Workers from Horizon Homes install heat pumps at Homestead Village in Westbrook on Aug. 8. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer
FREEPORT — Maine’s quasi-state agency that promotes energy efficiency says the state is on track to reach its goals in electrifying buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But a business owner at Efficiency Maine Trust’s annual event Thursday questioned a shift in a rebate program to incentivize electric pumps that heat an entire house, rather than a few rooms.
“We’ve been on a pretty good streak lately,” Executive Director Michael Stoddard told heating and cooling business owners and employees.
Heat pumps are “becoming a bigger and bigger part of the programs that we are operating at Efficiency Maine and a bigger and bigger part of what policymakers want to prioritize,” he said.
In July 2023, Maine surpassed its goal of installing 100,000 new heat pumps two years early. Gov. Janet Mills set a new target of installing another 175,000 heat pumps in Maine by 2027. Maine will receive between $45 million and $72 million from Washington to install heat pumps for home heating and cooling and hot water heaters.
Residential electric heat pumps benefit from Efficiency Maine rebates up to $8,000, depending on income, and federal tax credits of up to $2,600.
The Maine Climate Council has set a goal of 487,000 homes – 90% of single-family homes in Maine – that will meet their entire heating load with electric heat pumps in retrofits and new construction. “We are on that trajectory and the policymakers have told us we want you to keep going until you get this done,” Stoddard said.
The state’s Climate Action Plan has established an interim target of 115,000 homes entirely heated by heat pumps by 2030; about 20,000 homes are currently heated entirely with electric pumps.
Michele Putko, chief executive officer and founder of Clean Flame Thermal Solutions, a Cape Neddick business that combines heat pump technology with a fireplace, asked Efficiency Maine officials if whole-home heat pumps would be a harder sell. She cited higher costs and electricity outages that would entirely darken houses that depend on whole-home heat pumps.
“Many of us have concerns about power outages, the expense, all-or-nothing,” she said.
Stoddard said momentum for whole-home heat pumps, indicated by rebates, is not slowing but will require more marketing and education.
“It was a significant shift. It took a little while for people to get comfortable with it,” Stoddard said.
Efficiency Maine’s shift is at least partly intended to make electricity the primary home heat source and discourage a secondary use of oil or gas.
Defensemen Max Wanner was re-assigned to the Maine Mariners from the Providence Bruins on Thursday. Defenseman Michael Underwood was also re-assigned to Maine.
Wanner, 22, was acquired by the Boston Bruins when they traded Trent Federic to Edmonton last March. He played in 15 games for the AHL Providence Bruins at the end of last season, and seven this season.
Underwood returns for his second stint with the Mariners. He appeared in 67 games with Maine last season.
Some hot new titles have been arriving late at Maine libraries in recent months, after the closing of one the country’s major library book distributors.
Baker & Taylor, based in North Carolina, began winding down its operations in the fall and expects to close entirely this month. The company’s demise has left many Maine libraries scrambling to buy books through other sources, including local book stores, and to endure deliveries taking twice as long.
That means patrons expecting to get new books on or near publication dates are waiting longer to start turning pages.
At the Portland Public Library, “Heart The Lover” by Maine author Lily King wasn’t available to patrons until nearly a month after its Sept. 30 publication date, even though it was ordered in July. At the Libby Memorial Library in Old Orchard Beach, John Grisham’s Oct. 21 release “The Widow” took six weeks to arrive. Staff at the Kennbunk Free Library weren’t sure how long they’d have to wait for “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, so they bought two copies at a local store, Octopus Bookshop. As of this week, there were 28 holds on the book.
“Baker & Taylor closing has totally rocked the library world nationwide. It has long been the preferred vendor among many Maine libraries, and their closure is certainly having an impact on us,” said Sarah Skawinski, associate director of the Portland Public Library and president of the Maine Library Association. “I think we’re over the hump now, though.”
Skawinski and other librarians say Baker & Taylor had been having problems getting books from publishers and had been slow with some deliveries, a problem that began during the COVID pandemic. Last year when it became apparent Baker & Taylor was likely going out of business, many libraries switched to the nation’s other major distributor, Ingram Content Group, as well as another company called Brodart Library Supplies. But with increased demand, both those companies have been slow in filling some orders in the last couple months, too.
