CMP bills to go up another $5 a month to subsidize solar projects
June 18, 2024
Maine regulators OK the hike, which follows a $10 jump approved last week, to cover a nearly 50% increase in what CMP pays to solar developers under a state law designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Stephen Singer
Press Herald
This week’s rate increase allows CMP to bring in $179.3 million over the next year to pay solar developers. That is a 47% increase from the $91.1 million the utility now collects from ratepayers.
The difference this time is the billed amount is a pass-through payment to solar developers in what’s known as net energy billing. The rate recovery program is a feature of state law and minority Republicans in the Legislature blamed Democrats for the higher electricity costs. At a State House news conference, Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, of Aroostook, said Democrats sent “hundreds of millions of dollars to out-of-state and out-of-country solar developers.”
“Your bill is going to go up,” he said. “And when it does, if you’re represented by a Democrat in the Legislature, send them a thank-you note. It’s their fault.”
Republicans have unsuccessfully tried to make the policy “much more reasonable, much more market-based instead of five, six times what the going rate is … ” Stewart said. “There’s no reason to continue this incentive.”
Before 2019, eligibility for net energy billing was restricted to very small generators due to opposition from then-Gov. Paul LePage and many Republican lawmakers. Democrats and Gov. Janet Mills changed the rules in 2019, directing utilities to buy power from solar projects with up to 5 megawatts of capacity at fixed rates.
The changes led to growth in community solar projects....................................................
Continue reading at https://www.pressherald.com/2024/06/18/cmp-bills-to-go-up-another-5...
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Comment
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Comment by Dan McKay on June 24, 2024 at 5:03am
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Twenty years of annual, escalating rate hikes.
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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on June 23, 2024 at 6:55pm
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Years later, "Fact Checker" Snopes finally issues correction on 6/20/24:
No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists 'Very Fine People'
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-very-fine-people/#Echobox=1...
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Comment by Stephen Littlefield on June 23, 2024 at 6:23pm
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Just one more rubbing the citizens noses in the dirt, extorting money from ratepayers to produce more expensive power that ratepayers will have to pay for! Democrats at work, they control all the government in the state and we are drowning in mismanagement!!
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That's precisely why solar and wind are classified as "green" energy.
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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