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Maine has the third fastest electricity rate growth in the country and Angus King III’s ” Maine Ratepayers Bill of Rights” will attack this problem in the following ways:
Lower costs by modernizing the permitting process to reduce the cost of developing renewable energy projects. Maine ratepayers can no longer bear the costs of these delays, which have added hundreds of millions of dollars to projects that could have been developed faster and cheaper by up to three to six times in other countries.
To ensure accountability, utilities must prioritize quality, reliability and cost reduction. They cannot continue to build new power lines and pass those costs onto the people of Maine. The way to do that is to incentivize lower costs through performance-based rates. The utilities will pay the price for their inefficiency.
For fairness, data centers will have to build their own power supply, or if they do tie into the local grid, they should pay for the additional costs associated with their gargantuan usage so those costs don’t end up in the laps of Maine ratepayers.
Instead of the knee-jerk reaction of building more power lines, to increase efficiency, utilities should look into existing grid-enhancing technologies that have proven to increase capacity by 30%. This can be cheaper and faster for utilities and ratepayers alike.
Maine should negotiate better energy deals for its citizens and keep renewable power built here in the state.
As an executive with over 20 years of experience advising companies around the globe on energy efficiency and cost reduction, I strongly endorse Angus King III for governor.
Harry Ostrander
Portland
