CMP slams solar power – again

CMP and Maine’s Public Utilities Commission continue to wage war on solar power. A public hearing next Tuesday offers you a chance to express your disappointment in their latest attach which will make solar less accessible for Mainers by doubling the fee to connect solar panels to the electrical grid.

Here’s the story, with more information about the hearing, from the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

NRCM Alert

 

They’re at it again.

Foreign-owned electricity monopoly Central Maine Power (CMP) and the LePage-appointed Public Utilities Commission (PUC) want to make solar less accessible for Mainers by DOUBLING the fee to connect solar panels to the electrical grid. This is just the latest in a relentless series of assaults on Maine people and the ability of businesses to generate their own power.

Please come to the PUC at 2:30 for a 3:00 p.m. hearing on Tuesday, December 12. NRCM will be there voicing our opposition to this and we hope you will join us. The more people show their support for solar, the better.

The CMP-PUC attack on solar and electricity customers isn’t new, but it is getting worse. Earlier this year, CMP-PUC brought us the net metering rollback that even lets utilities charge customers a new tax on the power they make and use themselves on-site.

This summer, CMP aggressively lobbied against a bill that would’ve overturned that rule and protected all Maine electricity customers from millions of dollars in new costs. This fall, CMP petitioned the PUC to allow an additional charge to solar customers for the extra meters the company will use to calculate its new solar tax! What is going on here?!

Many Mainers don’t realize that CMP is a foreign-owned monopoly that makes its money (a 12% guaranteed rate of return!) by building power lines and poles at ratepayer expense. More solar in Maine means fewer lines and poles, which means less profit for CMP’s shareholders. That’s why CMP is teaming up with other backward utilities from out-of-state, in their coordinated campaign to halt rooftop solar.

We need to be making solar more accessible to all Mainers, if we are to create more jobs, increase our energy independence, and protect our environment. It’s time to put the “Public” back in Public Utilities Commission and stand up for consumers, not monopolies. Please come join us in opposing the misguided new anti-solar interconnection fees and tell the PUC and CMP to stop taking Maine backward!

When: Tuesday, December 12. Please join us at 2:30 p.m. for a 3:00 p.m.hearing.

Where: Public Utilities Commission, 101 Second Street, Hallowell, Maine 04347

What: A hearing on doubling the cost to connect solar installations to the grid

Please let me know if you can attend by emailing me. We’ll have more information and materials for you soon.

Thanks,

Sophie Janeway, sjaneway@nrcm.org
Climate and Clean Energy Outreach Coordinator

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.