Falmouth Onshore Wind Turbine Cables Pros - Cons

A proposal is going to be made to bring HVDC, High Voltage Direct Current Cables from wind turbines 30 miles offshore through the Town of Falmouth and establish an electric substation of approximately 6 acres. The purpose is to get the power to the main electric grid in Bourne where it will be exported off Cape to be used in larger cities in Massachusetts.

This is a cost-saving for the offshore wind company otherwise they would have to run submarine cables to off Cape locations.

Massachusetts allows "Host Community Agreements." The offshore wind company in the case of Falmouth can pay the town for the right to use town property to take the shortcut through town to the electric power grid saving the offshore wind company the cost of submarine cables.
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Pros: Falmouth would receive around 1 million in incentives each year for twenty years which is less than 1 percent of the yearly budget.
The project could generate millions per year in state and local tax revenue as a result of the development, construction, and annual operation of the project. The local amount remains unknown.

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Cons: The offshore wind company is an LLC, a Limited Liability Company.

The HVDC, High Voltage Direct Current onshore buried cable route would create a permanent ROW, electric right of way of around 25 feet to each side of the duct system with multiple cable ducts for future use.

The first set of cables is generally between 220,000 volts and 345,000 volts at around 800 megawatts which is more than the output of the Pilgrim Power Plant which was 680 megawatts.

Properties abutters of the right of way more than likely would not qualify for some government loans due to abutting high voltage line right of way.

There are currently no health studies in the United States for HVDC cables as direct current power is rarely used. In 1980 residents in Minnesota living near one of the few HVDC power lines complained of adverse health effects. An epidemiological study was not conducted on the residents.

The offshore wind company has asked the state to bypass the Falmouth wind turbine bylaw 240-166 which was approved by Falmouth Town Meeting and Massachusetts Attorney General. The sound generated from converting stations, power plants, and substations is called noise. The noise permitted for a plant is dependent on local standards which are in the town wind turbine bylaw.

The High Voltage Direct Current cables do produce less EMF, electric magnetic fields, than High Voltage Alternating Current cables.

The high-frequency constituents found in direct current transmission systems can cause radio noise in communications lines such as plain old telephone lines that are situated near the HVDC transmission line. Converter substations generate current and voltage harmonics, while the conversion process is accompanied by reactive power consumption. Audible noise can also be an indicator of harmonics issues. Noise sources in HVDC stations are converter transformers, reactors, and filter capacitors.

Falmouth is a residential vacation destination. In many cases, the ballfields, parks, and recreation areas owned by the town were donated for residential use and enjoyment of town residents. Some of the proposals are to place permanently buried commercial high voltage electric rights of ways under parks and recreation locations.

The project consists of up to three years of construction and borders on multiple environmental justice communities.

Falmouth became a wind turbine, Pioneer, in 2010 and 2012 which resulted in almost ten years of litigation. Unfortunately, the town could go back to a period of one section of town with the cables against the rest of the town again.