“The group advocating for Central Maine Power's controversial proposed transmission line announced Monday that a group of environmental leaders support the project.”
CMP wins key approval for route of proposed $1 billion transmission line
Maine agency staff gives green light to transmission line
“A rural zoning agency's staff has concluded that a proposed transmission line to bring Canadian hydropower to the New England grid meets land use regulations.
The staff recommendation comes ahead of a January 8th meeting of the Land Use Planning Commission, which tabled a previous discussion after a debate over a remote pond.”
CMP power line project complies with state rules, says staff of land use panel
“Central Maine Power’s controversial western Maine transmission corridor is allowed under state land use rules, according to staff at the agency that regulates development in remote parts of the state.
Most of the proposed 145-mile transmission line would run on existing corridors that will be expanded, but roughly one-third will involve new construction in woodland between the Canadian border and Kennebec River that includes two protected areas.”
Maine governor introduces bill requiring 80% renewable energy by 2030
How Central Maine Power plans to keep its vow to improve rural broadband
New England Clean Energy Connect: The myths and the facts
8. Claim: The New England Clean Energy Connect corridor will be 145 miles long and as wide as the New Jersey Turnpike; the pylons will be 300 feet tall with flashing lights.
Fact: The new corridor will be 53 miles long and 150 feet wide, half that of the New Jersey Turnpike at its narrowest point; pylons will be 65 to 100 feet high with no lights.
7. Claim: Decarbonization of the Maine and regional power grid can be achieved through alternative energy sources.
Fact: No realistic strategy exists to decarbonize Maine or New England using solar, wind and battery storage sources alone. Timely decarbonization cannot be achieved without the addition of further hydropower to New England’s base-load mix. (Source: “Fully Decarbonizing the New England Electric System: Implications for New Reservoir Hydro,” prepared by Bruce Phillips of the NorthBridge Group at the request of Central Maine Power and released Jan. 31.)
In A Win For CMP, Maine Utility Regulators Approve 145-Mile Transmission Line
Maine's top energy regulators handed a win to Central Maine Power Thursday in its bid to build a controversial power line through western Maine.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved a "Certificate of Convenience and Public Necessity” that CMP needs to move the 145-mile project forward.
Commission Chair Mark Vannoy says potential harms of the project are outweighed by its benefits for the state.
“When we're looking at the public interest we're looking beyond the local impacts,” Vannoy says.
He emphasized that Massachusetts residents would finance the billion-dollar project under a contract mandated by that state's government for enough renewable energy from Canadian dams to power a million homes.
That energy influx, he says, would put a brake on electricity prices in Maine, while providing a low-polluting replacement for natural gas and nuclear plants in the region that are due to be retired. And, he says, critics’ claims that it would not produce a net reduction in global greenhouse gas pollution are wrong.
By Fred Bever
Conservation Law Foundation: New England Clean Energy Connect Project Passes Major Hurdle
Mills: NECEC project will ‘benefit Maine people’
You know I always expected, and welcomed, a robust discussion regarding the New England Clean Energy Connect project, a discussion that should be based on facts, not speculation and fear.
You may have seen the campaign on Facebook and TV funded by someone who refuses to be identified. Maybe it is one of those big oil or gas companies resistant to the idea of clean energy coming to Maine and New England because they would rather keep us reliant on them.
There has been a lot said about NECEC. I want you to hear the facts directly from me.
So, here is the truth.
During my campaign for governor, I promised to reduce Maine’s dangerous reliance on fossil fuels, to address our carbon footprint and to work hard to prevent and mitigate climate change. I always said that I wanted to see substantial benefits for Maine people before I could support the NECEC project.
Once I took office, I asked HydroQuebec to come to the table and I insisted that the project include electric vehicle charging stations, provisions to support renewable energy, broadband access, and heat pumps, as well as cash relief for ratepayers over and above the benefits of lower electricity prices.
As a result, the stipulation I authorized the Governor’s Energy Office to sign onto is markedly different from where things stood at the end of last year. Many parties including the Conservation Law Foundation, the Acadia Center, electrical union IBEW, the Maine Public Advocate, the Passamaquoddy Tribe, the nonprofit Western Mountains & Rivers Corporation, the City of Lewiston, the Industrial Energy Consumers Group, and the Union of Concerned Scientists all agree that this project should go through. The editorial boards of the Portland Press Herald, the Bangor Daily News, and the Ellsworth American have all said the same.
By all objective analyses, this project will suppress the price of electricity in Maine and across the region, saving Maine residents alone millions of dollars each year in electricity costs.
