Maine Monitor: ‘Different this time’: Wind farms and transmission lines poised to come to northern Maine
This, from the publication started by Naomi Schalit who wrote about wind early on.
Maine, working with 4 other New England states, is set to select winning projects soon in its latest effort to bring renewable energy development to Aroostook County.
By Delger Erdenesanaa
Published on: June 12, 2026
The Maine Public Utilities Commission has tried to encourage the development of large-scale renewable energy projects in Aroostook County for years. That saga may finally reach a resolution as the commission closes its latest round of bidding today and says it may begin making awards this month.
The commission, which regulates electric and other utility services, issued this latest request for proposals in December 2025 for both renewable energy generation — such as wind and solar farms — in northern Maine, as well as new transmission infrastructure needed to get at least 1200 megawatts of power to the New England grid, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.
This is the second time in five years that the Public Utilities Commission has issued a request for proposals, or RFP, for renewable energy in Aroostook County. The commission made selections following a 2021 request for proposals but ultimately ended the procurement process in 2023 without finalizing the deals. Even before 2021, energy companies have tried to develop projects in the region for years.
“This RFP builds on prior stakeholder input and regional transmission planning to move renewable energy projects in northern Maine from concept to reality,” the commission’s chairman, Philip Bartlett, said in a press release in December.
Northern Maine is “a fantastic wind resource,” according to Eliza Donoghue, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association.
That wind power, if put on the grid, could help Maine and other New England states meet rising electricity demand as well as their renewable energy goals as climate change prompts policymakers and the energy system to find ways to shift away from fossil fuels.
But Aroostook County lacks transmission lines going south to export that energy, and the state and developers have been “trying to unlock that puzzle of how to make that happen for a long time,” Donoghue said. Northern Maine has its own electric grid, linked to New Brunswick, Canada, rather than to the rest of Maine and New England.
The previous bid to build a new transmission line was deemed too expensive, and the plans also faced opposition from landowners along the 140-mile proposed route, which would have cut through Albion, Palermo, Freedom, Thorndike and Unity as well as other communities.
This time, Maine is working with Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. The goal is for all five states to share the costs of building new transmission infrastructure that would connect Aroostook County to the regional grid in central Maine. The grid operator, ISO New England, is also soliciting separate but related bids for transmission upgrades farther south.
Both the Public Utilities Commission and ISO New England are keeping their solicitation processes confidential, so it’s not publicly known what projects are under consideration. But dozens of energy companies big and small, specializing in both wind and solar, have signed up to receive updates on the commission’s online docket. The list includes local companies as well as major multinationals such as Italy’s Enel, France’s Engie and Norway’s Equinor.
Continue reading at https://themainemonitor.org/wind-farms-transmission-lines-coming-to...
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Comment by Penny Gray 3 hours ago
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Different how? Same old B.S. only now there's lots of evidence to prove it's pure B.S.
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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