Maine Public | By Peter McGuire
Published March 16, 2026 at 7:42 PM EDT

A planned 10 megawatt, gas-fired power plant to provide electricity and heat to a major redevelopment on the Portland waterfront is stoking opposition from neighbors and climate activists in the city.

Barbara Vestal, who lives on Fore Street near the proposed development said she and others were shocked and surprised to learn about developer PF Land LCC's plans for the power plant. The company has requested that Maine Public Utilities Commission rule its facility will not be regulated as an electric utility.

Vestal said the proposal is a major deviation from a master plan for the $1 billion housing, retail, office and hotel development on the 10-acre site of the former Portland Co. approved a decade ago.

"It's bringing a major source of emissions, and noise and vibration to this neighborhood," Vestal said.

The proposed plant may not even be allowed under zoning rules around the Portland development, Vestal added. Installing the power plant would include four 114-foot-tall emission stacks according to its state license, a facility never included in the developers' earlier plans, Vestal added.

"Those are major changes that need to be reviewed, and it seems like they're just envisioning this happening without applying to the city for any permission to do this," Vestal said.

Maggy Wolf, another neighbor of the Portland Foreside development said the development conflicts with climate goals adopted by Maine and Portland to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Even though it's considered a transition to clean energy, it locks us into fossil fuels whereas the state is going to be renewable by 2040," Wolf said.

The Portland Climate Action Team also weighed in against the project in a letter to the Public Utilities Commission. Building new fossil fuel burning generators will set the city back of its target to reduce 80% of its emissions by 2050, team members Bill Weber and Joey Brunelle said in the letter.

Keep reading at https://www.mainepublic.org/climate/2026-03-16/portland-neighbors-activists-raise-alarm-with-plan-for-gas-power-plant

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