In addition, a $50 million Low Income Customer Benefits Fund and an efficiency $140 million fund will further reduce electricity rates for Maine consumers.
The energy that will be delivered by this project will be low carbon hydropower from Quebec’s existing system of dams. When it comes to hydropower, water is fuel. For the past two years, HydroQuebec has generated historic amounts of electricity thanks to an increase in rain and snow, and long-term weather forecasts indicate that this trend will continue, providing more power generation. This project will provide the transmission lines needed to take advantage of that additional stored water, exporting it as clean energy and contributing to a reduction in the amount of carbon used by foregoing the use of fossil fuels.
With an investment of more than $30 million in broadband, in education and scholarships, and other community benefits, and another $30 million in electric vehicle infrastructure and heat pumps, this project will boost, not diminish, the Maine economy. And the settlement ensures continued access to the transmission system for existing and new renewable energy projects in Maine.
The project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions in New England by 3.6 million metric tons per year -- that is the equivalent of removing 767,000 passenger vehicles from our roads.
Importantly, the stipulation creates a new special purpose entity -- not Central Maine Power -- to build and operate this transmission line.
And it will cost Maine ratepayers nothing. Massachusetts will foot the bill.
Now I recognize the concerns of those who are worried about the environmental impacts. Already, however, I know that the project has changed a lot to accommodate specific environmental and sportsmen’s concerns. The path of the line has been changed for instance to minimize environmental impact. The line will now run under the scenic Kennebec Gorge instead of over it. And there are proposals to preserve deer wintering areas, revegetate cut-over areas and retain the canopy of tall trees wherever it can.
To put things in context, though, 411,000 acres of trees are cut in Maine every year. The number of new acres that would be felled because of this project would equal two tenths of a percent of what we already cut. This project is undergoing a rigorous environmental review, with public input, at the DEP, at the Land Use Planning Commission, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Presidential Permitting authorities.
The transmission line project, substantially enhanced by this Stipulation, now is poised to benefit Maine people, to inject millions into our economy, to create jobs, to fund electric vehicles, to reduce electricity costs, to expand broadband, and substantially reduce our carbon footprint. I believe that this is a project, on balance, that is worth pursuing.
Janet Mills is governor of the state of Maine.
New England needs more renewable energy. CMP project is part of the solution.
New England, along with the rest of the world, needs to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases to stave off the worst consequences of climate change. To this end, Massachusetts has set stringent greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and accompanied them with regulations to dramatically increase renewable energy use.
Hydro-Quebec says it can generate significantly more hydroelectric power from its dams than it currently does. It is actively seeking customers for that power.
Hydro-Quebec and Central Maine Power Co. teamed up to develop a plan to get the Canadian hydro power to Massachusetts. The Bay State, after a plan to run a power line through New Hampshire was rejected there, chose the $950 million CMP/Hydro-Quebec bid to meet its renewable power standards.
The question before the Maine Public Utilities Commission is whether the project, and its proposed 145-mile transmission line through western Maine, meet the standards for a certificate of public convenience and necessity. This requires an assessment of values such as economic and health consequences, electricity reliability and state renewable energy generation goals.
After months of review and meetings, we believe the New England Clean Energy Connect project clears this hurdle. The CMP project offers a real opportunity to bring new renewable power to the New England energy market. That is a benefit to Maine.
Our support, however, is not unconditional or without reservations.
One of the most debated aspects of the project is whether it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Daymark Energy Advisors, a consultant hired by CMP, concluded in a 2017 study that the project would lead to greenhouse gas emission reductions of 3 million metric tons annually in New England. This is largely because electricity that is produced by burning fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, will be replaced with cleaner hydropower.
Daymark also concluded that the project will save ratepayers up to $44 million a year in electricity costs, in part by reducing the state’s dependence on natural gas and its price volatility. It is worth remembering that Maine still has a plan on the books, approved by the utilities commission in 2016, to spend up to $75 million a year in Maine electricity ratepayer money to build pipeline capacity to bring natural gas, much of it produced by fracking, into New England to produce electricity. Having Massachusetts cover the entire cost of a transmission line through Maine to bring hydropower to the New England electricity market makes much more sense.
Critics of the project argue that there won’t be emissions reductions from the NECEC project because Hydro-Quebec will divert electricity it currently sells to other U.S. and Canadian customers to the new line, leaving these customers to turn to other, dirtier sources of power. This can’t be ruled out, but given greenhouse gas reduction requirements throughout the northeastern U.S. and Canada, and Hydro-Quebec’s stated excess generating capacity, we are satisfied that it is unlikely.
