Electric bills on Matinicus Isle are expected to increase this summer after the island’s government upgraded its aging power system and are now looking to make it financially sustainable.
The community on Maine’s most remote inhabited island is home to more than 100 people in the summer but only 20 or so in the winter. Without a utility cable connecting Matinicus to the mainland 15 miles away, the plantation and its board of assessors run the power grid that has long relied on diesel fuel as the only source of electricity.
Matinicus has long kept rates steady and operated its power company at a loss. While most mainland Mainers pay 13 cents per kilowatt hour for power, it is 30 cents on the island. But it costs 50 cents to generate that power, Paul Davies, a former finance professor who moved to the island in 2021 and has helped update the power grid told assessors in February.
Rising electric prices have been a theme of the past few years in Maine. But the situation facing Matinicus is unique; the remote island is trying to diversify from diesel fuel and charge its customers for the power they consume.
“We’re talking about making some sort of adjustment in order to make sure that the cost of electricity is basically paid for by the users of the electricity,” Matinicus clerk Eva Murray said. “Rates out here have always been very high because we’re very isolated. It’s something like an Alaska-type setting.”
Rates have long been high because it’s expensive to bring diesel fuel to an island accessible only by air and occasional ferries. Until last summer, that was its only source of power. Last year’s overhaul required a $940,000 loan that the new rates will help pay back.
The first rate hike came last summer. The Maine Public Utilities Commission prevents any utility from raising rates too steeply within a given year. Longtime assessor Clayton Philbrook said the board plans to raise rates by up to 15 percent per year until the system largely pays for itself.
But he added that he wants all taxpayers, including the many residents who do not remain on the island year-round, to continue subsidizing the service because of the added property value that comes with a reliable electric system.
“If you own anything on Matinicus, even if you don’t have a house on it, just the land, it’s worth more because we have full time power and a reliable system,” he said.
Getting power to Matinicus has never been simple. Until the 1960s, if a resident wanted to use electricity, they would have to power on their own individual generator. Last year, the plantation replaced its public diesel generator for the first time since the 1980s after it aged to the point where the community could not buy parts for the engine.
“It was just time to do it,” Philbrook said.
The plantation replaced the old generator with a pair of new diesel generators and energy storage infrastructure. Davies, the finance professor, helped out with the project and installed a half-acre solar array on his property. The town may soon purchase power from him on top of using its own generators.
The project was approved in April of last year, and the new generators were up and running on the Fourth of July. Assessor Ellen Bunker said the system update meant the town was looking at the utility company with fresh eyes.
“Part of our hope as we move forward with this new system … is to eventually get [the company] to be a more financially independent entity,” she said.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
