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Sponsored by: Central Maine Power
October 22, 2023

At Central Maine Power, we’re reimagining Maine’s electric grid

The foundation of our state’s electric grid was established more than 100 years ago and was built to move electricity thousands of miles in one direction - from large power plants to thousands of homes and businesses across Maine.

However, in today’s world, the electricity needs of our customers are rapidly changing. To keep pace with that change, our team at CMP is committed to building the grid of the future while finding ways to modernize it that are cost effective for our customers.

Adam Desrosiers, VP, Electric Operations, Central Maine Power

One example of this is our recent grant award of $30 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program. This funding, which is allocated from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will allow us to deploy innovative “self-healing” smart technologies that will enhance our ability to identify faults and minimize outages, mitigate impacts of extreme weather, and integrate new energy resources like solar. We received this award because the CMP team has the drive, experience, and expertise to transform Maine’s grid to meet 21st century needs.

Through our system planning, we are strengthening our state’s electrical system so it can handle increased threats from stronger and more frequent storms. At the same time, we are modernizing our system so we can continue to support significant economic growth, solar development, and electrification in Maine.

As we progress towards a net-zero future, here are four major factors that shape our approach to building a strong, modern, and clean electric grid.

1. Climate Change. Every year, climate change exposes new vulnerabilities that require planning and investment. By the end of 2023, we will submit a Climate Change Protection Plan to the Maine Public Utilities Commission, which will detail our plan to identify and quantify risk to the grid. Each year we see stronger, more frequent storms, and we are working to improve the resilience of the power system against this growing threat to ensure our communities have access to reliable electricity when and where they need it.

2. Continued Economic Growth. We’re helping facilitate rapid economic growth both in the Greater Portland area and across Maine by connecting large users of electricity to our system. We have done this by making significant upgrades to our electrical infrastructure, and by actively modeling usage scenarios to anticipate how populations will grow. Preparing today for the needs of tomorrow means our communities will continue to thrive.

3. Distributed Resources like Solar Power. We strongly support Maine’s clean energy transition and Maine’s Climate Action Goals. Part of that means connecting as many distributed resources, like solar power, to the grid as safely and efficiently as possible. In fact, by the end of 2023 we anticipate we will have connected more than 500 MW of clean energy from community solar projects to our grid since 2019. That’s enough to power approximately 100,000 homes – and there’s more on the way.

4. Electrification Everywhere. One of the best tools we have to combat climate change is electrification. Whether it’s installing more heat pumps in homes, connecting cruise ships to shore power, partnering with businesses and organizations to install charging stations, or creating pilot programs to better understand how and when our customers are using electricity, our team is building a strong, clean, and modern grid that can support our society’s growing and changing demand for electricity.

None of this work would be possible without our talented workforce of more than 1,000 Mainers, who ensure our grid provides our state with safe, reliable power. We are proud stewards of our electrical system, and our team strives provide the best quality service to Maine’s homes and businesses each and every day.