The holy grail for lowering electric rates in Maine is to increase winter supplies of natural gas, the fuel used to generate half the region’s power. For years, proponents sought to do it with new and expanded pipelines.
That effort isn’t dead, but most major pipeline proposals are stagnating or have been defeated by environmental and community opposition. Now there’s a alternative solution: Build a big tank in Maine, along existing pipelines in either Rumford or Brewer. Store natural gas in its liquid form during the summer, when prices are low. Draw it off on cold winter days, when prices are high.
This storage tank could cost $250 million, so the developer is asking the Maine Public Utilities Commission to make electric and gas customers help pay for it over 20 years. Industry officials say LNG storage has a good safety record, and the promise is that if Mainers chip in $25 million annually to contract for storage, a cap set by the Legislature, they’ll save even more on their electric bills. Maine homeowners typically pay between 20 and 24 percent more for electricity than the national average.
But this big tank isn’t the only idea for the PUC to consider.
One company is telling regulators that it’s cheaper to store gas in existing tanks in New Brunswick, Canada, and send it to New England when needed via a pipeline that runs through Maine.
Another company says it’s better to store gas in small, mobile tanks during the winter, close to factories and other big power users.
Other companies are weighing in with their proposals. Some have been so heavily redacted for confidentiality reasons that it’s impossible, so far, for the public to determine what they want to build and where.
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