Maine to study whether creating local electric grid operator could cut costs, improve reliability

July 8, 2024

Stephen Singer
Press Herald

The first-in-the-nation proposal could shift control over some aspects of Maine's power system from the nonprofit that oversees transmission lines and power plants across New England.

EXCERPTS

Maine officials are imagining an electric grid of the future nimble enough to communicate with buildings to cut energy use, provide power to electric vehicles adapted to serve as batteries, and keep pace with a growing array of solar and wind sources.

The Governor’s Energy Office is leading a study, called for in legislation sponsored by Rep. Gerry Runte, D-York, to determine if a Maine-based organization could run the state’s electric grid while saving money for customers, improving reliability and more quickly reaching Maine’s climate goals.

It would be the first in the nation and is “uncharted territory,” Runte said.

Currently, the nonprofit ISO-New England, based in Holyoke, Massachusetts, operates the regional grid that encompasses 9,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and power plants across six states. ISO-New England administers the buying and selling of electricity and determines the timing, size and siting of generation, transmission and distribution upgrades.

A state grid operator – called a Distribution System Operator – would not replace the ISO but could instead shift control over some aspects of Maine’s power system to a local group, bringing decision-making closer to home.

A Maine grid operator, for example, could speed the transition to clean energy. Critics say the 20th-century grid is hampered by delays in connecting zero-carbon energy sources such as solar and wind, aging equipment and rapidly rising electric rates. The system is sometimes seen, fairly or not, as a century-old system of poles and wires resembling “rotary dial phone” technology in the internet era, Runte said.

For now, the study of a Maine grid operator is intended to find a way to better align the state’s electricity transmission and distribution system with the transition to zero-carbon energy.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, electricity markets will require more solar energy, energy-storage batteries, EVs, and efficient buildings with controls that manage appliances and heating and cooling systems.

Seth Berry, a former co-chairman of the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee and a critic of Maine’s investor-owned utilities, said a state grid operator would be an improvement over what’s now in place.

The full article can be read at https://www.pressherald.com/2024/07/08/maine-to-study-whether-creat...

************************************* 


Fair Use Notice: This website may reproduce or have links to copyrighted material the use of which has not been expressly authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available, without profit, as part of our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, economic, scientific, and related issues. It is our understanding that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided by law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Views: 19

Comment

You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!

Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Comment by Dan McKay on July 11, 2024 at 8:36am

A Trap. A concoction of lies. Not one person in the GEO has any idea of what they are doing, their plan is to destroy the lives of Maine people. Seth Berry should be deported from Maine.

Comment by Penny Gray on July 8, 2024 at 6:59pm

Saints preserve us.

 

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/

Not yet a member?

Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi 

Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!

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/

© 2025   Created by Webmaster.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service