Massachusetts settled on hydropower to deliver 9.45TWh annually for the next 20 years when the first of two major clean-energy tenders by the US state was won by a bid from Canada’s Hydro-Québec and New England utility Eversource – beating other options that included onshore and offshore wind.

Subject to final permits and approvals, the Northern Pass project proposed by Hydro-Québec and Eversource will move power from more than 1GW of Canadian hydro-plants to the New England grid from 2020.