, considered a major weak link in the New England electric utility system.
It is feared the relatively low-capacity 115-kilovolt copper lines, which run from Ludlow to Bloomfield, Conn., may soon be insufficient to meet the growing power demand in the region. They will be replaced by 345-kilovolt steel and aluminum lines during the three-year project.
In March, Connecticut regulators approved the portion of the project in their state, said Frank J. Poirot, a spokesman for Northeast Utilities, the parent company for the Western Massachusetts Electric Co.
Massachusetts regulators are expected to make a decision in September, and if the three-year project is approved, it would begin later this year, he said.
“The transmission project strengthens the grid, but it also has regional benefits. Any weak link would have a negative impact in the entire New England system,” he said.
Just how much the work will increase customer rates locally is not yet known, since the cost will be shared in varying degrees by customers throughout the region, Poirot said.
“It may not even be dollar a month. But that impact won’t be known until the project is completed and we know what all the costs are,” he said.
During the Greater Springfield Reliability Project, as it is called, power will not be interrupted for area customers.
Peter J. Clarke, president and CEO of Western New England Electric Co. said that because the project will improve reliability of the region’s power grid, the cost will be borne by power customers across New England.
“We have a lot of great projects going on,” Clarke said during a meeting this week with The Republican’s Editorial Board.
There are nearly 350 power generating stations in New England connected by almost 8,000 miles of electric transmission lines. The power is shared throughout the six states using high-voltage lines, a distribution process overseen by ISO New England based in Holyoke.
ISO New England has identified four significant weak links in the New England system, including the Greater Springfield lines, that can cause bottlenecks in the flow of power across the region, primarily because of antiquated lines.
Clarke said one pinchpoint in particular is electric line that runs under the Connecticut River.
The upgrades will be made in rights-of-way running through Ludlow, Chicopee, West Springfield and Agawam in Massachusetts and Suffield, East Granby and Bloomfield in Connecticut.
In some locations the right-of-way may have to be widened slightly to accommodate larger transmission towers, in which case Northeast Utilities would negotiate with the landowners for those rights.
Business writer Jim Kinney contributed to this report.