The
Middletown-Norwalk Transmission Line is a 69-mile (112 km), 345-kilovolt AC transmission line between
MiddletownMiddletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...
and
NorwalkNorwalk is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of the city is 85,603, making Norwalk sixth in population in Connecticut, and third in Fairfield County...
in the U.S. state of
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. Construction began in 2006 with the ground breaking at the Beseck Switching Station and was energized in December 2009.
Route
The M-N Transmission Line begins in Middletown begins at the Scovill Rock Substation in Middletown, and proceeds west to the Beseck Switching Station in Wallingford. From Beseck the transmission line continues southwest to the East Devon Substation by overhead wires supported by 105-foot (35 m)
pylonsA transmission tower is a tall structure, usually a steel lattice tower, used to support an overhead power line. They are used in high-voltage AC and DC systems, and come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes...
. At East Devon, the line will connect to the nearby Devon Power Station owned by
NRG EnergyNRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company headquartered in West Windsor Township, New Jersey, near Princeton.-Electrical Power Generation Operations:...
and the Milford Power Company power plant before going underground. The line will continue underground to the Singer Substation in Bridgeport, where it will connect to the Bridgeport Harbor Generating Station owned by
PSE&GPublic Service Enterprise Group , commonly known as PSEG, and originally known as the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey and then as the Public Service Electric and Gas Company, is a regulated, publicly owned gas and electric utility company in the state of New Jersey, United States. It is...
, the Bridgeport Energy Plant owned by
Duke EnergyDuke Energy , headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is an energy company with assets in the United States, Canada and Latin America.-Overview:...
, and the Bridgeport
waste-to-energyWaste-to-energy or energy-from-waste is the process of creating energy in the form of electricity or heat from the incineration of waste source. WtE is a form of energy recovery...
plant operated by the Connecticut Resource Recovery Agency. From Bridgeport, the line will continue southwest, closely following
US 1U.S. Route 1 is a major north–south U.S. Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs 2,377 miles from Fort Kent, Maine at the Canadian border south to Key West, Florida. U.S. 1 generally parallels Interstate 95, though it is significantly farther west between...
, passing
Ash CreekAsh Creek is located in southeastern Arizona in the Pinaleño Mountain Range, part of Coronado National Forest. The closest city is Safford, about 7 miles away.-External links:**...
to its terminus at the Norwalk Substation.
To ease environmental and community concerns, portions of the line are being placed underground, while the overhead portions of the line will traverse mainly rural areas.
Northeast UtilitiesNortheast Utilities is a publicly-traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Berlin, Connecticut, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity and natural gas service to more than 2.1 million customers in New England....
and United Illuminating are constructing the line at a cost of $1.3 billion. As part of the project, UI and NU will reconstruct the existing 115-kilovolt transmission lines located on segments of the M-N line's path.
External links