A roundup of energy and environmental news from around Maine

File Photo / Tim Greenway Cameron Wake is UNE’s director of the Center for North Atlantic Studies and director of the school’s new Master of Science in Climate Change Leadership program, launching this fall.

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By Tina Fischer

Maine is seeing a lot of forward motion in the energy and climate awareness sectors. Here are a few of the innovative businesses and initiatives, from Biddeford to Millinocket.

A graduate program at UNE will address climate change

The University of New England will introduce an online master’s program in climate change leadership this fall, designed “for those who want to work on the forefront of climate solutions.”

The curriculum will be offered in a flexible format and there are no prerequisites. The 34-credit program will be accessible to students from all academic and professional backgrounds, at any stage in their careers.

“From the first course in the program, students will be introduced to the intersection of public health, marine science, sustainability and leadership through case studies and real-time discussions with their peers, instructors and academic experts,” said Carol J. Ewan Whyte, director of UNE’s Graduate Programs in Public Health and an associate teaching professor in the new climate change leadership program.

Cameron Wake, director of UNE’s Center for North Atlantic Studies, said the goal is to equip participants with the skills needed to collaborate and make an impact in organizations and communities.

“UNE’s climate change leadership program is truly an interdisciplinary degree designed from the ground up,” he said. “It fully integrates natural sciences, public health and sustainable business into an education on climate change leadership that will prepare students to advance their careers and solve big problems that affect Maine and the world.”

Applications are now being accepted for the fall program.

Castlerock Biofuels to join renewable energy producers at Millinocket site

The site of the former Great Northern paper mill in Millinocket is rapidly becoming a renewable energy hub. The 1,400-acre mixed-use industrial site known as One North — formerly a Great Northern paper mill — is operated by the economic development nonprofit Our Katahdin, which was founded in 2014.

File Photo / Maureen Milliken

The site of a former Great Northern paper mill is becoming a hotbed for renewable energy projects.

The campus is already home to hydropower producer Brookfield Renewable, which owns six hydropower facilities in the Katahdin region, and Ocean Renewable Power Co., which has been operating a testing facility for its hydro-electric system.

Greenbacker Renewable Energy Co. has built a 5-megawatt solar farm at One North, and Peregrine Turbine Technologies is developing a combined heat and power facility that will serve as a bio-mass demonstrator unit for the company’s patented supercritical CO2 turbine technology.

Now Houston-based Castlerock Biofuels LLC, operating locally through its subsidiary EME Biofuels LLC, is proposing to build a facility that turns logging residue into biocrude. The process uses advanced thermal processing technology developed by Ensyn Corp. and its affiliated companies.

The company projects the plant would produce up to 20 million gallons of “fast pyrolysis bio-oil” annually, according to a news release. The facility would be a larger version of Castlerock’s plant in Quebec, which has been producing fuel since 2018.

The process uses a renewable byproduct that would otherwise decompose in the forest, and the product’s greenhouse gas emissions rate would be up to 96% lower than petroleum-based heating oil or natural gas, the company said.

In addition to increased tax revenues and indirect economic growth that the Millinocket facility could spur, Castlerock predicts that more than 300 jobs would be created, across construction, full-time operations and in the forest industry supply chain.

Financing for the project is expected to close this year, with construction expected to follow within six months of the funding closing. The plant is expected to be fully operational in 2027.

Fleet drivers to get a hand with EV charging from AI startup

Making the switch to electric from internal combustion engines can raise a number of questions for drivers and managers of municipal and commercial fleets.

Photo / Courtesy of SBD Technologies

Bill Cooper

Yarmouth-based SBD Technologies is looking to address these concerns with the development of a platform to facilitate charging processes for fleet EVs.

“When they first get behind the wheel of an EV, they have lots of understandable questions,” said Bill Cooper, a former WEX Inc. executive who is co-founder and chief revenue officer for the AI startup.

The platform includes an “AI agent” overlay for fleet drivers and managers with a “fleet assistant” that can help them find and reserve high-speed chargers, and turn on their chargers during non-peak hours, said Cooper, all with a single app.

The platform also facilitates access to AI assistance with account management and reporting.

SBD co-founders are Cooper; Kamal Ayad, the president; and Carolyn Fitzpatrick, chief operating officer.

Photo / Courtesy of SBD Technologies

Carolyn Fitzpatrick

Ayad and Fitzpatrick worked at IDEXX, WEX and National Grid. Their experience at WEX was launching the international fleet card program in over 33 countries, Cooper said.

Cooper was with WEX Inc. (NYSE: WEX), a financial technology services provider headquartered in Portland, for 22 years and then at a few Series A and Series B startups in the software and AI spaces.

“I was focused on North America in the fleet card sales, marketing and relationship management efforts, signing multi-year contracts with Sunoco, Sinclair, etc. and launching a pair of fleet card programs focused on light duty and ‘over the road’ heavy truck programs,” he said.

He also ran the integration of WEX’s 2016 acquisition of Ogden, Utah-based fleet card provider Electronic Funds Source LLC.

Photo / Courtesy of SBD Technologies

Kamal Ayad

SBD kicked off operations in July 2024, and the bootstrapped company is currently speaking with venture capitalists and existing companies to explore potential investments and joint ventures. “We’re in the process of raising our seed round,” Cooper said.

SBD’s app is on the market now as a “minimum viable product,” which provides enough features to be usable by early customers. It’s expected the app will have a full “minimum viable product” launch by the end of March 2025.

Cooper said fleet electrification is a growing trend. “We expect fleet EVs to represent one-quarter of the fleet vehicles in the U.S. and Canada by 2032. The payments associated with charging these vehicles will be over $25 billion annually.”

He added, “We are seeing EVs being adopted in a number of municipalities across Maine. In fact, the city of Portland has an electric garbage truck in their fleet today.”

Over the past month, SBD announced two developments designed to advance the platform’s adoption.

It added Greg Strzegowski to its board of advisors. Strzegowski has 25 years in the fintech sector, including tenures at WEX as well as Georgia and California financial services firms CorPay and Marqeta. He brings experience in corporate development, particularly in acquisitions, sales and fundraising, according to a news release.

SBD has also formed a partnership with Emobi, a charging infrastructure firm headquartered in San Francisco, that’s expected to accelerate EV fleet adoption. The partnership will integrate Emobi’s network of over 120,000 public EV charging locations across 26-plus networks into SBD Technologies’ platform, called FleetCharge.

Emobi’s technology provides accurate and user-friendly EV charger data, according to SBD president Ayad. SBD’s FleetCharge consolidates all charging data and payments into a single, user-friendly platform, providing reporting on energy usage and costs across home, depot and public charging locations.

Cooper added, “We are using their acceptance network at over 120,000 public chargers to open up a universal charging network for fleet drivers.”

SBD is headquartered at 701 U.S. Route 1 in Yarmouth, Suite 4 (in the Patriot Insurance building), and has three full-time employees and a handful of part-timers.