AUGUSTA, Maine — At first glance, Maine and Nebraska have plenty of differences.
One loves lobster. The other loves corn. Democrats control the governor’s office and Legislature in Maine, while Republicans do the same in Nebraska.
But the high-profile November referendum in which Maine voters will decide whether to buy out and place the infrastructure of the state’s two largest electric utilities under the control of an elected board could see the Pine Tree State follow the lead of the Cornhusker State.
That’s because Nebraska is the nation’s only state served entirely by consumer-owned power, rather than investor-owned utilities.
Electricity is cheaper in Nebraska, but coal is a key source of power generation. Looking more than 1,000 miles to the west creates talking points in Maine for both supporters and opponents of the Pine Tree Power referendum to form a related but slightly different utility system.
A plan that brought rural areas out of the dark
The genesis of Nebraska’s consumer-owned system was not a referendum but rather state lawmakers, who approved legislation in 1933 that took advantage of federal funding championed by Republican U.S. Sen. George Norris and led to more public districts.
One factor driving the 1930s changes was how small towns and farms in Nebraska remained literally in the dark, as investor-owned utilities viewed it as not economically viable to serve areas outside of America’s growing cities.
Nebraska’s public power districts absorbed investor-owned utilities between 1934 and 1946, and the public model has remained in place ever since.
While the proposed Pine Tree Power Company would take over service from Central Maine Power and Versant Power, Nebraska has 166 community-owned utilities — municipal systems, electric cooperatives and public power districts — providing electricity to every home and business while monitoring more than 27,000 miles of power lines.
That differentiates Nebraska from states with both investor- and municipal-owned utilities. Local utilities in Maine are found in places like Kennebunk, and they exist nationally in bigger cities such as Sacramento, California, and Austin, Texas.
A Nebraska Power Review Board and elected community boards oversee the state’s consumer-owned utilities. Maine’s Pine Tree Power would have a seven-member elected board and six appointed experts.
What are Nebraska’s average utility rates?
This is a key question for Mainers come November, after CMP and Versant approved rate hikes occurring over the next few years.
At 11.88 cents per kilowatt-hour, Nebraska’s average residential electric prices as of May were lower than those of its six neighbors and the seventh lowest nationally, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Maine had the nation’s fifth-highest average residential prices, at 29.26 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to federal data. In comparing Maine, with nearly 1.4 million residents, and Nebraska, with about 1.9 million residents, it is worth noting electricity prices in general are higher in New England than in the Great Plains .
Coal and reliability
Pine Tree Power opponents have pointed to Nebraska’s continued reliance on coal as proof that consumer-owned utilities are not automatically greener than investor-owned models. The trend of renewable energy replacing coal has played out nationally but not as much in rural places like Nebraska.
Coal that comes from Wyoming provided the largest share — 49 percent — of Nebraska’s electric generation in 2022, though the U.S. Energy Information Administration notes that was coal’s lowest contribution rate since at least 1990.
Wind — contributing nearly a third of energy generation — along with nuclear, hydroelectric and natural gas sources accounted for almost all of Nebraska’s remaining energy generation last year. Maine has almost three-quarters of its net electricity generation come from renewables, though it leads the nation with a dirtier source in a different category by having nearly three-fifths of households use fuel oil for heating.
Nebraska’s reliance on coal has given some environmentalists pause when judging consumer-owned utilities. Several of Maine’s major environmental groups have decided to stay neutral on or sit out the November referendum due to feeling utility ownership is not the critical factor in determining whether Maine will reach its climate goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.
Still, various climate organizations have endorsed Pine Tree Power. The Sierra Club said last week Maine’s investor-owned utilities “have delayed and overcharged for clean energy projects” while the state sees frequent power outages.
Pine Tree Power spokesperson Lucy Hochschartner pushed back on utilities’ “fear campaigns” about Nebraska’s climate progress.
“The case could not be clearer — Nebraska has some of the cheapest and most reliable power in the nation, because their utilities are working for their owners, the people of Nebraska,” Hochschartner said.
CMP and Versant have faced repeated criticism for outages and slow power restoration after major storms. In national rankings, Nebraska is near the top and Maine near the bottom for utility reliability.
But Willy Ritch, spokesperson for the Maine Affordable Energy Coalition that opposes Pine Tree Power, said any difference in outages is “due to the nature of the two states — not who owns the electric companies.” Ritch said most outages in Maine result from trees falling on lines, with forests covering roughly 90 percent of Maine and only 3 percent of Nebraska.
What’s the cost?
The foreign-owned parent companies of CMP and Versant have heavily outspent supporters of Pine Tree Power in hopes of defeating it, claiming the buyout would cost about $13 billion. Opponents are also pushing a separate November referendum to require consumer-owned utilities to receive voter approval for borrowing more than $1 billion.
Supporters of Pine Tree Power argue the true costs will be lower and that a 2020 study conducted for the Maine Public Utilities Commission showed high initial acquisition costs could be followed by savings over time with a consumer-owned utility.
Richard Silkman, an energy economist and CEO of Portland-based Competitive Energy Services, said benefits of consumer-owned utilities include they can borrow at lower, tax-exempt rates and do not have to pay returns to shareholders, comparing it to owning instead of renting a home.
No other state has replicated Nebraska’s model. Maine might change that.
“Maine is more similar to Nebraska in population and geography,” Tim Texel, executive director and general counsel of the Nebraska Power Review Board, previously said. “So it could lend itself for public power to work.”
