By Andrew Blunt, Our Power Executive Director
This November, Mainers statewide will take a vote on our electric utilities. They will decide whether the vast majority of Mainers should continue with Central Maine Power and Versant Power, two for-profit corporate utilities, or to replace them with the Pine Tree Power Company, a nonprofit utility, governed by an elected board and focused on achieving Maine’s climate goals.
This question is the most transformative ballot measure for climate that our state has ever seen.
These companies own our electric grid, the network of poles and wires that are the key to our clean energy transition.
Currently, this network is largely owned by large, international, private utility monopolies, and their goal is to make profits for shareholders, not to make progress on climate. And they are clearly not up to the task. In the past they have nullified interconnection agreements with solar companies, fought the initial campaign for net energy billing, among other scandalous anti-climate efforts. And they are willing to spend egregious amounts of ratepayer dollars to lobby, advertise, and manipulate public opinion to suit their business interests.
These anti-democratic, climate-skeptic practices, in addition to record-low customer satisfaction ratings, poor reliability, and high rates, are why Our Power is pushing for a new, climate-focused, non-profit consumer-owned utility, the Pine Tree Power Company.
By purchasing and refinancing our grid at a lower cost, Pine Tree Power will not be burdened by shareholders expecting high returns on investment. Instead, this new company will have access to low-cost capital to double the pace of investment to support renewables and beneficial electrification, keeping costs low as we build out our grid to handle these new electrified technologies.
Multiple studies have estimated $9 billion in savings by making the switch to a nonprofit utility, including the acquisition cost. It’s like buying a house: yes, you hold debt, but you pay less each month than you would if you were renting. Plus, you’re building equity!
We know this model works, both for climate and democracy. Nonprofit utilities already deliver electricity to 1 in 3 Americans in 49 states. Some are rural cooperatives; others are municipal utilities. Not all are clean, but all are democratically governed. And without a need for profit, their infrastructure costs half that of an IOU. Their rates are lower, and their reliability is twice as good.
If we rely on CMP and Versant to build the grid of the future, we’ll be paying out-of-state shareholders to do it through higher and higher electric bills. That means fewer people will be buying electric vehicles, heat pumps, and investing in other electrified technologies. If Pine Tree Power makes these same investments, we can keep bills low and incentivize electrification, a crucial step of moving our state off of fossil fuels.
It is clear that our investor-owned utilities are not the right business model to make a fast and fair transition to a new electrified way of life in Maine. Their current structure provides no incentive to change, and prioritizes maximizing profits above all else. As its legal mission, the Pine Tree Power Company will lead the way to a rapid, just transition. It will boost cleaner and smarter power supplies, system resilience and reliability, and beneficial electrification.
It’s time to make the switch and vote yes for Pine Tree Power this November.