Mill restart plan includes selling hydropower
The owners of the idled Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket want to sell hydropower from Penobscot River dams owned by another company back to the power grid, opening a new revenue stream amid tough times.
The Bangor Daily News reported representatives from mill owner Cate Street Capital met with Gov. Paul LePage’s staff and state lawmakers to discuss changing a 2002 law that limited the 48-megawatt dam system owned by Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners to producing power only for the East Millinocket paper mill. Verso’s paper mill in Bucksport and others in the state generate electricity and make paper. Company officials also met with members of Maine’s congressional delegation Wednesday. Those lawmakers did not release details of that discussion.
George Gervais, commissioner of the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, told the newspaper that the governor’s staff and lawmakers are now working on a bill that would allow the mill to work out a deal with Brookfield to sell power back to the grid. The company said it plans to bring back some of the 212 workers it laid off Feb. 6 by May 1.
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