Industry publications reported that Baker & Taylor’s problems were mostly financial, beginning in the pandemic and included the failed acquisition of another company. An email to Baker & Taylor asking for more information on its closure was not answered Wednesday.
Not every Maine library bought the majority of its books from Baker & Taylor; some used other distibutors instead. Staff at the Waterville Public Library, for instance, say they rarely used the company and weren’t impacted. The Lithgow Public Library in Augusta was only getting about four books a month from Baker & Taylor, said Director Sarah Curra Schultz-Nielsen. Those included children’s books, reference books and travel guides. Finding other distributors for those books, including Brodart and Bookshop, a company that sells mainly to independent bookstores, has been “mildly inconvenient” for staff and has not impacted patrons, Schultz-Nielsen said.
But other libraries used Baker & Taylor for most of its new releases, including fiction and non-fiction, as well to replacements for worn-out books. Stephen King’s books, for instance, have to be replaced pretty regularly, some librarians said.
The Portland Public Library had been ordering about 1,000 items a month from Baker & Taylor, mostly printed books. The library has about 359,000 physical items in its collection. Now, new books are coming to the library from Ingram, but will take maybe four weeks to arrive, compared to one to two weeks when Baker & Taylor was running smoothly.
And there is added work for librarians: While Baker & Taylor sent books that had already been catalogued and ready to be shelved, with bar codes and spine labels, Ingram is not yet offering that service, said Nicole Harkins, cataloging librarian at the Portland library.
“Patrons are aware it’s taking longer and they’re being patient,” Harkins said.
” data-image-caption=”<p>Rosanne Barnes, an adult services reader’s advisor, shelves new fiction books at Portland Public Library on Wednesday. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)
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Rosanne Barnes, an adult services reader’s advisor, shelves new fiction books at Portland Public Library on Wednesday, (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)Kennebunk Free Library also switched to Ingram, and staff are spending more time prepping books, including putting protective plastic covers on them, said Allison Atkins, assistant director and head of adult services. Atkins said library staff wrote about their “book ordering troubles” in a library newsletter and on social media, so patrons would understand why new books were slow to arrive. The library used to get about 100 books a month from Baker & Taylor and despite still being “way behind” on new books, patrons have been patient, Atkins said.
For smaller libraries with smaller staffs, finding a new supplier is not always easy. Baker & Taylor was the major books supplier for Davis Memorial Library in Limington. The staff there is so small that they didn’t have time to research or compare new suppliers, so they waited until early this month, said Heidi Libby, the library’s director. As a result, the library has very few new arrivals on its shelves right now and has been filling the “new book” shelves with donated books as well as ordering from Amazon.
” data-image-caption=”<p>Volunteer Jim Perry covers books with protective covering at the Kennebunk Free Library on Wednesday. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
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Volunteer Jim Perry covers books with protective covering at the Kennebunk Free Library on Wednesday. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
Several librarians said this week that local book stores have been a big help during this period, getting books quickly and pricing them affordably. Sherman’s Maine Coast Bookshops, which has 10 stores across the state, saw its sales to local libraries increase from $50,000 in 2024 to nearly $100,000 in 2025, said Jeff Curtis, owner and CEO of Sherman’s.
The Auburn Public Library would sometimes get more than 300 books a month from Baker & Taylor, including books for adults, teens, and children, as well as fiction and nonfiction as well as some large print books and CDs, said Nancy O’Toole, collections manager at the library.
When Baker & Taylor started having problems, the library bought books from Amazon and the local Bull Moose music and book store chain. Now, with Baker & Taylor closing, the library has switched to Ingram, but has seen delivery delays as that company has been inundated with new customers. This week the library got an order of books that were released in November, including “Exit Strategy” by Lee Child and Andrew Child, “The Seven Rings” by Nora Roberts and “Return of the Spider” by James Patterson.
“The hope is that now that the holidays are over, shipping from Ingram will expedite. But just to be safe, we are choosing to buy certain books elsewhere, including titles by big-name authors, popular series, or anything tied to a fast-approaching holiday,” said O’Toole. “Patrons want to see those titles on the shelf in a timely manner, and we want to make sure we fulfill those expectations.”
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