Central Maine Power

University of Southern Maine is creating an endowed professorship and student scholarship focused on sustainability and climate change, funded through a $1.2 million gift from the Avangrid Foundation.

The No Blank Checks campaign submitted more than 93,000 petition signatures to the Maine secretary of state's office this week. That sets up the likely scenario where Maine residents will cast votes on two competing referendum campaigns related to electric utilities next fall.

Nearly 18,000 Maine households were still without electricity on Monday afternoon after the weekend storm. But Central Maine Power and Versant Power say most customers should have their electricity back by the end of the day.

The request comes after the regulators announced electricity supply rate hikes of 49% and 38% for customers of CMP and Versant who choose the standard offer. The new rates take effect next month.

A proposal to dramatically change Maine's electric utility landscape has qualified for next November’s ballot, according to the Maine secretary of state’s office.

In a ruling Tuesday morning, Maine's Supreme Judicial Court said that the state "acted within its constitutional and statutory authority" when granting CMP a lease through state-owned lands in 2020. The lease accounts for only a small part of the 145-mile-long transmission line.

PUC Chair Phil Bartlett said the increases are driven by global natural gas prices, and will cost the average CMP customer an additional $32 per month.

Central Maine Power and its partners plan to begin removing miles of timber mats and felled trees along the corridor of a stalled transmission line through western Maine.

The average Central Maine Power customer could see their electricity bills increase by as much as $10 a month over the next three years, if a new grid upgrade plan from the utility gets approval from state regulators.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments in which CMP seeks to throw out the result of last year's referendum, and the Board of Environmental Protection will take up CMP's appeal of a ruling.