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Steven Katona, a founding faculty member and president emeritus of College of the Atlantic, co-founded and managed the Ocean Health Index at Conservation International and now consults for a deep-sea mining company on biodiversity and sustainability issues.
To stop global warming and climate change, emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases released by extracting and burning fossil fuels must be reduced through transition to solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources for powering transportation, industry, homes and commerce.
Interconnection of decentralized solar generation to the electrical grid is a leading barrier to bringing renewable power projects online, partly because utilities tend to prioritize their fiduciary duty to shareholders instead of ratepayers, often maximizing short-term profits by delaying or avoiding the costs of interconnections.
Such delays compromise society’s need to reduce fossil fuel emissions, increase future costs we will have to pay as climate change worsens, and impose immediate costs as projects languish in stagnant interconnection queues. As examples, Bar Harbor voters approved a $4.6 million bond issue to construct a large solar array to power nearly all the town’s municipal services. It will save millions of dollars over its lifetime, but its long-delayed interconnection is costing taxpayers thousands of dollars. The Town of Tremont and College of the Atlantic are also experiencing long interconnection delays costing them thousands of dollars too.
I believe a consumer-owned utility (COU) is the best option for speeding interconnection of renewable power to the grid, because it can prioritize that issue in a way that is difficult for corporations driven by returns to stockholders. By contrast, a COU’s “owners” are its participating citizens, so projects with broad social benefits can — and likely would — be undertaken.
On Nov. 7, Question 3 on Maine ballots will give citizens the chance to vote to replace Versant and Central Maine Power with a COU, Pine Tree Power, to be managed by a 13-person board, consisting of seven members elected by Maine citizens and a team of six board-appointed energy experts. That team would contract with a professional grid operator that would employ all other staff, likely retaining most non-executive employees currently employed by the existing companies and honoring their existing labor contracts as well as property tax commitments.
Lest one fear that COUs like Pine Tree Power are left-wing initiatives, consider Nebraska, the only U.S. state with 100 percent of its electricity generated by a COU, the Nebraska Public Power District, but a solidly red state with a Republican governor and a 65-percent Republican majority in its 49-member unicameral legislature.
Nebraska is more than twice the size of Maine (77,347 square miles versus 35,385) with a population only 44 percent larger (1,961,504 vs 1,362,359), but its COU has operated successfully for three decades, demonstrating affordability — fairly stable electric rates for 10 straight years — and reliability — U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks Nebraska among the top states for reliability, beneficial reinvestment of surplus revenues into its electric grid and communities, and local control, since the elected board members live in the communities they serve.
Despite heroic work by linemen and others, neither Versant nor Central Maine Power have performed satisfactorily in those categories.
Nebraska’s experience gives me confidence that creating Pine Tree Power would provide those benefits to Maine citizens and demonstrate the leadership needed to secure a beneficial energy and climate future.
I will vote yes on Question 3 and hope you will too.
