Northeast states eye offshore HVDC transmission as Trump drops wind fight
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- Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission released three reports on technical standards and policy recommendations aimed at accelerating an offshore HVDC transmission network and reducing electricity costs along the Atlantic Coast.
- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and D.C. are participating in the collaboration, with Massachusetts deputy secretary for federal and regional energy affairs Weezie Nuara calling the shared framework key to unlocking consumer benefits.
- POINTS Consortium (Planning Offshore Interregional Network Standardization Consortium), a research effort launched in 2025, developed the reports with U.S. Department of Energy support and consulting from the Brattle Group.
- The reports recommend a "Northeast offshore transmission order book" to signal long-term demand to cable and equipment manufacturers, and flag limited availability of specialized cable-laying vessels as a key submarine-cable supply chain constraint.
- The reports also call for a new technical working group on HVDC integration and a task force led by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. to develop HVDC reliability frameworks.
- On the same Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit granted the Department of Interior's request to drop its defense of Trump's wind-power ban, ending the legal challenge brought by 17 state attorneys general and D.C.
- New Jersey Board of Public Utilities President Christine Guhl-Sadovy framed the states' effort as preparation: "committed to doing the hard technical and policy work now so that New Jersey — and the region — is ready to move without delay when conditions change."
Why it matters: By standardizing HVDC design and pooling demand through a regional order book, the 10 jurisdictions aim to cut per-project costs and shorten timelines for the 17-state legal victory to translate into actual offshore wind build-out. The supply-side fix targets the cable-laying vessel bottleneck the report explicitly identifies as a binding constraint.
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