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By many measures, Aroostook County is wealthy in untapped renewable vitality potential. The County and areas round it test all of the bins prized by builders — excellent wind speeds, massive areas of principally undeveloped, flat-ish land for photo voltaic, plus a sparse inhabitants and a basic openness on the a part of native leaders to financial alternatives.

Tapping this potential, for a lot of in Maine’s vitality world, has turn into a holy grail that has remained out of attain for many years, and that the state Public Utilities Fee has now taken a giant new step towards making an attempt to grab.

The rationale for the problem is stunning: Northern Maine is just not linked on to the remainder of the U.S. energy grid. As an alternative, any turbines with extra electrons to promote should take the good distance round — routing energy out via New Brunswick, Canada, after which again into New England and factors south.

It’s an costly detour, which is why the area hasn’t had extra initiatives lining as much as faucet its purportedly wealthy renewable sources — and why some, like ReEnergy’s biomass vegetation, have closed for lack of inexpensive export choices. The initiatives which have succeeded have usually both bought their energy domestically, via internet metering or direct agreements with, say, a paper mill; paid to promote via Canada, as within the case of Mars Hill Wind; or constructed what are known as “generator lead traces,” a lower-voltage transmission possibility to attach a single challenge on to the New England grid.

A brand new state regulation, spearheaded by Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Allagash), required the Maine Public Utilities Fee to attempt to clear up this downside as soon as and for all with a procurement course of, searching for cost-effective choices for transmission, wind, photo voltaic and biomass vitality in Northern Maine. The PUC introduced the outcomes final week, and some days in the past printed scant particulars on the successful initiatives, which face a protracted and unsure street to really being financed and in-built the way in which state officers are hoping.

It’s vital to emphasise that no new wind or transmission initiatives have the inexperienced gentle for development in Northern Maine simply but. The PUC has solely made its picks for what officers wish to see constructed if — and it’s a giant if — the initiatives’ financing can fulfill the legislature’s requirement of “minimizing the price of vitality obtainable to the State’s customers” (extra on that in a second).

When you’ve adopted the CMP hall’s saga, you realize these allowing and financing processes can take years and are stuffed with potential authorized and political pitfalls. The PUC notes this in its order choosing these successful initiatives: “This Order doesn’t handle the myriad regulatory approvals and permits {that a} Undertaking of this nature would require,” it says, itemizing a number of that bidders needed to talk about of their still-confidential functions, together with, notably, “approval by the Maine Legislature for a proposed Undertaking that meets the definition of a ‘excessive impression transmission line’ … with respect to Query 1: Citizen’s Initiative.” That’s the profitable 2021 referendum that has to date blocked the CMP hall and continues to be being litigated in court docket.

With that main caveat apart, we now have our first have a look at the proposals the PUC thinks are Northern Maine’s finest guess to unravel its decades-long renewables export problem. The transmission line, from New York-based LS Energy, would be capable of transfer 1,200 megawatts of energy — the identical because the CMP hall. The wind challenge, which Boston-based developer Longroad Power calls King Pine, might generate as much as 1,000 MW.

For scale, that’s sufficient to energy a number of hundred thousand houses — the precise vary varies relying on a lot of exterior components. Northern New England’s final remaining nuclear plant, Seabrook in New Hampshire, generates 1,200 MW. The electrical energy demand throughout all of New England as I write this, on a gentle weekday night in fall, is about 13,500 MW.

Location-wise, the paperwork linked above present King Pine Wind would come with 179 generators northwest of Houlton. The LS energy line would run for greater than 100 miles, in line with a press launch. Its PUC submitting says it might start at an unspecified “northern terminus at a brand new substation in southern Aroostook County” — the PUC determined in opposition to an elective northward extension of 44 extra miles — and finish at a brand new substation in Pittsfield, theoretically reducing southwest towards Bangor alongside the I-95 hall or thereabouts. It will then proceed through present corridors and substations to the coast in Wiscasset.

LS hopes to have its large state allow (a CPCN, or “certificates of public comfort and necessity”) by September 2023. They’d spend the subsequent three years buying land rights and extra permits, then start development in fall 2026 with a aim of getting the ability line up and operating in early 2029. King Pine’s course of would observe a few yr and a half after the ability line.

The value of those initiatives is probably the most important single variable nonetheless forward. The PUC says the ability line will value almost $2.8 billion, however that the wind challenge knocks almost $1.1 billion off the fee — giving the package deal a $1.7-billion pricetag over 30 years. Massachusetts has already signaled it needs “purchase” a minimum of some energy from Northern Maine — I put “purchase” in quotes as a result of the initiatives’ electrons could be shared throughout the regional grid, as within the case of the CMP hall, however Massachusetts would pay to say among the renewable vitality advantages it wants to satisfy its local weather objectives.

Massachusetts additionally has till the tip of this yr to resolve if LS and King Pine match the invoice for its plans. “This leaves the Fee within the difficult place,” the PUC order says, “of not understanding how a lot of the price of these Tasks Maine ratepayers are being requested to finance. With out this information, it isn’t potential to make a dedication as as to whether the fee to Maine ratepayers is cheap and within the public curiosity. Accordingly … the Fee reserves for later dedication how a lot of the Tasks Maine ratepayers ought to fund. This strategy permits LS Energy and Longroad to maneuver ahead and search companions, which might embrace Massachusetts or different entities, whereas not committing Maine ratepayers to an unknown share of the whole value.”

That is the most important if, as I discussed earlier — whether or not Massachusetts will signal on, and what different companions may chip in to offset all or any cost-sharing for Mainers. Power trade of us I spoke to about this procurement course of in the summertime, earlier than LS and King Pine had been chosen, mentioned it’s all the time been these excessive prices that sank previous efforts to seize the Northern Maine vitality holy grail.

And siting might be an enormous if too, in a state the place teams from throughout the political spectrum have relentlessly fought the CMP hall, a challenge totally paid for by Massachusetts with its energy generated out of state. The Pure Assets Council of Maine, one key CMP hall opponent, lauded the PUC’s Northern Maine picks on the circumstances that they’re “responsibly sited and constructed with neighborhood help” — metrics the place NRCM says CMP falls quick.

However the anti-CMP hall referendum that NRCM helped move created one more new barrier for a long-sought Northern Maine line to clear. We’re simply initially of one other years-long technique of answering these questions, to see if anybody can get the wind energy blowing in Aroostook County onto the New England grid in a manner that helps battle local weather change at a manageable value.

To learn the total version of this text, see Local weather Monitor: New particulars on Northern Maine wind & transmission plans.

Annie Ropeik has been given the keys to the Local weather Monitor e-newsletter whereas its common writer, the Monitor’s environmental reporter Kate Cough, is on depart. Attain Annie with story concepts at: aropeik@gmail.com.