Energy News Roundup: February 11-February 17

This week in regional energy news …

• Maine’s Good Will-Hinckley School has installed 110 solar panels, which are expected to save the school $112,000 over the 40- to 50-year life span of the panels.  Good Will-Hinckley is a high school focused on agriculture, forestry education, and workforce skills.
• Doaktown, a village in New Brunswick, voted Thursday to ban shale gas exploration near the village’s water sources.
• With the price of renewable energy credits going down due to oversupply, Massachusetts is one of many states reviewing its Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, emissions cap.
• Cape Wind has entered into an electricity supply agreement with NStar for energy from the offshore wind project, but seeks additional financing.
• Public Service of New Hampshire, or PSNH, is warning of higher electricity prices if it is forced to sell off its generation assets.

Energy News Roundup: January 28-February 3

This week in regional energy news . ..

• The developers of Clifton’s Pisgah Mountain wind farm have entered into an agreement to sell capacity to Bangor Hydro.  
• This week the Coast Guard held meetings in Lubec and Easport regarding tidal projects in the Down East region.  
• Efficiency Maine is accepting applications for electricity efficiency and generation projects.  Commercial entities, municipalities, and nonprofit organizations may apply for projects ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 per facility.
• In an about-face, Public Service of New Hampshire now opposes selling off its generation plants in that state.

Energy News Roundup: January 21-January 27

This week in regional energy news …

• New Hampshire’s Senate passed a bill that would prohibit a utility’s use of eminent domain for an electrical transmission line across a person’s property if the line is not critical to the region’s power needs.
• The Passamaquoddy Tribe plans to launch a $120 million wind farm in Washington County with co-venturer Exergy Development Group, of Boise.  
• Estimating that its energy may not be available before 2015, ISO New England opted not to include Cape Wind in a capacity auction for 2015-2016.
• Two Department of Energy reports have highlighted Maine’s potential to generate more than 15 terawatt-hours per year of electricity from tidal sources.
• Augusta, Maine, is looking to create energy from waste at its Hatch Hill landfill.  The project would involve constructing a $20 million plant to convert the trash to diesel fuel.
• University of Maine professor Habib Dagher played up Maine’s offshore wind potential and discussed the $20 billion project to bring offshore wind to Maine.

Energy News Roundup: December 17-December 23

This week in regional energy news …

• A land sale in Eastport, Maine, will support Ocean Renewable Power Co.’s efforts to promote tidal turbines in the Downeast region of Maine.  Perry Marine & Construction will build a facility at the site, where workers will assemble and deploy ORPC’s turbines.
• Boralex recently closed the sale of its biomass power production facilities to Latham, NY-based ReEnergy Holdings. 
• The U.S. Department of Energy is considering using East Coast granite formations as nuclear waste depositories.  The proposal to bury nuclear waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain has been scrapped for now.
• Calgary-based TransCanada has agreed to purchase nine solar projects with a combined capacity of 86 MW.  The $470 million deal will add to the company’s portfolio of pipelines and wind projects.
• Natural gas production is increasing amid great uncertainty over the balance of supply and demand.
• Governor LePage gives the Maine State Housing Authority and Efficiency Maine Trust two business days to submit a plan for providing heating assistance to needy Mainers.
• Central Maine Power will clean up a toxic waste site in Augusta.  The site, where Augusta Gas Works formerly operated, is contaminated with coal tar.
• Self-Gen, based on Scarborough, Maine, has proposed building a natural gas pipeline to Rockland from an existing line in Windsor.  Meanwhile, the Maine Energy Marketers Association has criticized the state Legislature for bills favoring natural gas over other fuels.

Energy News Roundup: December 3-December 9

This week in regional energy news …

• Statoil, a Norwegian energy company, is seeking federal approval for an offshore floating wind farm off of the Maine coast.  The four-turbine pilot project, which would be located south of Boothbay Harbor, could be operating by 2016 and generating 12 MW of electricity, if the application (PDF) is approved.
• The Concord Monitor has created a section of its Web site devoted to full coverage of the Northern Pass Project, which would bring 1200 MW of hydroelectricity from Canada to New England.  Recently, the State Senate Judiciary committee voted for new protections for property owners facing eminent domain taking but rejected legislation that would have attempted to prohibit projects like the Northern Pass from using eminent domain powers.
• Cate Street Capital, the new owner of the Millinocket and East Millinocket, Maine, mills, recently also purchased the exclusive North American rights to biocoal technology.  Biocoal is a wood-derived fuel that would replace coal-burning at electric plants.
• A proposed new propane import terminal in Searsport, Maine, has incited local opposition.
• According to ISO New England’s winter electricity demand outlook, the region should have ample electric production to meet demand, even in the event of any extreme winter weather.
• An ethanol plant in Prince Edward Island that would produce the technology to create ethanol from sugar beets retains the support of the provincial government even though the Alantec plant will be selling the technology rather than the ethanol product itself.
• An exploratory panel has recommended that Maine’s Land Use Regulatory Commission give Maine’s 16 counties more power over land use decisions.  Among the 12 committee members present (out of 13), the vote was unanimous.  Other recommendations include letting the governor nominate only three LURC commissioners, rather than seven, and letting counties take on minor permitting issues that are now handled by LURC.

Energy News Roundup: November 12-November 18

This week in regional energy news …

• Between 2004 and 2009 Maine residents cut their heating oil use by 45 percent.  Maine remains, however, the country’s most oil-dependent state for home heating.
• Anbaric Transmission, a Massachusetts company, has filed a request with ISO New England for interconnection of a proposed transmission line that would carry up to 2,000 MW of offshore wind energy to land.  The offshore generation projects that would interconnect with the line are each over 25 miles from the coastline.
• In an effort out of its Brunswick, Maine, office, the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences reminds us of the naturally carbon-reducing power of trees.  The center’s new program, the Clean Water Carbon Fund, gives the public the chance to purchase trees for $6 to be planted along the shores of waterways that are overexposed to carbon.
• On Thursday, December 15, E2Tech will host a breakfast forum with Efficiency Maine representatives to discuss residential and commercial energy efficiency programs.  Event details are available at E2Tech’s Web site.

Energy News Roundup: August 20-August 26

This week in regional energy news …

• In the waters off of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts’s first in-ocean demonstration of a tidal energy generator was completed recently.  UMass Dartmouth’s New England Marine Renewable Energy Center and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center have laid out plans for a 300-square-mile test site.
• The Massachusetts DPU has approved NStar’s long-term contracts for the purchase of wind power from developments in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.
• Neptune Wind has announced plans to develop a 500-MW offshore wind farm 20 miles from the Mass-RI border, with construction estimated to be completed by 2018.
• Gov. Lincoln Chafee is working to ensure that low-cost hydro power from Canada finds its way to Rhode Island.