Staff Writer
HOULTON — Residential electricity customers in Aroostook County got a multi-million dollar break when a new law went into effect June 8 on potential increases if a new transmission line constructed for a wind developer adversely affects them. At issue is the transmission line, called the Maine Power Connection, which was proposed last year to run from Limestone to Detroit. It would have eliminated the local grid administrator and forced Aroostook County utilities to connect to the Northern Maine Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE). By some estimates construction and administration costs are as high as $600 to $800 million which conceivably would be, at least in part, passed on to ratepayers.
“Billions of dollars are involved. Multi-millions of dollars are involved in the windmills themselves,” said Sen. Roger Sherman of Hodgdon who sponsored the bill that passed unanimously in the Utilities and Energy Committee. “Part of the process of putting these windmills up here is to build a power line going south and that power line could cost $600 to $700 million if they go clear down to Detroit or farther south,” added Sherman.
The bill conceived by Houlton Water Company’s (HWC) General Manager John Clark, protects more than its residential electric consumers. He says it also protects ratepayers served by Van Buren Power and Light, Maine Public Service Company and Eastern Maine Electric Utility. Anticipating the possibility that a new transmission line may force Aroostook County into a new power grid, the bill’s author saw a way to protect local consumers from bearing the costs of commercially motivated entities. HWC is a municipally owned electric, water and sewer utility.
“If they did connect us to that grid, our transmission costs would rise dramatically. The purpose of the bill is this — if someone eliminates the existing control area operator that we’re in and connects us to this [new] grid, then they have to hold our customers harmless. In other words, they are required to compensate us for any increased costs caused by this connection,” says Clark. “Of course, the longer this goes on the larger these increases are.”
Sherman said Clark ran the numbers on Aroostook County’s share in the cost from filings with the Public Utilities Commission. “It could add up to $1 million to $1.5 million a year to the ratepayers of Houlton Water Company, alone. I worked as hard as I could to save the ratepayers of Aroostook County some money,” said Sherman.
Thanks to the new law, Aroostook area ratepayers will only pay a proportionate share of the cost of new wires, lines, and poles and not a share of the entire cost of construction and administration.
Last year Brent Boyles, president of Maine Public Service, had announced plans to partner with Central Maine Power Company and invest between $400 and $500 million to build the 200-mile transmission line and related substations in northern Aroostook County.
“We are still pursuing alternatives. We are actually looking to see if there may be stimulus money available in some form or fashion,” Boyles said. He attributes the biggest reason for failure of the first plan to the downturn in the economy, lack of a profit margin and the drop in oil prices that are now starting to creep back up.
First Wind, an independent North American wind power company, currently has two working wind farms in Maine. Its first wind farm in Mars Hill sends power to Canada that is redirected to the ISO-NE grid. The second, Stetson, near Danforth generates electricity that goes directly to the New England grid.
Company spokesman, John Lamontagne, says First Wind has permits in place to expand Stetson and develop its Rollins project, near Lincoln. The company recently filed for a permit to build in Oakfield.`
