Central Maine Power wants state regulators to OK a major long term spending plan to prepare its systems for increasingly unpredictable and damaging storms.
Electric customers will shoulder the costs, but CMP spokesperson Jon Breed said they're already paying for extreme weather through tens of millions of dollars in storm recovery charges.
"What those storm costs don’t do is they don’t create reliability, grid monitorization or grid hardening value for customers," Breed said. "Those costs are primarily labor-related."
Instead, CMP wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade equipment, hire new employees and clear tree limbs in an effort to reduce future expenses.
The company's plan calls to hire 400 full-time employees including 200 line workers. That should curb the need to bring in expensive contractors to help clean up and restore power after outages, Breed said.
CMP also wants to run hundreds of miles of covered wire intended to reduce power loss from tree limbs, replace old wooden poles with newer versions, expand the electric grid in southern Maine and install smart technology to restore power faster.
"What the plan seeks to do is break the cycle of extreme weather and the cost we pay every year to clean up after these extreme storms," Breed said.
The proposal would increase CMP's revenue by $450 million over the five years. The company could not estimate the monthly bill increase for customers but said the proposal is structured to stabilize prices.
A warming climate is driving more erratic and intense weather and doing heavier damage to Maine's aging grid.
In the last two years there have been four storms that rivaled the infamous 1998 ice storm and Maine set a new record for electricity use during an extreme heat wave in June, according to CMP.
The company's proposal will be reviewed by the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
