Pete Rose on Delivering Hydro-Québec Power to New York City: VX 2026
In this excerpt from VX2026's plenary "Can We Still Build Big Things?" Pete Rose, Senior Director for Stakeholder Relations at the Champlain Hudson Power Express sets the table with a case study in what it actually takes to build big: a 375-mile buried high-voltage line from a substation outside Montreal into the heart of New York City. Read along as Rose recounts the fourteen years it took to bring the project to life. A recording of the entire plenary can be found here.
“The CHPE was very challenging. Two countries, the United States and Canada; a province and a state, Quebec and New York; and more than 70 communities across the length of New York State that we had to work with from a stakeholder perspective.” —Pete Rose
Opening Remarks
Kathleen Brown (Moderator, Fmr. Treasurer, State of California): We'll start this morning's discussion with Pete Rose — and Pete is not from the Baseball Hall of Fame, he's from the Energy Hall of Fame. He's Senior Director for Stakeholder Relations at the Champlain Hudson Power Express, and he's going to set the table with two mega-projects. Let's start with Pete.
Pete Rose:The Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) is the longest buried HVDC transmission line in North America — it runs from the Hertel substation in Quebec down into Astoria, Queens, in New York City. That's 375 miles of buried HVDC transmission, running under multiple bodies of water, right into the heart of New York City. Fourteen years of my life, fifteen years in total, from conception to today.
At its peak, it delivers enough power to supply 20% of New York City with clean energy. New York City is predominantly powered by burning fossil fuels, so this is the first large-scale delivery of clean energy into the city…It's going to help meet the climate and environmental pollution goals.
We ended up with 1,500 workers on this project, all union. A lot of great benefits — about $17.5 billion in wholesale electricity cost savings over the span of the contract. All around, a great project. Happy to talk more about it as we go.
The other project we inaugurated this year was in New England: the New England Clean Energy Connect. Similarly, it brings enough power for about a million homes a year into New England, and it's solving the same climate equation there, since New England is predominantly powered by fossil fuels too. Both of these are, first and foremost, climate projects. Like California, New York State is trying to lead in the fight against climate change.
The Champlain Hudson Power Express was very challenging. Two countries, the United States and Canada; a province and a state, Quebec and New York; and more than 70 communities across the length of New York State that we had to work with from a stakeholder perspective.
It also meant multiple layers of regulatory process. This was a privately financed project with our partner Blackstone — a $6 billion project — so any cost overruns went to us, not to ratepayers. It provides reliability for New York City, which is about to hit peak summer demand, when the air conditioning goes on citywide. Now they'll have access to this huge project: 1,250 megawatts of dispatchable, flexible hydropower. That power comes down into New York City to help meet those needs.
Kathleen Brown: We'll come back to questions, but I think that's a good setup — a big, hairy project or two for us to sink our teeth into.
Pete Rose: And one last thing. This project was also done in collaboration with First Nations. In Quebec, we have an equity partner on that portion of the line: the Mohawk of Kahnawake. What's really touching is that the same group helped build New York City in the '20s, '30s, and '40s — the iconic buildings, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the ones you know even if you live on the West Coast. The Mohawk came down as iron workers and helped build New York City. Now they're partnering with us to light it with green energy.
On the Politics and Partnerships
Kathleen Brown: Pete, I'd like to tease out in more detail how the dynamics worked between your sponsor – BlackRock, who's very profit-oriented – and your stakeholders, the public entities, and then the third ingredient: the Indigenous nation. So you had a cauldron of very powerful, very opinionated participants. How did the negotiations go? How long did they take, and are there any lessons learned – picking up on some of what we've heard from the panel and the audience?
Pete Rose: Fourteen years can bring a lot. It involved Governor Cuomo at the time; Victoria knows that as well. Now it's Governor Hochul. It involved multiple U.S. presidents over the last 14 years, and multiple mayors of New York City. It involved the unions, to your point – their project labor agreement was central to getting this done. It involved Indigenous peoples, the Mohawk. And it involved 70 communities that wanted to know: what's in it for me?
This is a buried transmission line, so we had a lot of pilot agreements – about $1.5 billion going in taxes to communities that will never have to service this line a day in their lives. It's buried for 100-plus years, and it's gravy for a lot of these communities. We engaged with a lot of opinionated groups on what the impact of this would be: what's the impact of the energy source – hydroelectricity from Canada? What's the impact of laying a transmission line under Lake Champlain, the Hudson River, the Harlem River, coming into New York City? And how do you get constituents and stakeholders comfortable with the fact that this technology is 80 years old, and this isn't its first application in New York State – there are actually several HVDC transmission lines in New York, and I believe one on the West Coast, in San Francisco. This is technology that already exists.
To a point raised earlier, it takes leadership – that's why I just ran through all the different leaders who've been involved. And Blackstone – I like to say Blackstone and Hydro-Québec, because we're both so large – had patient capital. We were able to keep developing this project over 14 years because when we penciled it out, it made economic sense, and it continued to make sense throughout the arc of those 14 years in terms of its impact on fighting climate change. If anything, that impact has become more interesting and more acute the further we've gotten into the project.
The line was first drawn on a proverbial napkin as the most direct, least costly route – point A to point B. It doesn't look like that today. The impact of that came from all the public meetings – we had over 1,000 of them.
We had to go through the Article 7 process in New York State, the Army Corps of Engineers process, and (because we're crossing an international border) a presidential permit, which was reauthorized first under Barack Obama, then Donald J. Trump, then Joe Biden, and then Donald J. Trump again. Politically, it was a project that made sense.
There are a lot of hairy stories. Environmentally, we had to stop laying cable for three months because we didn't expect a bald eagle's nest along the route – but there was one. We had people out there with binoculars checking for fledglings, and ultimately there were some, so we had to wait for that process to play out. That's how sensitive we were about doing this project right.
On Undergrounding the Distribution Line Under Lake Champlain & The Hudson River - Q&A
Audience Member: I have a question for Pete Rose about undergrounding. The conventional wisdom in California used to be that you put distribution lines underground, but transmission lines were much harder. How did you approach that? What were the challenges, and is it now more feasible to underground a major transmission line?
Pete Rose: We chose, with all our partners, to go underground and underwater into New York, for a few reasons. One, out of sight, out of mind – for social acceptability. Two, it might sound counterintuitive, but it was ultimately the most economical way to get into New York City. About 60% to 70% of the line is actually in bodies of water, so it's buried there using some pretty sophisticated technology. As I said, HVDC technology has been around for 80 years.
Kathleen Brown: What is the body of water?
Pete Rose: It goes under Lake Champlain, the Hudson River – a major river on the East Coast – and into the Harlem River, which leads right into New York City. That's about 60% of the line; the remaining 40%, we buried along existing rights of way, primarily railroads and roads.
I can give you all the stats on the easements; it's fascinating. But ultimately, the technology isn't new. HVDC is a solid-state copper core, so there are no fuels in it, no liquids. It's covered in a very thick sheath, with lots of sensors, and buried at depths where we went through more environmental review than we technically needed to. We worked with the water-intake municipalities along the Hudson to address their concerns directly.
If this thing were to ever trip – which we don't think it could – we had the boating industry raise concerns too. What if I dropped my anchor? It can't reach that deep. And if it somehow did, in some wacky scenario, the line would cut out in a nanosecond. So, we've painstakingly gone through all of these environmental tests to, again, make sure everybody was comfortable with the technology, again, that it's not novel. It's been around for a long time.
Tags: Transmission, HVDC, Hydropower, Hydro-Québec, Champlain Hudson Power Express, Clean Energy, Grid Infrastructure, New York, VX2026
