Canadian renewable energy firm objecting to Deepwater, Cape Wind

BOSTON – TransCanada, a major Canadian power company, is challenging the constitutionality of several renewable-energy contracts in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, including the Deepwater Wind and Cape Wind projects.

TransCanada finds the process for signing contracts “tainted,” according to the Boston Herald. Owning an existing wind farm in Maine, the company hopes to build another in the state, both of which would produce electricity that is less expensive than what is proposed for the power to be generated by Deepwater Wind, whose power-purchase agreement is now before the R.I. Public Utilities Commission.

TransCanada wants the agreement dismissed, contending that the bidding process favored in-state firms, violating the U.S. Constitution commerce clause and thus preventing it from entering into a contract with National Grid to supply electricity to Rhode Island.

In Massachusetts, the TransCanada has been successful in having a "made in Massachusetts" provision of its renewable energy law removed. But it said, according to the Herald, that the Mass. Department of Public Utilities is adding restrictive financial language to new bidding rules.

“To date (the bidding) process has been tainted by unconsitutional discrimination,” TransCanada wrote to the DPU, said the Herald.

TransCanada’s goal is for it and other out-of–state firms to be able to make competitive bids on all existing long-term renewable energy contracts.

A spokesman for the state, Robert Keough, has dismissed accusations, saying that all laws have been abided by. Nonetheless, according to the article published Friday, Robert Rio, senior vice president of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said challenges could have serious implications, particular to Cape Wind.

Arguments about the $3 billion power-purchase contract between Cape Wind and National Grid must be filed Friday, one of the final steps before Cape Wind can construct 130 turbines to produce its renewable energy facility off the coast of Cape Cod.

A recent filing with the state shows that TransCanada has also questioned NStar’s contracts with Western Massachusetts wind farms.

Mass. and R.I. have been working together on future energy plans, announcing just last week a pact to coordinate the development of offshore wind farms in waters between the states.