Success Story: Community in Maine Successfully Proposes Alternative to Transmission Line

Here is a story that is remarkably similar to what our community is facing with PSE’s “Energize Eastside” project.  Maine’s power utility claimed that Boothbay Harbor needed a new transmission line to meet a their forecasted peak power demands.  An alternative solution was proposed, using modern solutions such as solar, energy storage, and on-demand generators.  Although their problem was meeting peak summer demand, many of the solutions they embraced would also work for our winter peak demand. Regulators agreed and cancelled the transmission line project.  The peak power scenario that was forecasted never materialized, proving that the transmission line would an expensive and unnecessary solution.  The community saved millions of dollars in rate hikes and now has a smarter, distributed power grid.

Read the story here, or listen to it here

 

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Federally Mandated Profit…

The story also mentions the prime motivator for transmission lines; a federally mandated profit of 11 percent for infrastructure projects that are “required” for grid reliability.  As we have previously claimed, this is certainly PSE’s motivation for installing the new transmission lines.