We are, however, concerned that the project will depress the demand for renewable energy development in Maine. But that concern is outweighed by the fact that the CMP project is in front of us right now, rather than a theoretical project that may or may not materialize in the future.
Of course, both CMP and Hydro-Quebec stand to make a lot of money from this project. And, to put it mildly, CMP has significant public trust problems because of billing errors and its response to power outages. But this decision isn’t about rewarding or penalizing these companies — it’s about assessing an energy opportunity for Maine.
We believe that the utilities commission was likely to approve the project even before the addition of a negotiated benefits package. Though it isn’t as large or as targeted as it could be, that package is a positive outcome for Maine. The $258 settlement agreement includes $190 million to reduce electricity rates in Maine, with $50 million direct toward low-income consumers. The individual savings will be small, but this is in addition to the other, larger benefits of the project. The agreement also includes $15 million for heat pumps, $15 million for electric vehicle infrastructure and $15 million for broadband expansion, in addition to other payments to communities and educational institutions.
The settlement agreement helped the project win the endorsement of Gov. Janet Mills — who mishandled an announcement of her support and helped to fuel perceptions of “backroom” dealings but nonetheless reached the right conclusion — along with securing support from other groups, including the well-respected Union of Concerned Scientists.
“This plan to responsibly import Canadian hydropower will complement local and regional investments in energy efficiency measures, solar, offshore wind, and storage,” Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said of the project last month after the benefits package was revealed. “The project will especially benefit Maine residents by lowering their monthly electric bills and providing funds for electric vehicle infrastructure and efficient heat pumps, which will help Mainers wean themselves off fossil fuels.”
The project has to clear many regulatory hurdles — both in Maine and Massachusetts — before it can become reality. Each hurdle comes with complex, and contentious, debate about its benefits and negative consequences. For example, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection will weigh the project’s impacts on wildlife habitat, water quality and other natural resources. Those assessments must be thorough and inclusive of local concerns.
For us, an overriding concern is ensuring that new large sources of clean, renewable energy are brought to the New England market. The NECEC is one part of this puzzle.
Maine Voices: Mills’ support for power line shows commitment to constituents, climate change fight
Read Special to the Press Herald here
By Richard Barringer of Portland is a former Maine conservation commissioner and planning director, and was founding director of the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine.
Around the time of her January inauguration, Gov. Mills promised that she would serve the people of Maine and address our challenges “with an open door, an open mind and an open heart.” In her decision to support the recent New England Clean Energy Connect settlement agreement, the governor has demonstrated this commitment and, as well, her political courage.
In its simplest terms, the agreement will deliver some $260 million in additional benefits to Maine people over 40 years, in return for a new electric power line from the Quebec border to Lewiston, where it will connect to the shared New England electricity grid.
Key provisions include $191 million over 40 years to provide rate relief for Central Maine Power’s retail and low-income customers; $15 million over five years for high-speed broadband infrastructure in host communities, and $15 million over eight years to support heat pump installation.
The deal also calls for $15.05 million over five years to expand the use of electric vehicles and install public charging stations statewide; $6 million over 10 years to the University of Maine System for grants, scholarships and the commercialization of marine wind generation technology, and $2.5 million over 10 years for decarbonization and planning studies.
Benefits to host communities include $5 million to support economic development in Franklin County; $4 million for vocational programs, scholarships and training in math, science and technology for school districts and community colleges serving students in Franklin and Somerset counties, and $1 million for internships and scholarships at the University of Maine at Farmington.
Other benefits to Maine include: $40 million in annual wholesale electric cost savings for ratepayers; stronger state and regional economies based on lower energy costs, and 264,000 metric tons in reduced CO2 emissions every year, equivalent to removing 57,000 cars from our roadways (the regional total is some 3 million tons of emissions reductions, equivalent to 650,000 cars).
There will be $18 million a year in additional property tax revenue in the host communities and 3,500 jobs at peak construction, an average of 1,700 per year. As well, there will be $200 million in grid investment to enhance reliability and renewable-energy development; $6 million in compensation fund payments plus 2,800 acres in conserved land, and $11 million in environmental mitigation spending.
The agreement was carefully negotiated by representatives of our state government, CMP, Hydro-Quebec and individuals from a host of Maine organizations, and has been endorsed by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
If permitted by regulators, the power that will be delivered as the result of this agreement will contribute to achieving Massachusetts’ ambitious energy decarbonization and climate goals – as well as to achieving Maine’s own, specific goals to decarbonize our energy supply system, once those goals are established by Gov. Mills’ proposed Maine Climate Council.
Make no mistake, when it comes to the growing threat of climate change, “no state is an island.” We are in this existential crisis together, and we shall overcome it only together, as a nation and global community, or not at all. Today, we help Massachusetts – tomorrow, it will be our turn.
