“A step towards Maine’s clean energy future”
Maine
creates more than half of its electricity from fossil fuels, at our
peril. We also use heating oil and natural gas to heat our homes and
businesses. In addition to creating air and global warming pollution,
these resources are finite and are not found in Maine. Fortunately,
Maine has abundant sources of renewable energy and energy efficiency
resources that we have only begun to tap. Wind, solar, clean biomass
and low-impact hydro energy sources are renewable, create negligible
environmental damage and could supply Maine with its future energy
demand.
Already,
dirty energy causes massive, largely undocumented costs to public
health, the environment and tourism industry. Summertime smog chokes
the breath of residents and visitors alike, contributing to Maine
attaining the highest rate of childhood and adult asthma in the region.
Haze drastically cuts the visibility at Acadia National Park and other
recreational and tourism destinations. Mercury contamination makes
Maine’s fish unsafe to eat for children and women of child-bearing age,
and threatens the long-term health of loons and other wildlife.
Additionally, nuclear waste is still stored in insecure, non-permanent
facilities at the decommissioned Maine Yankee nuclear plant site. Oil,
coal, gas, or nuclear power will not lead us towards a clean energy
future – and the social and environmental costs of continuing on that
path are unreasonable.
Meanwhile,
Maine wastes more energy than it needs to and passes up consumer
savings in the process. According to studies by several academic and
expert organizations (including the Public Advocate Office), Maine has
captured only one-fifth of the achievable energy efficiency that could
be achieved through various programs, standards and incentives. In
fact, we could flatten and reduce electric demand over the next 10
years by tapping into all of our achievable energy efficiency. Besides
the environmental benefits of trimming energy use, the kilowatt that we
don’t use is two to three times cheaper than the kilowatt generated
dirty power plants or renewable power projects.
Maine’s
reliance on dirty energy sources has started to take a direct financial
toll on the residents and businesses of the state. As supplies of
fossil fuels get tighter, and infrastructure and political problems get
worse in parts of the world where fossil fuels are located and
processed, fossil fuel supplies get more costly. The cost to heat
households and businesses has spiked for both of the past two winters,
while the cost of residential Standard Offer electricity has increased
at 15 percent and 25 percent in March 2005 and March 2006. The only
thing that kept Maine from having serious energy problems this year (as
the State of Texas currently is experiencing) was an abnormally warm
winter.
Fortunately,
Gov. Baldacci and members of the Legislature’s Utilities and Energy
Committee have grasped the problem and taken steps to move Maine in a
better direction. The Utilities and Energy Committee recently gave its
unanimous approval to legislation that would help reduce Maine’s
reliance on fossil fuel generated electricity and overall electricity
demand. The bill, LD 2041, would put energy efficiency programs on
equal footing with power plants and set goal of 10 percent new
renewable energy by 2017, among other energy policies. This bill
deserves to be passed by the full Legislature.
This
legislation, LD 2041, would take meaningful steps towards promoting
energy efficiency and renewable energy. Specifically, LD 2041 would
authorize the PUC to treat energy efficiency as a resource for meeting
Standard Offer supply. In other words, instead of negotiating with a
power plant to produce a specified amount of power to satisfy demand,
an energy supplier would negotiate with Efficiency Maine or other
efficiency programs to save a specified amount of power to reduce
demand. The bill also sets a goal of Maine generating 10 percent more
new renewable energy generation by 2017 and authorized the PUC to order
the utilities to buy electricity in long term contracts from renewable
energy capacity resources in order to meet the 10 percent goal. It
would further prioritize energy efficiency and renewables by
authorizing the PUC to direct Maine’s two largest utilities to enter
into long term contracts in order to address capacity adequacy or to
mitigate effects of capacity mandates from ISO-NE such as the LICAP
program that FERC is now considering. The bill sets priorities for
long-term contracts with energy capacity resources in the following
order of priority: new energy conservation or energy efficiency
resources, new renewable energy capacity, new energy capacity with no
net emission of green house gases, and -- finally—capacity from any
other energy generation source.
This
is a timely bill that deserves to be speedily approved by the
Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Baldacci. The Maine Public
Utilities Commission should follow through with implementation of this
legislation. Elected officials also should promote further efforts to
reduce the amount of energy we waste and increase the amount of clean
energy we produce from renewable sources in our state. Moving Maine
towards a clean energy future will avoid environmental damage, diminish
public health consequences, lower consumer energy prices and reduce our
reliance on imported fuel.
Matthew Davis, Advocate
Environment Maine advocates for clean air, clean water and open spaces on behalf of 3,500 members statewide.
Steve Ward, Public Advocate
The Office of Public Advocate is an 8-person state agency that advocates for the interests of utility consumers in Maine.
