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Feb 10 - Portland Press Herald
Reeling from record-high energy costs and convinced that southern New England is conspiring against Maine, several manufacturers say that Maine should pull out of the New England power grid and plug into Canada's. "We cannot continue to be abused by these southern New England states," said Tony Buxton, attorney for the Industrial Energy Consumer Group. "We are on the verge of a consumer revolution. We have an opportunity to do better." The companies, including Lincoln Paper and Tissue and Isaacson Lumber, support a bill that would let Maine's Public Utilities Commission withdraw from ISO New England, the regional grid's operator. Maine has clashed with other New England states recently over a rate increase to be imposed by ISO New England in a year. The increase would cost Maine electricity users $300 million to $400 million over the next four to five years. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been holding talks for months to resolve differences over the plan. Last week, the Maine PUC abandoned the settlement talks, and now the issue is heading for a legal fight. The settlement is "ill-designed and too expensive, and it has no relationship with competitive markets," Kurt Adams, chairman of the PUC, told the Legislature's Utilities and Energy Committee on Thursday. ISO has been pressing for a new charge to encourage generators to stay in business and to encourage construction of new generators, especially in parts of the region that are short on power. Adams said the charge is a payout to power companies so they will stop legal challenges to a new market-based system for ensuring reliable power supplies in New England. Maine is an exporter of electricity, producing 30 to 40 percent more power than it uses. But because Maine in the late 1990s moved faster than other states in deregulating the industry, it is now unable to use regulatory controls to blunt the impact of the rate increase. As a result, Adams said, Maine consumers would take a harder hit than those in other states. He said electricity rates here could rise as much as 10 percent over the next four to five years. Connecticut, in particular, has failed to build enough plants and transmission lines, and now it wants Maine to help pay for its problem, PUC Commissioner Steve Diamond told lawmakers. Rep. John Brautigam, D-Falmouth, whose bill would let the PUC leave the New England power pool, said the issue is bigger than this dispute over the rate hike. The question, he said, is whether Maine in the long-term should be part of a system that "doesn't care what happens to Maine." The issue has reached a crisis point, said Keith Van Scotter, president and part-owner of Lincoln Paper and Tissue. He said his plant's electricity bill has doubled since he bought the company in 2004. "Electricity is the one thing that keeps me up at night." Steve Bosse, plant manger of Huhtamaki Packaging, said the company's Waterville plant uses 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity per month and its rates will increase four-fold next month when its current five-year contract expires. The rates for Isaacson Lumber Co. in Livermore Falls have already increased 80 percent this year, said Bruce Bernstein, the company's vice president of operations. "We do not need an artificial rate increase like this," he said. "It could possibly be the end of our business." There is a 30-year-old transmission line from New Brunswick into Maine, but it lacks the capacity to handle more power. In a couple of years, there will be a new line that will provide a sufficient link for all of Maine, Buxton said. He said New Brunswick and Nova Scotia would be better partners for Maine because their industries are similar, plus they have similar populations so Maine can be an equal partner. Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 623-1031 or at: |