I agree with Gordon L. Weil, former director of the Maine Office of Energy Resources (Maine Voices, March 4), that Maine will be even more greatly advantaged if the $260 million settlement were to be paid up front rather than over 40 years and invested in the two great, existential crises facing Maine and our governor: the growing impacts of climate change and lagging rural economic development.
There will be no decarbonization of Maine’s energy system without further hydropower, like that from Hydro-Quebec; our wind and solar potential is insufficient. NECEC is proving a difficult decision for us, yet far more difficult decisions lie ahead if we are to deal with climate change and its effects. If we cannot make this one without deep division and even demonization, I fear we shall fail in what lies ahead – and, as well, that our grandchildren will not find it in their hearts to excuse this failure.
Our View: Climate change fight will take many forms
By Portland Press Herald, The Editorial Board
In announcing her commitment to fighting climate change, Gov. Mills made clear she would not wait around for one big legislative package.
Mills committed the state to move to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 in her Feb. 28 speech to the Environmental & Energy Technology Council of Maine. But she didn’t limit herself to any particular tactic.
“Things we can do administratively, we’ll do it,” she told reporters after the speech. “Things that we can do through Efficiency Maine Trust, we’ll do it. Things that we can implement through the universities’ research and development, we’ll do it. Executive orders, we’ll do it.”
That flexibility is important in facing a problem as big and as multi-faceted as climate change. At some point, the state should commit to public infrastructure investment to mitigate the impacts of rising sea levels, such as a $50 million bond issue proposed by Rep. Michael Brennan, D-Portland. But until then, there are other ways to seize opportunities to reduce its carbon footprint.
One of those opportunities taken was revealed last week in documents filed with the Public Utilities Commission regarding the New England Clean Energy Connect project, a transmission line in western Maine that would bring hydroelectric power from Canada to the regional grid.
According to the filing, Mills got involved in the negotiations right after her election, and through her representatives, put a priority on achieving the state’s climate goals. Mills noted that only 9 percent of the state’s carbon emissions come from generating electricity, but half come from transportation. So the companies pushing the plan agreed to pay $15 million to build a network of charging stations for electric vehicles. Because 60 percent of Maine homes heat with oil, Mills extracted another $15 million to put high-efficiency electric heat pumps in low-income homes, which would not only reduce their carbon emissions, but also lower their heating bills.
And added to the balance sheet is that Maine ratepayers would not have to pay for any of these improvements. The entire cost of the project would be borne by Massachusetts ratepayers, who are buying the Canadian power.
The transmission line would need approval from the PUC and environmental regulators before it can be built. It remains a controversial project, but there shouldn’t be any debate that the state’s negotiators were able to exchange their support for progress on important climate goals.
Not every advance in this arena will come without a price tag, but Mills has shown that she will jump on opportunities as they arise.
After eight years of inaction, that’s good to know.
Massachusetts to Maine Governor Janet Mills: Thank you
Massachusetts owes Maine Governor Janet Mills a heartfelt thank you. After just two months in office, Mills has thrown her support behind a plan to run a power-transmission line through western Maine to feed Canadian hydropower into the New England electrical grid.
The so-called New England Clean Energy Connect is a big part of Massachusetts’s plan to increase the clean electricity in our power mix and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Bestowing her blessing is a gutsy move for the new Maine governor, for several reasons. Mills hails from Farmington, a western Maine university community through which the transmission line would run. In her area of the state, the project is far from popular, to put it euphemistically.
Further, the power the transmission lines will carry isn’t for Maine itself, but rather for Massachusetts (and possibly, at some later date, other New England states). But the 145-mile-long corridor, which would run from the Maine-Quebec border south to tie into the New England grid in Lewiston, will require cutting a 150-feet-wide swath through 53 miles of Maine’s north woods; the rest of its length will be through existing power corridors, which will have to be widened.
For her efforts, Mills won herself an attack from anonymously funded TV and social media ads that accuse her of “switching sides” now that Central Maine Power “is offering a backroom deal.”That’s unfair. In a statement in response, Mills spokesman Scott Ogden noted, correctly, that Mills had been skeptical during last year’s campaign because she didn’t think the plan offered enough benefits for Maine, but that the new proposal is very different.
He’s right. Last year, the Maine incentive package was valued at less than $25 million. CMP’s new plan is worth some $258 million over 40 years. The new total includes a $50 million Low-Income Customer Benefits Fund, $140 million in rate relief for Maine businesses, $15 million to help with heat-pump purchases, another $15 million to subsidize electric cars and charging stations, and $10 million for high-speed broadband for communities that host the transmission corridor. That’s a fair deal for Maine. And it comes atop the significant concession CMP offered last fall when it committed to tunnel under, rather than run lines over, the Kennebec River Gorge, a mecca for whitewater rafters in Maine.
