MONTPELIER, Vt.—Vermont's utilities and Hydro-Quebec won't make Saturday's deadline for completing a new long-term power-purchase contract, but officials said Friday they are confident a deal is close and an announcement will happen soon.
The July 31 deadline for executing the contract was set on March 11, when Gov. Jim Douglas traveled to Quebec City to join Quebec Premier Jean Charest and utility officials to announce a tentative deal.
Under that accord, Vermont would get 225 megawatts of power -- equal to about a quarter of that state's demand for electricity -- from Quebec from 2012 to 2038. The two sides said they would negotiate the final terms by June 30 and sign the contract by July 31.
"Should execution of the agreement by all parties fail to occur for any reason prior to July 31, 2010, the memorandum of understanding and the obligations of the parties to negotiate a final agreement will terminate," Charest's office said in a statement at the time.
The two sides haven't made the deadline but are still talking and are close to an agreement, Vermont utility officials said. A Hydro-Quebec spokeswoman would say only, "we are very pleased with the progress of these discussions."
Robert Dostis, spokesman for Green Mountain Power, said Friday, "We are definitely on track, but it's taking a little longer to work out all the final details. The deadline has been extended and we're very confident we'll have a contract soon."
"We remain close to that schedule, and we expect that we'll have something to announce in the near future," spokesman Steve Costello said.
None of the utility officials would discuss the talks in detail.
Negotiating long-term power purchase contracts has proven difficult in recent years because of volatility in the New England wholesale power market, said Richard Saudek, a former chairman of the Vermont Public Service Board and a lawyer long involved in utility matters.
"This contract they're talking about I think is a fairly wise one for both sides," Saudek said. "Apparently it's going to track the market and will probably do so on a rolling-average basis so it smooths out some of the bumps" in wholesale market prices.
Vermont's power companies are nearing the end of an existing 25-year power purchase agreement with Hydro-Quebec. For many of those years, the prices paid by the utilities were higher than what they would have paid elsewhere.
