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Potential transmission and generation investment will bolster the Canadian-US electricity trade

Julia Frayer, Managing Director at London Economics International LLC (“LEI”) spoke at the EUCI US/Canada Cross-Border Power Summit held in Boston, MA on April 8th and 9th, 2015. Ms. Frayer discussed new transmission and generation investment opportunities that could bolster Canadian-US trade in electricity.

Ms. Frayer provided an overview of LEI’s recent analysis of Canadian exports to the US and explored the value of developing new infrastructure – generation and transmission – for import into US markets from the perspective of consumers and policymakers. In particular, she discussed the benefits to the New England market, noting that ratepayers stood to benefit tremendously from wholesale market price reductions associated with new transmission line developments offering new sources of supply. Ms. Frayer presented some generic illustrative calculations where the potential savings due to lower wholesale energy and capacity prices amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. She further explored the ripple effect that new transmission projects could have throughout the economy, explaining the ramifications of lower electricity costs on various other sectors, such as manufacturing and construction sectors in a region.

She concluded her presentation by noting that “project specific feasibility studies with more detailed costs and detailed analysis of returns for project sponsors and consumer benefits” would be needed to bring new infrastructure development to fruition. Ms. Frayer’s presentation is available through LEI’s website at https://www.londoneconomics.com/publications. The EUCI US/Canada Cross-Border Power Summit was a two-day event where key industry individuals discussed the energy trading relationship between Canada and the United States.

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