But the new benefits have hardly resolved the controversy over the corridor in Maine. The Natural Resources Council of Maine, a pillar of Maine’s environmental establishment, remains opposed, as does an array of other groups.
The state’s Public Utilities Commission will make a decision on the project in the next month or so. Other regulators also still need to bless the project, and since it crosses an international border, it needs approval from the Trump administration, too. Still, having Mills’s support matters. She made the call here. Yes, this project will have some negative environmental effects on Maine, but as Mills said when giving it her approval recently, “[T]his is a project that is, on balance, worth pursuing.”
However, that conclusion was hardly a slam dunk for any politician, let alone one from western Maine. Here, Mills has risen above the NIMBYism that can be almost reflexive on projects like this. Instead of taking the easy way out, she has put some of her political capital on the line to boost the broader clean-energy cause.
Gov. Mills’ support for CMP project a reality-based stance
Read letter to the editor here
Gov. Mills is to be commended for following through on her promise to make climate change a top priority of her administration.
After expressing doubts about New England Clean Energy Connect, a project to bring hydro electricity from Quebec into the New England market at Lewiston, she took a hard look at the project and, when significant greenhouse-gas reductions were confirmed and over $250 million in new benefits for Maine were secured, she threw her support behind this clean-energy deal.
The governor is in good company. The Conservation Law Foundation, one of New England’s oldest and most respected environmental advocacy organizations, helped negotiate the agreement with Central Maine Power that led to funds for broadband, electric vehicles and charging stations, offshore wind research, and support for a long-term plan to de-carbonize the region and other benefits.
The foundation is now a strong supporter of NECEC.
For too long, government and environmental community leaders have avoided leveling with Maine people about climate change, offering feel-good solutions instead of discussing the trade-offs required to significantly reduce carbon emissions.
As a former state conservation commissioner, I’ve been all over the area where the new corridor will run. It is a working forest, bisected by hundred of miles of permanent logging and access roads. It’s not a pristine wilderness. If we have any hope of arresting climate change, we are going to need more transmission lines moving clean energy from solar, wind, hydro, battery storage and other not-yet-developed technology. This is a trade-off we will have to make to avoid ecological and human catastrophe.
The threat to our boreal forests and cold-water streams and air quality is not from transmission lines – it is from continued reliance on burning natural gas and oil to produce our electricity, which emits enormous amounts of carbon pollution into our atmosphere.
Action now is necessary. Let’s move forward in permitting New England Clean Energy Connect.
Richard Anderson
Portland
Read Mills’ statement on her support of CMP’s controversial transmission line
Mills, 2 Environmental Groups Back CMP’s $1 Billion Western Maine Transmission Project
By Fred Bever
Two regional environmental groups and Gov. Janet Mills' administration are signing on to Central Maine Power's bid to build a controversial new transmission line through western Maine's forests.
The billion-dollar project would bring relatively low-polluting electricity from Canada’s Hydro-Quebec dam system through Maine to customers in Massachusetts.
CMP’s incentives package includes tens of millions of dollars to rebate purchases of pollution-reducing technologies, such as heat pumps and electric cars. It also includes funding to reduce Mainers’ electricity rates, on average, somewhere around $1.50 a month.
Gov. Janet Mills’ office of energy independence is signing off on the proposal. In a press release issued Thursday morning, Mills said she authorized further review of the project in an effort to reduce electricity costs for Maine ratepayers.
"By all objective analyses, it will suppress the price of electricity in Maine and in the region, saving Maine residents millions of dollars each year in electricity costs," she said in the release.
Sean Mahoney, director of the Conservation Law Foundation Maine chapter, says more important than CMP's significant incentives, the project will reduce New England’s overall reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
“We’re going to be faced with a host of difficult decisions over the next two or three decades as we try to get our arms around the impending disaster of climate change,” he says.
The Maine-based environmental group the Acadia Center is also lending its support.
Opponents argue that the project will irrevocably damage Maine’s western landscape, wildlife habitat and recreational potential. And they say there is no guarantee that Hydro-Quebec will actually boost its output of hydro-electricity to serve the new contract.
“CLF has not been able to explain to us in terms we can understand, why they think there are climate benefits to this. We think they are flat wrong,” says Nick Bennett, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Council of Maine.
State utility and environmental regulators have yet to weigh in.
This story will be updated.