1,250 MW Quebec-New York Line Drives Record 52 GWh Electricity Import

New York's grid operator (NYISO) imported 52 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity from Canada on July 3, 2026, the highest daily volume between the two countries since January 2025, according to EIA data published on July 20.

The record was driven by the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) transmission line, a 339-mile, 1,250-megawatt (MW) underwater and underground direct-current cable connecting Hydro-Québec's hydroelectric facilities in Montreal to the Astoria complex in Queens, New York. The line, developed by Transmission Developers Inc. with a $6 billion investment, began operating on June 1, 2026 after three years of construction and was selected in 2021 by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The project helps replace capacity lost after the closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant in 2021, and NYSERDA projects it will cover up to 20% of New York City's electricity consumption, equivalent to 10.4 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually.

On July 3, during a heat wave across the northeastern United States, the CHPE line operated at its maximum capacity of 1,250 MW. Canadian imports averaged 1,400 MW per hour from Hydro-Québec and an additional 800 MW from Ontario's grid, meeting 9% of NYISO's daily electricity demand, according to the EIA. NYISO's peak hourly demand reached 31,097 MW on July 2 at 19:00 hours, below the all-time record of 33,956 MW set in July 2013. The EIA notes that both NYISO and the New England grid had reduced their reliance on Canadian imports in recent years due to droughts that constrained hydroelectric generation, a trend that new lines such as CHPE could reverse if hydroelectric output recovers. The line suffered an outage in June and was taken offline again on July 4 for additional repairs.

CHPE's experience in its first summer, with a record import followed by a maintenance outage, offers an early benchmark for the performance of large-scale cross-border interconnections under thermal stress, an infrastructure model that Mexico and Texas grid operator ERCOT are evaluating for the southern border.

This article was drafted with artificial intelligence assistance from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.