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Maine energy officials on Friday offered a sober assessment of the state’s reliance on fossil fuels as they released a plan touting advances in electric heat pumps and electric vehicles and outlined ambitious goals for offshore wind, clean energy jobs and other features of a zero-carbon environment.

More than a year in the making, the Maine Energy Plan released by the Governor’s Energy Office boasted of the state’s “nation-leading adoption” of heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, helping to reduce the state’s dependence on heating oil, a goal set in state law in 2011. A technical report in the energy plan demonstrates that Maine’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2040 is “achievable, beneficial and results in reduced energy costs across the economy,” it said.

More than 17,500 all-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or 1.5% of the state’s 1.2 million registered light-duty vehicles, are traveling Maine roads, the most ever, the Governor’s Energy Office said. The state’s network of charging stations has expanded to more than 1,000 ports for public use.

“While the electrification shift will increase Maine’s overall electricity use over time, total energy costs will decrease as Maine people spend significantly less on costly fossil fuels and swap traditional combustion technologies for more efficient electric options,” the report said.

The Governor’s Energy Office spent $500,000 for the analysis and outreach to various groups that participated in meetings organized by a consulting group, said a spokeswoman for the state agency. Funding was from a 2019 agreement related to the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission project.  

Maine remains the most dependent on home heating fuel in the U.S., the Governor’s Energy Office said, and more than half of electricity produced in New England is generated using natural gas. Maine spends more than $4.5 billion on imported fossil fuels each year, including gasoline and heating oil, with combustion contributing to climate change that’s causing more frequent and severe extreme storms, the report said. Last year was the warmest on record, it said.

Several winter storms last year and in 2023 caused more than $90 million in damage to public infrastructure and received federal disaster declarations, the report said.

Petroleum accounted for nearly 50% of energy consumed in the state in 2021, with electricity at 22.5%, wood at 16.3% and natural gas at nearly 11%, according to the state.

Maine has made progress reducing the share of households that rely on fuel oil for home heating, to 53% in 2023 from 70% in 2010. In contrast, electricity to heat homes has climbed to 13% of households from 5% in the same period.

The state still has some distance to cover to reach other goals. For example, the state has set a goal of 275,000 heat pumps installed by 2027.

The report said 143,857 heat pumps were installed between 2019 and 2024, increasing each year, according to Efficiency Maine Trust. And 54,405 heat pump water heaters were installed in the same six years.

Officials also have set a target of 30,000 clean energy jobs by 2030. Employers would have to double the existing number in less than eight years: A study in May 2024 said Maine’s “clean energy economy” accounted for 15,000 jobs at the end of 2022.

The report cites targets for more energy storage and distributed generation, which is power produced close to consumers such as rooftop solar power, fuel cells or small wind turbines.

Among the more ambitious targets that Maine has set for itself is to generate 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2040, a big goal in the next 15 years for an industry that is only now beginning to take shape.

Two energy companies in October committed nearly $22 million in an offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of  Maine. The state’s offshore wind research project, also in the Gulf of Maine, is the subject of negotiations over costs among state regulators, the project’s developers and the Maine public advocate.

In addition, the federal government has turned down Maine’s application for $456 million to build an offshore wind port at Sears Island, complicating the state’s work as it looks to enter the offshore wind industry.

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The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay has big goals for its plants. 

The gardens are now looking to build several new facilities that would total 42,000 square feet and eventually include a collection of all native Maine plant life. 

Since opening in 2007, the gardens have drawn growing numbers of visitors to the midcoast — now more than 200,000 per year — with 300 acres of plants and grounds, as well as popular holiday light displays. But after that immense growth, the organization is now looking to focus more on its research capabilities. 

The expansion, which still requires local approval, would include a 10,770-square-foot administrative and laboratory building, a head house, two greenhouses, a storage building, three hoop houses and several outdoor planting areas. The project would likely cost between $20 million and $25 million, with private grants helping to fund it. Construction could begin as soon as this spring.

Gretchen Ostherr, president and CEO of the gardens, said the expansion would help to pursue the gardens’ larger goal of inspiring connections between people and nature. 

“A part of that design is really about teaching people about plants and about plant conservation, and just really trying to inspire a love of plants, especially in young people, but really kids of all ages,” Ostherr said. 

While the organization currently does field research on plants, it does not have any labs where its scientists can work. Introducing a lab would allow the gardens to take more student researchers, use molecular biology and bring more educational value for visitors, according to Ostherr. 

It would also allow the organization to begin storing more plants in a variety of ways. That would include a collection of seeds from native Maine plants that have been dried and frozen — or “cryo-preserved.” The researchers would also be able to expand their herbarium — which stores plants that have been pressed onto paper — from 20,000 to 100,000 specimens. Ostherr said DNA can be extracted from these specimens. 

Ostherr said the goal is to prevent any Maine plants from going extinct. The herbarium would initially gather specimens of all native plants in the state. Eventually, the organization hopes to gather specimens for all of them in northern New England.

“At the end of the day, we’re all reliant on the plants for life,” Ostherr said. “You know that we will at least have the DNA material, either in seeds or in the herbarium or in cryo-preservation, so that if something happens to a plant, we would have the ability to still study it and potentially even restore it.”

The new facilities would be located behind the back parking lot of the gardens and wouldn’t be open to the public, Ostherr said. However, guests would be updated on the ongoing research by educational signs and classes. 

Ostherr noted that the new facilities would be carbon neutral, using solar panels and electric heat pumps, as well as cisterns to collect and reuse rainwater.