Maine Public Advocate Pressed to Hold Solar Companies to Account for High Costs and Confusion
By Sam Patten
February 19, 2025
Updated:February 19, 2025
13 Comments
When Heather Sanborn served in the Maine State Legislature not so long ago, she voted in support of granting credits to solar companies as part of Governor Janet Mills’ (D) green energy agenda, but now that she’s the state’s Public Advocate representing the ratepayers before the Public Utilities Commission, is she ready to fight against the complex, controversial and burdensome net energy billing (NEB) program that is leaving more and more Mainer’s with sticker shock when they open their electric bills?
“We haven’t saved any money since we started (the community solar program),” Daryl Sawyer told FOX23 News on Tuesday, and his wife Didi added, “it’s just been a nightmare.”
Is Maine’s appointed official tasked with sticking up for utility rate payers listening?
“We have heard a lot of concerns about the confusion about double billing,” Public Advocate Sanborn said this week in response to rising complaints about solar farms many Mainers signed up for in recent years on the promise they’d reduce electric bills by 15-20%. When the promise doesn’t seem to materialize, ratepayers have been vexed by “not being able to get out of a contract right away,” Sanborn acknowledged.
During her confirmation hearing late last year, Sanborn was asked whether she would later work as a lobbyist for the solar companies that are currently reaping the rewards of Maine’s current energy policies, and according to those present she gave neither a definitive yes or no to the question. While that might have been speculative, in the hear and now Mainers are contending with two sets of electric bills and not necessarily seeing any savings, many have complained.
[RELATED: Who Does “Public Advocate” Heather Sanborn Really Represent?]
It’s gotten so bad that earlier this month Republicans in the State House introduced bills to scrap the solar credit program altogether. State Senator Stacey Guerin (R-Glenburn) argued Maine can no longer afford the $130 million program late last year. Today, the budget is strapped and Governor Mills is seeking an emergency supplemental of approximately the same amount.
“Maine already has the sixth-highest electricity rate in the nation, according to an analysis by Dow Jones’ financial subsidiary MarketWatch. Considering that we already have the highest property tax burden in the nation and the fourth-highest tax burden when adding together all taxes we pay, this is not how life should be and a new tax only makes it worse,” Sen. Guerin presciently said last summer, while this month the Mills administration began pushing for “revenue raisers” to plug holes in state spending.
Guerin has cited examples of businesses in her district that are struggling to keep up with their electric bills, and ties these to the controversial program she now seeks to eliminate.
On January 28, Sanborn was narrowly confirmed by a 19-15 party line vote in the legislature’s upper house. State Senator and Assistant Minority Leader Matt Harrington (R-York) spoke out against her nomination at the time, specifically citing how the net energy billing program is disproportionately hurting lower-income rate payers, who don’t even participate either in the solar panel or community solar farm programs.
Continue reading at https://www.themainewire.com/2025/02/public-advocate-pressed-to-hol...
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Comment by Dan McKay on February 20, 2025 at 11:08am
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Net Energy Billing is a debacle that without immediate arrest will launch Maine electricity costs to easily 40 cents per kilowatt hour. The OPA is basically a mouthpiece for the solar developers, but then again, one of our PUC Commissioners takes favoring solar even more seriously by participating in NEB.
Maine people are being groomed for socialism by NEB as the earnings of some are being used to the benefit of others who are mostly already in a more financially better position.
Just remember, 86% of Maine citizens are not participants of NEB because they do not believe it is right to acquire the earnings of others. NEB may be unconstitutional, but what do some legislators or regulators care about the law?
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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