Maine regulators will map out the next decade's demands on the power grid

FILE PHOTO / COURTESY, CMP Last year, Central Maine Power was awarded $30 million in federal money to make the state's power grid less susceptible to outages through intelligent, "self-healing" technologies.

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By Laurie Schreiber

An initial 10-year plan by the state for guiding Maine's electric utilities includes goals of improving the reliability and resilience of the power grid system in the face of climate change — while also keeping costs affordable for consumers.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission announced the plan last week.

"These grid plans will assist in the cost-effective transition to a clean, affordable and reliable electric grid," said Philip Bartlett, the commission’s chair.

The commission’s action stems from legislation in 2022 to strengthen oversight of Maine’s electricity transmission and distribution utilities and to modernize the grid.

Priorities include:

Invest in climate adaptation solutions as part of overall improvements in reliability and resilience;
Improve data quality and integrity to maximize its use in distribution system planning;
Improve mapping of the distribution system and develop a governance policy or protocols for maintaining the integrity of the data on an ongoing basis;
Develop a roadmap for advancing planning models;
Promote flexible management of resources and energy consumption;
Improve forecasting for electric vehicle load, distributed energy resources adoption, and climate parameters;
Support technologies or programs to shift load from system peaks.

The commission issued an order that requires utilities to develop grid plans, with stakeholders, for the next 10 years. The plans are to include proposed investments and proposals to track their impact on the environment, equity and environmental justice.

The order follows legislation enacted in 2022 that required Maine’s two investor-owned utilities to develop a cost-effective transition to a clean, affordable and reliable electric grid.

The Maine Governor’s Energy Office said it welcomed the commission’s order.

“With this order, the PUC incorporated substantial input from the public to establish priorities for Central Maine Power and Versant Power to address in their first-ever integrated grid plans as required by law,” said Dan Burgess, director of the Governor’s Energy Office.