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April 7, 2010

Law preserves electricity for Millinocket mill

By The Mainebiz News Staff

A law signed Monday is intended to offset the impact of the closure of a Millinocket mill by requiring it have priority for electricity generated by the region's hydroelectric systems.

On Monday, Gov. John Baldacci signed LD 543, which requires Brookfield Renewable Energy Inc. to keep the Katahdin Paper Co. LLC mill, and its sister mill in East Millinocket, as primary customers of its Penobscot River hydroelectric systems, according to the Bangor Daily News. Brookfield Renewable Energy is owned by Brookfield Asset Management, which also owns the two mills. Brookfield Asset in 2008 shut down the Millinocket mill indefinitely and laid off 208 workers because of high oil prices. Local councilors said the law will prevent Brookfield Asset from closing the mill permanently and selling its electricity out of state. The generator owners may offer electricity not under contract to the Millinocket or East Millinocket paper mills to any municipally owned electricity provider serving the Katahdin region.

Brookfield Asset officials still hope to reopen the Millinocket mill, managed by Fraser Papers, with a biomass boiler. Last November, Brookfield Renewable Power submitted a bid to the Maine Public Utilities Commission to supply surplus electricity generated by the boiler to Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. and Central Maine Power Co., in the hopes a contract would help the company find a partner to run the biomass operations. Negotiations on that 20-year contract are still ongoing, according to the paper.

Go to the article from the Bangor Daily News >>

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