Maine’s businesses are about to be hit with massive cost increases — in some cases of more than $50,000 for 2024 — thanks to a scheme devised by state lawmakers to subsidize solar power.
According to letters sent to customers by Versant Power, Maine’s second largest electrical utility, the portion of small business’ electrical bills described as “stranded costs” is set to increase from 2023 to 2024 anywhere from 20 percent to as much as 1,644 percent.
“A new, fixed monthly stranded cost dee is under review and would capture expenses and incentives to develop Maine’s renewable power generation and net energy billing programs,” Versant Power informed businesses in the rate hike letters.
Under the net energy billing program, Maine’s electrical utilities collect increased fees from residents and businesses, and that money is then used to subsidize the installation of so-called “community solar.”
In practice, the net energy billing scheme turns the utilities into tax collectors for the state — and bill collectors for the solar industry.
The price hikes coming for Maine businesses vary according to the customers rate class and level of electricity usage, but a review of several of the Versant letters shared with the Maine Wire shows that one business will see the stranded cost portion of their annual electrical bill spike from $24,419 to an estimated $77,261 — a 216 percent increase.
A smaller business with far less annual power consumption is looking at an increase from $196.75 to an estimated $3,432 — an increase of 1,644 percent.
Those costs only account for the annual increases in stranded costs, which is a small slice of the total annual electrical costs.
The names of the businesses were redacted from the letters provided to the Maine Wire, as several of the business owners were concerned with potential retribution from state officials and environmental activists he see the solar subsidies as a wall to lower global temperatures.
[RELATED: Solar Industry Wins State House Fight to Protect Windfall Profits…]
According to the Office of the Public Advocate (OPA), which was created to advocate on behalf of rate payers, the solar subsidizes may increase electricity costs state-wide by as much as $220 million in 2025.
According to an analysis of electricity prices in paid for June 2024 by USA Today, Maine already has the sixth highest electricity costs in the country.
According to a 2023 analysis of Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) records, the vast majority — 88 percent — of the companies profiting from the solar subsidies were headquartered outside of Maine.
If the rate hike requests are approved, businesses and residents will begin paying more for their electricity beginning in July.
In the 131st Legislature, Republican-backed efforts to rein in the cost of the solar subsidies were watered down into a bill that will leave the funding mechanism largely unchanged.
On Tuesday, Republican lawmakers pinned the blame for the rate hikes squarely on Democratic state lawmakers.
“If you are represented by a Democrat in the legislature, send them a thank you note,” said Senate Republican Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook).
“It is their fault,” Stewart said.
Even with such costly subsidies, solar power remains a tiny sliver of New England’s total electricity production.
According to ISO New England, the nonprofit that operates New England’s power grid, less than four percent of New England’s electricity mix came from solar Wednesday afternoon — even as the skies were clear and temperatures were in the nineties.
In addition to the surge in electricity prices facing Maine’s businesses and residents, there are also concerns nationally about the solar industry’s connections to entities that benefit from forced labor in the People’s Republic of China.
A Maine Wire investigation last year found that a Maine Department of Transportation-led solar project in Augusta, for example, used solar equipment from a company whose suppliers had been blacklisted for suspected involvement with the Chinese government’s forced labor program.
NET ENERGY BILLING
Net Energy Billing (NEB) used to only apply to small-scale rooftop solar setups. The idea was to allow homeowners and businesses with solar panels to “sell” surplus electricity into the grid. But in 2019, lawmakers expanded NEB to include projects up to 5 megawatts.
To put that into perspective, Maine went from subsidizing roof-sized solar setups to subsidizing solar facilities that can cover 15-20 football fields. The amount of energy the vast solar facilities generate is correspondingly larger, and the law requires Central Maine Power and Versant, Maine’s top power utilities, to purchase that energy at an above-market rate.
The 2019 law placed few limitations on where the solar facilities could operate and how they could manage subscribers. For instance, the law allows a developer to build a solar facility most anywhere in the state of Maine, regardless of whether it makes sense from a grid management perspective, and then collect “subscribers” from anywhere in the state.
While lawmakers at the time said the change was about incentivizing renewable energy infrastructure, the Legislature set off a gold rush. By the end of 2022, solar developers had built out a whopping 295MW of solar capacity, according to ISO New England.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="28769 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=28769">21 Comments
again, you get what you vote for Maine. Keep voting the Marxist DemoRATS into office
You do more good helping low income people getting a new furnace
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There is one correction I’d like to point out to the above mentioned article. The article mentioned small scale rooftop solar being able to “sell surplus electricity into the grid”. The term “sell” is incorrect. When a homeowner or business produced energy above their need at any given moment that excess was measured and the utilities were required to collect that amount at the time of the customer’s normal meter read and credit that excess toward the customer’s current or future bill up to a fixed time period. It was not until the advent of the commercial and industrial program came into play was the utility required to pay for that energy. The rate was set annually by the MPUC for each customer class that was non-residential. The utility then sold that energy in the New England spot market. The problem is the rate set by the PUC was typically much higher than the utility was able to realize through the spot market. The loss, known as stranded costs is now being passed on to other customers through the T&D rates. That isn’t to say small rooftop solar under the traditional net metering don’t contribute to stranded cost as well. They are allowed to take a reduction on their delivery portion of the utility bill for what is essentially an energy only product. The previous writer is correct. Thank your local democratic legislator for passing these costs to non net metering customers.
