From Senator Mills’ Maine Legislative Report.

Maine pays too much for electricity and depends too heavily on oil and gas. Wind and sunlight are plentiful here. The cost of the technology necessary to harness free renewable power is constantly decreasing while prices for oil and gas are rising unpredictably as they become more scarce.

The Legislature understands that Maine must hedge against over-dependence on hydrocarbons by encouraging private investors to make intelligent, persistent and flexible investments in abundant renewables and other new sources. We must diversify our supply, invest in the smart grid, improve transmission, capture energy capacity for Maine’s own market, and avoid placing too many eggs in one basket. In furtherance of these policies the Legislature enacted three bills this session.

A recent task force on which I served drafted terms and conditions for an energy corridor through Maine using rights of way along existing highways, rail beds, pipelines, power lines or submerged lands. In order to avoid the prospect that such a corridor will prove profitable only to Canadian producers and to consumers in southern New England with very little benefit to Maine, I wrote two conditions that were included in the new law:

1. The corridor will not harm Maine power generators and
2.  The corridor will reduce rates for Maine consumers.

A second bill that I helped to write enables the PUC to enter into a long term contract to purchase power from a deep-water wind pilot project. This will allow Maine to become a leader in developing floating turbine technology to capture energy from the heavy winds that constantly blow 10 to 30 miles off our coast. Benefits should accrue to many Maine companies including BIW, Cianbro, Reed & Reed, and the Composite Materials Lab at UMO.

A third bill, one that I sponsored, sets standards to define the “tangible benefits” that a wind power generator must provide to a region affected by on-shore wind development.