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...

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