Choosing the right path to Maine’s energy future requires critical decisions by Maine officials in the next few years and two recent OpEds, “Maine Power Project Will Deliver” (BDN, June 13) and “GridSolar project makes sense for Maine” (BDN, June 23), highlight the importance of this debate to BDN readers. But finding the right path demands accurate information and careful scrutiny of claims by energy project proponents.
Nearly everyone agrees that Maine and the U.S. must enhance our energy independence, promote renewable energy and continue to emphasize the importance of conservation and efficiency measures. Wind, solar, tidal and other emerging technologies can and will power our homes, businesses and, hopefully, our vehicles in the future. Investing in the “highway” for electricity, represented by major transmission facilities such as Central Maine Power Co.’s Maine Power Reliability Program, will be a necessary ingredient of getting there.
The owners of GridSolar have attacked the reliability program as wasteful and unnecessary and claimed that their own 10,000-acre, multibillion dollar solar panel project eliminates the need for transmission investment. That’s like saying once we have hybrid cars, we won’t need to rebuild our roads. It simply does not make sense.
Solar may have a role in Maine’s future. But so too should wind power, tidal power, wood power and a host of other innovative possibilities that are clean, efficient and rely on our own natural resources. The GridSolar proponents would have you believe that their project is the only path to a greener energy future for Maine. We respectfully disagree.
So far, nowhere in the world is solar the dominant supplier of electricity. But is Maine, with its long winters and northern location, the right place to risk our energy security on a several billion dollar alternative to investing in our electric grid? We think solar may be an important part of the energy mix in the U.S. and possibly in Maine, but we cannot bet the farm on one technology. Instead, we should demand an “energy basket” with various sources that are diverse and cost-effective.
Diverse energy generation spread across our state and the region requires a better electric grid. The vast majority of Maine’s bulk transmission system was designed and constructed 40 years ago when very large, strategically located generation plants produced most of our power. GridSolar’s proponents rightly argue we are transitioning away from those very large facilities. That’s exactly why additional investment in transmission is so necessary.
Furthermore, the reliability program has been determined, in a lengthy and open process involving transmission experts throughout New England, to be a project that enhances the electric reliability of the whole region and, therefore, Maine’s ratepayers will not pay its full price tag. In fact, contrary to the assertions in the GridSolar OpEd, Maine’s ratepayers will pay only 8 percent of the proposed $1.5 billion transmission upgrade. That equates to an increase in the per-kilowatt price of electricity of three-tenths of 1 cent. Electric ratepayers in Massachusetts, Connecticut and the rest of New England would pay 92 percent of the costs of this Maine project.
But the thousands of jobs created during construction of the reliability program will happen right here; a sensible stimulus program for Maine. Even the increased property taxes paid by CMP resulting from the program will be covered by the regional cost sharing agreement, the “net” cost to Maine as a whole is actually less than zero: for every Maine dollar spent, Maine gets back more than a dollar. The cost of the multibillion dollar GridSolar initiative, by contrast, would be borne entirely by Mainers.
Regulatory agencies in Maine and the region should scrutinize this plan — and every other proposed utility upgrade — carefully but expeditiously to ensure that ratepayers are getting a good value for their investment. But Maine’s path to a greener, less expensive energy future must follow smart, strategic investments in our electric grid.
Dana Connors is the president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.