GRID: After a Maine referendum rejected its power line project, Central Maine Power’s parent company files a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the ballot initiative. (Portland Press Herald)
ALSO:
• Despite the vote, Central Maine Power continues constructing the transmission corridor. (Bangor Daily News)
• Some Lewiston, Maine, officials say the vote to suspend a permit for Central Maine Power’s transmission corridor is disappointing, given that the city was relying on the related infrastructure to boost its tax base. (Sun Journal)
• New England’s grid operator says that Vermont should have enough power in the next decade to handle rising demand in response to transportation and heating electrification measures. (news release)
CLIMATE:
• A tiny, flood-prone Rhode Island town considers a $138.3 million plan to buy out and relocate residents living in low-lying areas to a brand-new neighborhood. (Providence Journal)
• Boston Mayor-elect Michelle Wu’s city-level Green New Deal plan aims to tackle the city’s emerging climatological vulnerability and long-standing structural economic inequalities. (The New Republic)
UTILITIES:
• Advocates for socializing Maine’s two investor-owned utilities say they’ve collected enough signatures to likely put the issue to voters in November 2022, although the group wouldn’t say how many were obtained. (WMTW)
• Although the state’s winter heating shut-off moratorium begins in a week and a half, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey cautions ratepayers that their energy bills will likely be higher this season. (WCVB)
• Eversource warns its Connecticut customers that electricity and gas heating bills will rise in tandem. (Fox 61)
EFFICIENCY:
• Ithaca, New York, councilmembers vote to electrify and decarbonize all 6,000 residential and commercial buildings in the city. (Washington Post)
• A Vermont city’s ice rink, which a facility designer calls an “energy pig,” has gone net-zero following a $1.4 million energy efficiency project. (Seven Days)
SOLAR:
• A Maryland public works board grants around $171,000 to an Eastern Shore town to install solar panels on its wastewater treatment plant and connect them to the grid. (CBS Baltimore)
• A downeast Maine town votes to enter into a net energy billing credit program and institute an ordinance encouraging new solar development. (Portland Press Herald)
CLEAN ENERGY: Teaneck, New Jersey, voters decide to change their residential energy service provider to one delivering greener power. (NorthJersey.com)
WASTE-TO-ENERGY: Two energy developers say a western New York farm’s anaerobic digester has begun producing and marketing its first amounts of dairy biomethane. (news release)
COMMENTARY: The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s president emeritus argues Maryland is falling dangerously behind in terms of addressing the climate crisis. (Baltimore Sun)