July 25, 2024

Hallowell, Maine- The Maine Public Utilities Commission (Commission) has identified priorities and other details to be contained in initial ten-year integrated grid plans for Maine's investor-owned transmission and distribution utilities in an effort to improve grid reliability and resiliency while keeping costs affordable and helping to achieve Maines goals for greenhouse gas reductions and climate policies.

"These grid plans will assist in the cost-effective transition to a clean, affordable, and reliable electric grid," said Commission Chair Philip L. Bartlett II. This has been a long, complicated process and we appreciate the many stakeholders who devoted their time and resources to this important effort. This is a pivotal time for Maines electric distribution grid, which requires substantial investment to continue to serve customers safely and reliably, particularly in light of Maines beneficial electrification goals.

The priorities and potential steps to achieve those priorities are:

Reliability and resilience improvements -Make investments that cost-effectively maintain or improve reliability; -Reduce barriers to promote cost-effective non-wires alternatives (NWA) solutions and identify any process improvements/efficiencies; and -Build climate adaptation into the investment solution mix.

Improve data quality and integrity to maximize its use in distribution system planning -Leverage investments in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI); -Improve mapping of the distribution system and develop a governance policy or protocols for maintaining the integrity of the data on an ongoing basis; -Develop initial roadmap for advancing time-series planning models; and -Enhance hosting capacity maps to benefit stakeholder decision making by standardizing them across utilities.

Promote flexible management of consumers resources and energy consumption -Improve forecasting electric vehicle (EV) load, distributed energy resources (DER) adoption, and climate parameters; -Support integration and utilization of DERs to enable load flexibility and resilience; -Technologies or programs to shift load from system peak to reduce Maines share of the Regional Network Service (RNS) charge.

In addition to the identified priorities, the Order issued by the Commission establishes requirements for the grid plans and the development of the plans by the utilities. These include stakeholder meetings over the 18-month period that utilities will be developing the plans; expected content of the plans; utility visions for the next ten years and how their proposed investments and operations will achieve the priorities; forecasts to be used in developing the plans; a scorecard for evaluating proposed investments and technologies; information regarding the utilities progress related to technology, integration, and system investments; proposals to measure or evaluate and track environmental, equity, and environmental justice impacts of the plans; and proposals to measure the effectiveness of the plans in making progress towards the priorities and improving reliability and resilience and enabling the cost effective achievement of the States climate and greenhouse gas reduction policies.

The Commissions order can be found on the Commissions Online Case Management System. Please reference Case # 2022-00322.

Background

During its 2022 session, the Legislature enacted An Act Regarding Utility Accountability and Grid Planning for Maines Clean Energy Future, Public Law 2021, ch. 702 (Act). Section 8 of the Act required the Commission to initiate a proceeding once every five years to identify the priorities to be addressed in required filings by Maines two investor-owned electric T&D utilities regarding a grid plan that will assist in the cost-effective transition to a clean, affordable and reliable electric grid.

The Act required the Commission to hold technical conferences or stakeholder workshops before the utilities submit their filings in order to identify priorities, assumptions, goals, methods and tools that will assist the utility in developing its grid plan filing. The Act directed the Commission, at the conclusion of these technical conferences or stakeholder workshops, to issue an order that directed the utilities to submit a filing to the Commission addressing the priorities identified in the proceeding. The utilities have 18 months from the date the order is issued by the Commission to submit a filing that addresses the identified priorities as well as additional components required by the Act.

About the Commission The Maine Public Utilities Commission regulates electric, telephone, water and gas utilities to ensure that Maine citizens have access to safe and reliable utility service at rates that are just and reasonable for all ratepayers, while also helping to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Commission programs include Maine Enhanced 911 Service, gas safety and Dig Safe. Philip L. Bartlett, II serves as Chair, Patrick Scully and Carolyn Gilbert serve as Commissioners.

Learn more about the Commission at www.maine.gov/mpuc/

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CONTACT: Susan Faloon, Media Liaison CELL: 207-557-3704 EMAIL: susan.faloon@maine.gov