Champlain Hudson Power Express officially completed

NEW YORK/MONTRÉAL | On Tuesday, the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), the landmark clean energy project and longest fully-buried transmission line in North America, marked the completion of a major transmission link connecting Québec's hydropower system directly to New York City, capable of delivering 1,250 MW to the New York City electrical grid, equivalent to 20% of the City's energy needs. The completion of this $6 billion privately funded project is a historic milestone for New York State's decarbonization goals and a blueprint for building large-scale clean energy infrastructure projects in the United States. CHPE was created through a partnership between Transmission Developers (TDI), a Blackstone portfolio company, and Hydro-Québec, one of the largest hydropower producers in the world. The culmination of more than 15 years of planning and development from project conception to completion, CHPE stretches 339 miles along the entire length of New York State, from the Canadian border to a converter station in Astoria, Queens, where energy enters the New York City grid. The project will deliver under a 25-year contract between Hydro-Québec and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Its operations will significantly strengthen the City's energy grid reliability while supporting a reduction in the reliance on burning fossil fuels, providing significant health benefits to local communities, especially neighborhoods that have historically been disproportionately negatively impacted by harmful carbon emissions. CHPE is expected to provide an estimated carbon emission reduction equivalent to removing nearly half of the cars from New York City streets. Over the course of its three years of construction, CHPE was a major employment engine, creating 1,400 family-sustaining union jobs and more than 7.5 million hours worked. The project will continue to deliver tangible financial and economic benefits to New York State ratepayers and communities along the project route. TDI estimates that CHPE is expected to save New York State ratepayers approximately $17.3 billion over the first 30 years of operations. The project will also provide a $1.4 billion incremental increase in tax revenue for local communities over the first 25 years of operations. "The Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line is one of the first projects I championed as Governor, and is a game changer when it comes to keeping the lights on, helping build a cleaner future, and holding costs down," Gov. Kathy Hochul said. "With its completion, we are powering 1 million New York City homes with needed clean energy that will serve communities for generations to come. This project is further proof that despite the unprecedented federal headwinds we are facing, New York will remain a national climate and clean energy leader into the future." Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, said, "This is a transformational project – bringing clean energy from Québec to Queens – that will help lower emissions, reduce costs for consumers, and meet almost one-fifth of New York City's power needs. Today marks the culmination of a 16-year journey and we could not be prouder that Blackstone's long-term capital helped make it a reality. We are grateful to Governor Hochul, organized labor, TDI, Hydro-Québec, the U.S. and Canadian governments, the City of New York, and our many other partners in delivering vital energy for the City of New York." Claudine Bouchard, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hydro-Québec, said, "Delivering a project of this scale—fully underground and across borders—is a true tour de force. CHPE is the result of more than a decade of vision, collaboration and determination. It reflects the very best of what our teams and partners can achieve together, and stands as a powerful demonstration of engineering excellence, coordination and perseverance in building the energy systems of the future." CHPE officially reached commercial operation ahead of schedule, completing a complex, multi-year construction effort and enabling the integration of renewable hydropower into the New York City grid. Hydro-Québec's long-term contract with New York State entered into effect on June 1, marking the start of the contractual phase of the project. Due to temporary market restrictions that will be resolved next month, Hydro-Québec has been selling energy over CHPE based primarily on market signals in New York City over the past few weeks. CHPE's fully-buried high-voltage direct current (HVDC ) line includes 193 miles of submarine cable laid in Lake Champlain, the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, and 146 miles of underground cable buried primarily in roads and railroad rights of way, to a brand new state of the art converter station in Queens, where energy is converted to enter the New York City power grid. Supplying CHPE is the Hydro-Québec Hertel-New York interconnection line and converter. This line connects Hydro-Québec's vast network of hydropower generating stations to the CHPE line in New York. It is approximately 36 miles long and travels from the Hertel substation in La Prairie, Québec to an interconnection point with CHPE in the Richelieu River, at the Canada–New York border. CHPE was constructed by four main contractors. Hitachi Energy designed, delivered, and commissioned the converter station in Astoria, Queens. Kiewit Power Constructors Co. led on-land construction activities, including the buried HVDC cable installation upstate, and the converter station in Astoria, Queens. EJ Electric installed various system upgrades, including the Astoria-Rainey Connector HVAC line, also in Astoria, Queens. NKT served as CHPE's HVDC cable supplier and submarine cable installer. The Transmission Developers team recently refinanced $4 billion of CHPE LLC's construction loan in the 144a market. Based on the dollar volume of orders received, it was one of the largest utility-oriented transactions in history. The final order book of approximately $22 billion (5.5x oversubscribed) represents the third largest utility order book of all time and the largest since 2020. Many of the largest fixed income investors in the world participated in the transaction. More than 50% of the debt was placed in 10-year and 20-year bullet tranches with credit spreads across all tranches (starting at five years) ranging from 72bps to 92bps over US Treasuries. The Notes Offering closed on June 11. The Notes are rated A-/Baa1 from Fitch and Moody's, respectively. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Notes Offering for the repayment of the majority of the outstanding loans under its existing credit facility and to pay deal associated costs NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen M. Harris said, "I applaud Governor Hochul for her leadership to make this historic project a reality as the Champlain Hudson Power Express already began contributing to a clean, reliable and resilient grid last week when it delivered energy to New York City during a heatwave that saw temperatures across the state exceed 90 degrees. The culmination of deliveries under NYSERDA's contract with Hydro-Québec is the result of a generational agreement that will continue to deliver a clean energy future for all New Yorkers for years to come."

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Champlain Hudson Power Express officially completed

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