Calais electric utility gets $14.5M federal loan for upgrades
Photo / Courtesy Eastern Maine Electric Cooperative Inc.
From left, Neil Noble, Brent Delnicki, Wesley Barlow and Scott Geel work on improvements during the coop’s overnight planned outage in July 2023.
Construction and improvement of electric distribution, transmission and generation facilities are on the docket for communities served by the Eastern Maine Electric Cooperative Inc. in Calais.
The work will be made possible by a $14.5 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development’s Electric Infrastructure Loan and Loan Guarantee Program, which supports the construction and improvement of electric distribution, transmission and generation facilities in rural communities.
The loan will provide funding for the co-op’s four-year construction work plan, “which will continue to enhance the co-op’s electric system and continue to improve the reliability of the system,” said Scott Hallowell, the cooperative's CEO.
Established in 1940 as Denny’s River Electric Cooperative, it serves an average of 13,072 consumers through 1,740 miles of distribution line and 51 miles of transmission line in Aroostook, Penobscot and Washington counties. It will use the funding to connect 600 consumers and build and improve 73 miles of line, according to a news release.
“Maine’s electric grid is at the foundation of our communities — our transportation network, businesses, schools and families,” said Rhiannon Hampson, USDA Rural Development’s Maine state director. “Local funding alone often is not sufficient to modernize infrastructure.”
In 2016, the co-op began a series of periodic investments in a 40-mile transmission line that’s a key component of the Eastern Maine Electric grid. The project included replacing a number of structures plus reconfigurations and additions of poles, according to the coop’s 2020 annual report.
Last winter was an unusually rough season: The storm that began Dec. 18, 2023, was “the most damaging storm in Eastern Maine Electric’s history,” the co-op’s 2023 annual report said.
Damage included 70 broken poles. Over the next six days, the co-op’s line crews were joined by 22 contract and mutual aid crews, “together forming the largest repair fleet ever deployed by the cooperative.”
“The cooperative’s preparation for storms is never-ending,” the report said.
The included “aggressive” power-line right of way maintenance and clearing performed by co-op employees. Co-op line crews also continued a long-term project of replacing the service territory’s mercury vapor and high-pressure sodium street lights with LED street lights. As of June 2024, over 75% of the street lights systemwide had been replaced.
The co-op warned that inflation will have an impact on the size of planned expenditures for upgrades and maintenance on EMEC’s transmission and substation infrastructure in the years ahead.
In his report at the annual meeting in July, Hallowell said the co-op has several large system-improvement projects planned, with large expenditures that would be impacted by inflation. That includes replacing two substation transformers at approximately $450,000 each. Continuation of a years-long project to rebuild the transmission line presently costs about $1 million per mile, he said. Also on the docket is the rebuild of 10 miles of distribution lines to increase reliability and increase areas that could be back-fed from more than one substation.
USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to support infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access in rural, Tribal and high-poverty areas.
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