Regulators and three natural gas pipelines serving Maine have reached agreements on rate increases that advocates said are smaller than anticipated but may still lead to higher prices for customers.
Specifics on the changing rates tied to the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, Algonquin Gas Transmission and Granite State Gas Transmission, which serve businesses and large electricity generators in the region, are still under wraps and will need federal approval later in 2025. But the parties confirmed they reached agreements following months of negotiations.
The Maritimes pipeline runs 684 miles from Nova Scotia to Dracut, Massachusetts, entering Maine near the Washington County town of Baileyville. The Algonquin pipeline runs 1,131 miles from the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border to the Maritimes line in Massachusetts. The Granite State pipeline runs about 86 miles from Haverhill, Massachusetts, to just north of Portland.
While not every detail has been made public, the owner of the Granite State line that runs through southern Maine said as an example that the average residential heating customer is seeing a roughly 2.6 percent increase in their heating bill, which is about $4 a month or $24 for the season.
A spokesperson for Unitil Corporation, which owns the Granite State line, noted its natural gas customers in the Bangor region are not served by the line and will not see rate changes. Enbridge, a Canada-based energy firm, controls the Maritimes and Algonquin pipelines and said agreements have been reached “in principle” with customers and federal regulators.
Additional rate-related details were not yet finalized, but Maine’s public advocate said all of the settlements “provide for significant reductions” from the increases initially sought. Andrew Landry, Maine’s deputy advocate, said last year Maritimes initially sought a rate increase of about 30 percent, while Algonquin proposed an increase of between 30 percent and 50 percent.
Public Advocate Bill Harwood, whose office participated in the settlement negotiations on behalf of Maine ratepayers, said his office also sought provisions in the agreements that will require utilities to report greenhouse gas emission data and mitigation efforts. Harwood’s office noted natural gas pipelines are a significant source of methane release, and methane is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Though Maine’s climate goals seek 80 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, natural gas remains a key source for the state and currently generates nearly half of New England’s power.
“The settlements allow for the continued, reliable delivery of energy to the Northeast,” Enbridge spokesperson Melissa Sherburne said Friday.
