“Pine Tree Power will lower Maine electric bills.”

FALSE.

Analysis shows that Pine Tree Power will increase the cost of electricity to Maine’s residential and commercial consumers.

“Given the transaction costs for setting up the MPDA and the acquisition price for the T&D assets may be a premium over current NBV, electric ratepayers may see an increase in electric rates for some period of time”

“Higher electric rates in the short term may also detrimentally impact some commercial and industrial electric customers, which can lead to negative ramifications for Maine residents employed by these companies.”

Source:  London Economic Institute report outlines increased rates under the proposal

“Pine Tree Power will bring local control to Maine’s electric service”

FALSE.

Pine Tree Power will hire out-of-state, for-profit companies to run Maine’s electric grid. This means displacing Maine workers and turning over our system to corporations who don’t know anything about Maine or our needs.

“MPDA must retain a for-profit contractor that will assist it in operating the T&D assets; the contractor will be selected through a competitive tender process;”

“Finally, LD 1646 also conditions the continuity of local tax payments on MPDA having “revenues [that] exceed current expenditure and necessary reserves.” Therefore, there is a risk that local communities may see a loss in tax revenues. Such an outcome may require tax rate increases for residents or a reduction in local public services.”

“However, the Project Team recognizes that the MPDA as described in LD 1646 does not entirely reflect the concept of “local” control, which was one of the enumerated objectives of the legislation.”

Source: Local Control/Private Corp: LEI Report Outlines Challenges of Local Control and Private Corp

“Pine Tree Power will reduce power outages”

FALSE.

There is currently no plan whatsoever to manage this massive, multi-billion dollar proposal.

That’s right — No plan for keeping the lights on during emergencies or inclement weather and no plan for keeping Maine’s power grid up-to-date.

Question 3 leaves all of these things in the hands of a few politicians.

“While claims have been made publicly that consumer-owned utilities have better reliability than CMP, this is misleading. In fact, when compared to comparable consumer-owned utilities in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, CMP has had lower outage frequency and duration over the last five years.”

“In addition to EMEC, Concentric has compared CMP’s reliability to other comparable consumer-owned utilities in northern New England, namely, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (“NHEC”), and Vermont Electric Cooperative, Inc. (“VEC”). EMEC, NHEC and VEC have relatively large service territories with characteristics more similar to CMP. When comparing reliability experience over the most recent five years for which there is data available (i.e., 2015-2019), CMP’s outage frequency and duration have been consistently better than EMEC, NHEC and VEC. Figure 4 reflects the range of the SAIFI and SAIDI measures during the past five years.”

Source: Concentric Energy Advisors white paper outlines lower reliability with COUs