More proof Dirty Dems do not care about anyone, only their own power and money scams.
Amazing, you hit the interstate, every exit/on ramp is covered with solar panels, large fields with row after row of panels and yet the rates for home /business owners continue to go up, if they are so good, lets take all government money out of it and see how it holds up. This whole thing is a sham!
As a residential consumer of Versant I’m now paying .27 cents per kilowatt hour. Businesses pay even higher electricity rates. With cost prohibitive energy expenses and an increasingly haughty NIMBY population any commercial enterprise would have to be insane to try develop in Maine. What we get are illegal Chinese pot growers (no taxes paid there) and pie in the sky schemers hoping to bamboozle on crazy start-up plans.
Bub-bye Maine, good luck getting the new comers to pay your tax.
I’m so close to moving out of this state.
Fascist governments exercise control over private business but they do not nationalize them. In modern times, fascist governments often accomplish this ‘control” via legislation and taxation. We see this with the solar mandates, and healthcare legislation. Is it not fascinating that as governments get more involved in our lives, we end up with less sicker, and with poor healthcare options, fewer options to increase personal wealth, and taxed more…
I predict that none of this solar tax money will ever see the light of day, pun intended. It will all be diverted to some political pet project.
I wish the Government would put as much effort in to finding the 85,000 kids thy let into our country AND do not know were they live now or with whom the live or even if they are still alive. Our Governor and thy other bright ellected Bulbs and NGO’s who transported them to who knows were should all BURN in hell
Wow! Talk about being ripped off. The solar scam would be an absolute flop without gov’t money. Oops! My mistake-I mean your money. I gotta admit though, they are pretty to look at in the fields and exits on the highway. By the way, what happens to these panels when they wear out after 15 tears or so? All that plastic and metal- where does it go? Besides the solar companies who in gov’t benefits from this and how?
Mike
l doubt anyone in Augusta is going to miss a MaineWire reader
The rest of us may, or should
And yet for some odd reason,people aren’t flocking to Maine to open businesses. Go figure.
Mike
Nobody would blame you for leaving the state. I’m surprised this state attracts any kids to stay especially if they had a clue what the future brings for them under the democrats. The crustacean in the Blaine House is going to be seen by history as the worst governor this state has ever seen. The NEB program is 100% a democrat concoction. They put non elected officials in charge of telling the next generation what to drive. Have you noticed the coward in leadership at Augusta push more and more out for voter referendum because they don’t want their names attached to anything controversial. Lenin called them “useful idiots”. They know voters who vote democrat will ALWAYS do as they’re told whether it is killing children or taxing the elderly into eternal poverty.
I spent 35 years in this industry, the truth is too many people just don’t understand that non-solar customers are paying for the lucrative subsidies given to solar customers to make them whole, otherwise solar it’s not a cost effective solution in Maine. Gotta love how Agusta is pushing heat pumps and electric vehicles as they continue to raise our electric rates. The average Maine consumer is stupid and the Dems know it.
These out of market contracts for solar energy are for twenty years, which means an annual rate hike is built in. Ratepayers are being taken for suckers.
If Maine businesses are taxed they will pass it on. So that means YOU pay.
The message is clear – get off the grid. Even if you have to buy gas or fuel for generators, time is now to disconnect from the grid. Build your own solar farm? Nah. Within 20 years we’ll all be replacing the current crop with panels that are twice as efficient, twice as expensive and there will no longer be rebates and subsidies. If this next legislature doesn’t stop the madness, there will be a revolt. It’s nice to cut carbon and all, but it looks like they want to eliminate carbon from printing new money, or paying bills.
“What’s in your wallet?” “Nothing a*ho, the government has it all.”
I never was a historian but I do remember reading about the revolutionary war which we fought to get out from under government control. And there have been people taking us in the other direction ever since. It’s like we lost that war. China and Russia need a lesson – you can game the U.S. in commerce and pot, but don’t frick with us at war. Buy a GUN!
Our Dumacrat lawmakers are either being paid off by the lobbyists or they truly are dumb. This is going to sink a lot of Maine businesses and hurt the Mainers who can afford it least of all.
the corruption of socialism, plain and simple