Everyone knows that Maine winters can be brutal. In our rural state, some residents may become isolated, and for those who are low income, the need for reliable and affordable electricity is imperative.

Central Maine Power is the largest electricity provider in the state. The utility giant serves 600,000 customers in central and southern Maine, which is equal to about 78 percent of Maine residents.

Last week, we learned that for CMP customers, electricity rates…

Sounds like what Oakfield did to Island Falls.

Back in September 2017, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena said the turbines would all be built on private industrial sites and wouldn’t be close to any residences.

“It’s in an unobtrusive area where you’re not going to have homes around it that people are going to have issues with basically a lot of it is farmland area old farms,” Polisena said.

But more than one year later, Cranston residents…

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

We've been publishing hard data on this for many years. Where has everyone else been?

Wind promoter NRCM talks about transportation but for 10 years has made land based wind its priority - a generation source that does not and cannot do anything about emissions coming from transportation. If we were ever to move to all electric cars and trucks that would be powered with carbon-free electricity, we'd need nuclear. NRCM opposes nuclear just…

Proposed Commercial Wind Leases Offshore Massachusetts

What's New?

On October 17, 2018, the Secretary of the Interior announced that the Department would hold an auction for nearly 390,000 acres offshore Massachusetts on December 13, 2018.

The three lease areas being auctioned are located 19.8 nautical miles from Martha’s Vineyard, 16.7 nautical miles from Nantucket, and 44.5…

The developers of a long-delayed project to deliver hydroelectric power from Quebec to New York City say that construction will start in 2020.

First unveiled in 2008, the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) is a proposed 536-kilometre underground high-voltage line to supply customers in New York City with hydroelectricity generated in Quebec dams by provincial utility provider Hydro-Québec...............................

The project is projected to deliver 1,000 megawatts of…

Dan Dolan, the president of the New England Power Generators Association, says the wholesale electricity market is facing an existential crisis, failing to meet the needs of the six New England states and the region’s electricity generators, whom he represents. “The direction we’re moving in with out-of-market contracts for renewable energy and special contracts for reliability is putting the risk right back on ratepayers...................

New England states began offering subsidies…

Another contributor is the growing role of renewable generators on the grid, said Marc Brown, a spokesman for the New England Ratepayers Association. Brown said state policies that favor intermittent resources such as wind and solar have created more risk for the companies that bid into supply contracts, especially for home and small-business customers. It’s important for New England to continue building power plants that can be dispatched when needed, he said, especially in the…

And that also means advocating for the massive transmission lines required by and solely by the wind project monstrosities.

See Winter 2018 issue - "The Unique…

The company is wasting enough energy to fill a contract with Massachusetts.

With this line, the company would be able to sell as much carbon-free power into New England as could be produced by two nuclear power plants.

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/12/09/our-view-hydro-quebec-answers-key-climate-question/

The public hearing will be held at 1:00 P.M. on Monday, January 7, 2019, at the Roxbury Town Hall, 1095 Roxbury Road, Roxbury. The entire hearing will be open to the public. The daytime session will be devoted to receiving testimony from the parties…

Hydro-Quebec says it's bringing 13 more hydroelectric plants online and has untapped potential for others, but opponents of the 145-mile transmission line through Maine say that's no guarantee more clean energy will be generated.....................“We have excess (hydropower) energy in Quebec that we can’t get out,” Serge Abergel, director of public affairs for Hydro-Quebec, told the editorial board of the Portland Press Herald. “We’re ‘spilling’ water. We’re unable to get it to our export…

Maine Power Express proposes bringing electricity to Massachusetts from new wind farms in Aroostook County via underground transmission lines from the southern Aroostook area to Searsport and then through underwater transmission cables from Searsport to Boston. The transmission lines would total approximately 300 miles and would cost $1 billion or more.....................

Maine…

Please forward this information and spread via social media. Thank you.

Weaver Wind, Hancock County

Application for Site Location of Development and Natural Resource Protection Act Permit for Grid-Scale Wind Energy Development

Weaver Wind, LLC proposes a 22-turbine, 72.6 MW wind energy facility in the Towns of Eastbrook and Osborn. The applications were accepted as complete on November 13,…

The Maine Public Utilities Commission ruled this week that Central Maine Power cannot arbitrarily limit the amount of electricity smaller commercial power plants can put on its transmission system.

The finding came at the request of Dirigo Solar, an electricity generation company that has a contract to provide enough solar power for 10,000 homes in Maine from scattered locations.

Nicholas Mazuroski, a partner in Dirigo Solar, says CMP limited the amount of electricity it would…

She also has promised to take a new approach to problems the state is facing relating to climate change and has said she will establish an Office of Policy Innovation to provide independent analysis to her and the Legislature on a variety of state economic, community development and natural resource issues that include increasing clean-energy production...............................“Additionally, she is considering elevating the Governor’s Energy Office to a Cabinet-level position in order…

The state has begun reviewing an application to develop a wind farm in northern Hancock County and is weighing whether to schedule a public hearing on the proposal, which three years ago generated concerns about its potential to kill birds and bats.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection determined in mid-November that the application from Longroad Energy to develop a 22-turbine wind farm in Eastbrook and Osborn is complete, Mark Bergeron, director of the DEP’s bureau of…

These do not appear to be the public's actual comments but rather descriptions of each comment. If you sent in a comment, please make sure that nothing got lost in the translation. I'm not sure why the precise words from the public weren't used. I understand someone deciding to summarize for faster reading, but I would think the actual comments should be posted.

Unfortunately, it seems that the PDF file is restricted in a manner that doesn't allow use of the…

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Maine Wind Energy Advisory Commission

• Executive Order Establishing Maine Wind Energy Advisory Commission (PDF)
• Members of the Wind Energy Commission (MS Word)
• June 14, 2018 Request…