Group to challenge CMP-related wind project
An industry group consisting of paper mills and other large power users is planning to challenge a major wind project in Somerset County being proposed by a subsidiary of Central Maine Power’s parent company.
The Portland Press Herald reported that the Industrial Energy Consumer Group is questioning whether the West Range Wind proposal by Iberdrola Renewables complies with the state’s deregulation rules that requires power generators and distribution utilities to be separate. The Maine Public Utilities Commission will begin discussing the project next week.
The Industrial Energy Consumer Group said it is concerned that the project would be treated favorably as a power generator by CMP, a distribution utility that is owned by Iberdrola Renewables’ parent company, Spain-based Iberdrola S.A. The question of favoritism was previously raised by a proposed partnership between Boston-based First Wind and the parent company of Emera Maine, but that partnership has since dissolved.
Paul Copleman, a spokesman for Iberdrola Renewables, told the newspaper it’s not likely that CMP would give favorable treatment to the wind project.
“CMP has to treat us like any other developer in the process,” he said. “We’re two different companies with a set of rules about how we interact and do business.”
Jeremy Payne, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, told the Press Herald he doesn’t think it would present a conflict if CMP connected the wind project to the electricity grid.
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