PUC chief aims to diversify energy sources

BANGOR – Maine’s growing dependency on natural gas as its main source of electricity is the reason many consumers, especially commercial and industrial electric users, have seen their power bills soar this past year, according to the state’s top utility official.

Kurt Adams, chairman of Maine Public Utility Commission, was the featured speaker Wednesday at a Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce breakfast at the Ramada Inn on Odlin Road. He said natural gas prices skyrocketed last fall after hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged energy infrastructure in the Gulf Coast region.

“The businesses are seeing increases in their energy costs between 50 and 100 percent,” Adams said. “For some, it is a tremendous burden.”

At the same time, however, Maine compares favorably in the region for electric usage rates, which have gone up everywhere, Adams said. The nearest state with energy costs as low as Maine is Pennsylvania, he said, but Maine is 13 percent above the national average of commercial and industrial energy costs.

“We’re actually not that bad off,” he said. “Maine consumers have some of the lowest energy supply prices in New England.”

Adams said Maine’s place in the global energy supply chain, which is subject to disruption, is working against its residents, however. Importing more liquefied natural gas into Maine may help with electricity prices in the short term, he said, but it may not help if Maine comes to rely more heavily on natural gas for electricity than it does already.

“You can’t burn granite today any more than you could in 1970,” he said.

Maine should take steps to make its energy consumption more efficient and to take better advantage of its geography, “particularly in regard to wind,” he said, in order to lessen its dependence on a finite supply of imported fuels. Biomass boilers are another alternative energy option.

“Wind is free and endless, and it’s not natural gas,” Adams said.

Through increased efficiency, and particularly PUC’s Efficiency Maine energy program, Adams said, Maine should be able to keep its energy load flat over the next 10 years rather than having it increase.

“California did it with an economy growing at a rate substantially faster than any in New England,” he said. “They held their load flat for 10 years.”

Adams acknowledged many people are questioning the wisdom of Maine’s decision to deregulate its electric industry. Deregulation may have aggravated the industry’s volatility, which in turn could be seen as having a negative economic effect on its customers, he said.

Still, a period of a half-dozen years is not considered ample time for change in an industry that is so capital-intensive, according to Adams.

“Six years in, a lot of people are starting to have heartburn that maybe it wasn’t a good idea,” Adams said.

The PUC official was asked why he didn’t bring up the option of nuclear power when he talked about Maine’s energy choices. Nuclear power will not be a viable option, he said, as long as the federal government and the nuclear power industry have not resolved the issue of where to store spent nuclear fuel.

Adams pointed out that the defunct Maine Yankee power plant site in Wiscasset still has the spent fuel that was used at the facility. Reprocessing such fuel for use is illegal in the United States, he said.

“The industry has got to answer the question,” Adams said. “Siting them is going to be a problem anywhere in the United States.”