What I'm hearing

💡 Stranded costs come up for discussion again in Augusta.
◉ I'll keep this fairly brief and as simple as possible, as energy policy is usually not the easiest thing to follow. But the three-member Public Utilities Commission took up interesting things during one of its typically quick and efficient meetings Tuesday morning.
◉ The item I listened for relates to a stranded cost rate design case. The Industrial Energy Consumers' Group, which includes Maine paper companies, ski resorts and gas companies, ask the PUC to essentially to speed up on implementing a bill from Sen. Nicole Grohoski, D-Ellsworth, that the Legislature and Gov. Janet Mills approved nearly unanimously in June to end a rate discrepancy felt by utility customers in northern Maine.
◉ Solar projects that have been much the subject of much debate in the state can pass on "stranded costs" to Central Maine Power and Versant customers even if they do not subscribe to the community solar programs. In Aroostook County, residential, agricultural and business customers — such as french fry maker McCain Foods in Easton — have been facing higher bills. Tony Buxton, the Preti Flaherty lobbyist who represents the IECG, said it has been as much as a 150 percent higher net energy billing cost disparity between northern Maine residential customers and CMP's residential ratepayers.
◉ Amid all of that, the IECG group of allies that includes ski areas, potato producers and blueberry growers asked the PUC to more quickly implement the new law to basically redesign the rates and help lower NEB costs. But the law gives the commission until Oct. 1 to do that, and large generators such as CMP and dam owner Brookfield asked the PUC to stay on that schedule.
◉ PUC Chair Phil Bartlett and commissioners Carolyn Gilbert and Patrick Scully essentially decided Tuesday to do just that but still work "expeditiously," as Buxton described Bartlett as saying.
◉ The somewhat tough-to-follow rate design changes may not always look like much in terms of dollars and cents savings, but Buxton told me, "You gotta take 'em when you can get 'em."
◉ As we've seen each legislative session, the issue of energy costs and who is paying what will probably keep returning.

News and notes

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