If you voted “yes” on November 2nd to stop the CMP Corridor you were in good company. An extraordinary number of voters for an off-year election drove to the polls or, like me, mailed in a ballot. 59% of all Maine voters supported the measure and, if you were between the ages of 18 and 34, 83% of your voting peers agreed with you.
We managed to see through the lies told by the flood of expensive CMP advertising and see that CMP did not have the best interests of Mainers or the environment at heart, and decided to take a stand at the polls.
Despite the vote, CMP is continuing to clear cut through the heart of the Maine woods and erect power lines. Not only that, but they filed a 36-page lawsuit against the state of Maine saying the state had already issued the permit and it was unlawful of them to revoke it.
We can–and should–continue to show up at protests and write to our representatives to ensure the peoples’ will is enforced, but we also urgently need to think bigger about the energy future we want in Maine. A lot more is at stake than just this power line. We have the opportunity to create something that more directly benefits Mainers rather than some far-off investor.
One of the most exciting and promising changes in Maine right now is the rise of consumer-owned utilities (COU). COUs are electricity companies owned by the people who depend on them. They have proven more reliable, less expensive, and better at incorporating renewable energy sources than their investor-owned counterparts.
COUs can also be more adaptable to the extreme weather events that are becoming more common. They are less profit driven and more community oriented than utilities beholden to investors. Better disaster preparedness is a direct result of COU customers having a say in the values of their utility company. Without the pressure from investors to turn a large profit, utilities can focus more of their resources on locally tailored disaster preparation instead of cheaper and riskier blanket approaches.
Nine COUs currently serve 97 Maine towns. But to solve the frustrations caused by high prices and sloppy billing practices of CMP and fast-track Maine’s progress towards 100% renewables, COUs need much more support.
While the rest of us were tied up in the CMP Corridor debate, a group of energy, financial, and legal sector experts, as well as environmental and social activists and concerned citizens, were crafting a grand new vision for Maine’s energy future–Pine Tree Power Co.
Bigger than any of Maine’s COUs thus far, Pine Tree would give Mainers an alternative to CMP and provide them with the dependable and accessible power they need. Our Power, the group behind the Pine Tree Power Co. initiative, expects the transition could be done relatively easily. It would retain workers currently working for CMP and use the existing grid to deliver energy. With Pine Tree Power, paying electricity bills means keeping the money in the Maine economy instead of forking it out to Iberdrola, the Spain-based company that owns Avangrid, CMP’s parent company.
Maine’s energy grid badly needs updating–especially if we’re going to add a lot of solar and wind in the next decade. CMP has little interest in improving the grid beyond what’s needed to retain customers so it can pay its shareholders. Anti-renewable energy policy also benefits the company by maintaining the status quo and eliminating the need for the company to invest in energy sources that don’t boost its bottom line. Is this really the type of utility we want to be relying on for our power? With Pine Tree Power, the values of real Mainers would be better reflected in the values and actions of the company that serves us. And if we decide we care about strengthening the grid and incorporating renewables, this type of utility could help us do that.
While Maine is already one of only seven states committed to reaching 100% renewable energy, we can reach this goal a lot sooner than 2050 with the help of Pine Tree Power. COUs are the future, and the sooner we can get Pine Tree Power up and running the better off Maine will be economically and environmentally.
We don’t need the deeply politicized and profit-driven “help” from CMP to reach our goals and secure our energy independence. By supporting COUs like Pine Tree Power, we can do it ourselves.
https://ourpowermaine.org