Three interstate natural gas pipelines serving Maine are seeking rate increases that could lead to higher energy prices in the state.
The pending requests are months away from either getting approved or denied but come as regulators and lawmakers grapple with helping Mainers facing the nation’s 10th highest average electricity prices and newer fees from solar subsidies.
Though Maine’s climate goals seek 80 percent renewable energy generation by 2030, natural gas remains a key source for the state and generates more than half of New England’s power. Maine, with nearly 1.4 million residents, uses less energy and natural gas than most states but has the country’s 12th-highest average residential natural gas prices at $21.63 per thousand cubic feet, per federal data.
Three interstate pipelines — Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, Algonquin Gas Transmission and Granite State Gas Transmission — that serve companies in Maine and large electricity generators in New England want to increase rates. If federal regulators approve the requests, then retail electric and natural gas prices will also rise, according to Maine Public Advocate William Harwood’s office, which is participating in the complicated 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, and the Granite State pipeline runs about 86 miles from the Canadian border into New Hampshire and western Maine before also ending at the Dracut hub in Massachusetts.
Maritimes initially sought a rate increase of about 30 percent, while Algonquin proposed an increase of between 30 percent to 50 percent, Andrew Landry, Maine’s deputy public advocate, said. But a spokesperson for Enbridge, the Canada-based energy firm that controls both lines, noted the final rates will not be known until the cases before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission conclude. Those talks are set to continue into the fall.
Granite State, which is owned by New Hampshire-based Unitil Corporation, has not yet formally filed a rate increase request but has reached out to various parties to try to reach a deal without litigation, Landry said. The line does not connect to Bangor so would not affect gas customers in the city, a Unitil spokesperson noted. The company mostly serves southern Maine.
The reasons for the requests include the firms wanting to recover higher operating expenses and the costs of capital improvements while paying more to investors. (Enbridge, with various multinational shareholders, controls the majority of the Maritimes pipeline, while former Versant Power parent Emera Inc. and ExxonMobil own smaller shares.)
Landry noted the rate requests also reflect an acknowledgment of future financial risks related to a broader, longer-term shift away from natural gas. The public advocate’s office said they will challenge the rate increases if the reasons for them are “not justified.”
“These are wholesale prices, so [increasing them] will translate through to retail customers,” Landry said.
