The following article was shared on the Landowners’ Voice Substack and includes important information for rural Maine.
National Grid Meets with Albion Representatives
One of four bidders to ISO-NE, National Grid wants to build transmission in rural Maine
National Grid, one of four bidders on ISO-New England’s Long Term Transmission Planning (LTTP) project, met with representatives from Albion and Preserve Rural Maine this week to discuss their bid for the LTTP project. Their bid includes running a new transmission line through Albion. This new transmission line would run close to the existing transmission line corridor, though not inside that corridor. It would, by necessity, mean that National Grid would have to obtain new easements from property owners.
When asked, National Grid stated that they would abide by local ordinances, but that their bid could not be substantially altered. Albion residents passed a transmission line ordinance governing where and how transmission lines could be built within the town. This ordinance requires that all transmission lines (over 35 kV) built in Albion must be buried. National Grid’s proposal for the LTTP includes the portion of the transmission in Albion to be overhead transmission and would carry 345 kV of electricity.
Both things cannot be true at the same time – either National Grid will abide by the local ordinance or National Grid will need to modify their bid with ISO-NE.
National Grid representatives did state that eminent domain is considered a last resort for obtaining easements to build the transmission line. When asked whether National Grid was planning to bid on the Northern Maine Renewable Energy Project Request for Proposals (RFP) currently underway with the Maine PUC, the representatives stated that National Grid was not planning to bid, though they had submitted comments to the PUC regarding that RFP. We asked for a copy of those comments, as they are not currently on the public side of the docket.
At this point, there are no known maps of the path this transmission line might take. We do know from the details given at the meeting that National Grid’s bids on the LTTP are bids D1 and D2 (a downloadable detailed summary is available through ISO-NE). These bids include new 345kV transmission lines from Pittsfield, Maine to Wiscasset, Maine (through Albion and other small rural towns) and then a submarine cable HVDC running from Wiscasset to Massachusetts.
Once again, rural Maine is being asked to support industrial infrastructure that will benefit large corporation developers and out of state energy demands.
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