Iberdrola breaks ground on $1.4bn Maine grid upgrade

September 29, 2010

Spanish power company Iberdrola broke ground yesterday on its $1.4 billion transmission project set to unlock wind generating capacity in Maine.

The Maine Power Reliability Program will see 450 miles of new or rebuilt transmission lines, along with five supporting 345-Volt substations, over the next five years.

The new power line will pass through 75 cities and towns, connecting with the Canadian grid in the north by the town of Orrington, and with the New England grid near the New Hampshire border to the south.

Iberdrola, the parent company of local utility Central Maine Power (CMP), said the project should support around 2,000 jobs each year of the construction phase.

It is to be the largest electrical infrastructure project in Maine’s history, and the first major grid upgrade in 40 years.

“Smarter, stronger”

“The transmission project will be one of the largest construction projects in Maine’s history,” said Sara Burns, President of CMP. “Our state will have a smarter, stronger grid when it’s complete. While the project is about building critical infrastructure to serve Maine for generations, in the short term it will mean jobs when Maine needs them.”

Maine Governor John E Baldacci, who joined Iberdrola and CMP officials at a ground-breaking ceremony for the project at a substation in South Gorham, described the project as “critical” to the state’s infrastructure.

Gov Baldacci said: “Maine is rapidly becoming a recognized leader in renewable energy development, including wind power.

“We’ve moved aggressively in the State to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, to develop domestic energy resources, and to encourage conservation and energy efficiency through investments in new technology. We need a reliable and effective infrastructure to harness and move this power.”

Smart grid

Meanwhile, Iberdrola also began installation of more than 600,000 new smart grid electricity meters in Maine yesterday, part of a $166 million program expected to be completed in 2012.

The project received $96 million in federal Recovery Act funds to support the upgrade in equipment, which will wirelessly transmit information to CMP and its customers regarding energy usage.

Offering real-time information on electrical usage, the meters are expected to help consumers use electricity more efficiently and help the utility reduce costs, improve planning and identify problems with its network more quickly.

Iberdrola USA CEO Bob Kump said: “Both the transmission project and the advanced meters will yield significant benefits in terms of reliability.

“Just as importantly, because the transmission project is a foundation for the development of renewable energy and the smart grid program will help customers reduce energy consumption, these projects are about protecting the environment for future generations,” Mr Kump said.

Yesterday’s cerebration also saw Iberdrola signing a memorandum of understanding with the University of Maine President Robert Kennedy that will see the power company providing financial support for graduate-level student research in energy technology.

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http://www.facebook.com/karen.b.pease Karen Bessey Pease
As exciting as this article makes it sound, this is a bad plan for Maine, for many, many reasons. The article speaks of new– TEMPORARY– construction jobs, but doesn’t mention the permanent job cuts CMP will be making by eliminating the need for meter readers. The article doesn’t discuss how much of Iberdrola’s ‘investment’ will come from American tax-payer subsidies. It doesn’t mention the loss in property values which many Mainers in those 75 town will suffer when a high-voltage transmission corridor goes through their neighborhood, nor is there any mention of higher rates of leukemia, which is known to be caused by living in close proximity to high tension lines. It wasn’t mentioned that Maine already exports power, and that we do not need the intermittent and unreliable power which wind will produce, nor do we hear about the fact that, were it not for this power which we do not need and which will not stay in Maine, we also wouldn’t need this $1.4 billion dollar infrastructure. We hear nothing about Spain, itself– a country which has been heavily invested in wind, and which has electric rates and carbon emmissions far higher than ours. The article does not mention that Maine rate-payers will have to pay a portion of the cost for this transmission upgrade, even though the power will not benefit us. Nothing was mentioned about the fact that wind has been proven to NOT significantly lower carbon emissions due to the need for back-up generators. Nor will it reduce our dependence on foreign oil, as only a tiny percentage of our electricity in Maine is produced by oil (approx. 1%) What it WILL do is change the fact that we are dependent on the mid-east for oil for home hearing and transportation but now– we can include depending on them for our own home-grown wind, since Iberdrola is partnered with the United Arab Emirates.
There is much that ordinary Americans don’t know about the Administrations’ and the wind industry’s plans for this country and our state. If you are interested in ‘the rest of the story’, please visit http://www.windaction.org, http://www.windtaskforce.org, http://www.highlandmts.org, or contact me at highlandmts@gmail.com. Respectfully, Karen Pease, Lexington Twp., Maine