By Sen. Eric Brakey

The Maine Public Utilities Commission announced this week that electric rates will be going up again in July. It shouldn’t surprise anyone – Republicans said this was coming; and we’ve been warning Mainers about it for years. And what we do next will determine how bad future rate increases become.

Hello, this is Senator Eric Brakey of Androscoggin County. I wish I were here today with better news.

The rate increase comes on top of another that the Maine PUC approved earlier this month for both Versant and Central Maine Power. The distribution and transmission companies asked for higher rates to cover increases in operating and capital costs, both reasonable requests given the rise in labor and supply chain costs and the statutory need to keep up our infrastructure.

But let’s not forget that electricity rates on average are already 165 percent higher than they were in 2021, much of it due to President Biden’s war on fossil fuels. He tried to blame a spike in energy prices on the war in Europe, but prices began rising long before that as a consequence of shutting down pipeline projects, canceling oil-drilling leases and closing the oil-rich areas of Alaska.

I guess when you’re in the pocket of special interest groups, they need to be satisfied for campaign money to follow.

But the reason for this rate hike is different. Maine lawmakers are responsible for this one because of the mess created by solar subsidies through Net Energy Billing and other hidden costs. Before I get to that, I first want to go back in history.

When Governor LePage was faced with the very same prospect of whether to go down the path of subsidizing solar development, he resisted it simply due to the cost and who would pay for it. In his veto letter of LD 1504 in 2017, he said net energy billing would subsidize “the cost of solar panels at the expense of the elderly and poor who can least afford it.”

What he was saying is those who could afford to install solar panels would get all the benefits of energy credits. Those who couldn’t would be left holding the bag. The unfairness of this kind of “net metering” system has been plaguing California for years and he didn’t want to bring it to Maine.

And guess what: He was right and Maine’s Public Advocate, William Harwood, agrees. He said the Net Energy Billing program as it stands today “is inequitable” and something must be done before it gets any worse.

Think of it this way. If you have 10 customers in a given area and it costs $10 to deliver service to them, each pay a dollar toward the transmission of that electricity. If one of those customers installs a solar panel, solar farm or any sized project under a certain amount of kilowatts, they get a credit while the remaining nine must still cover the $10 cost in a prorated fashion.

And this doesn’t even include the hidden subsidies given to long-term grid-scale projects with the promise that rates paid to those solar companies would follow the standard offer, which climbed sharply in 2022 when natural gas prices skyrocketed. Did the actual cost to produce that solar change? Of course not. For those solar companies, it was an incredible windfall.

The costs of all the solar panels you now see in farm fields across Maine have to be paid for by somebody. Unfortunately, that somebody is you, the ratepayer. Those costs have been delayed for years but have now come home to roost.

Harwood told lawmakers in April that Maine ratepayers will have to cover about $220 million per year in hidden costs due to Net Energy Billing and solar subsidies. And the PUC announced this week that $137.3 million of it has now come due. Beginning in July, rates for Versant and CMP customers will rise between $10 and $17 per month on average, which includes both cost increases.

The bottom line here is progressive energy policies in Maine have made it easier for self-serving special interest groups to push programs that favor solar over more competitive power generation alternatives. The problem for them is we’re now waking up to the true cost of it. And believe me, ratepayers aren’t happy.

Some have argued that Republicans are against renewable energy sources like solar. But that’s not the case. Instead, we support smart renewable sources while prioritizing affordable energy for Maine families.

Harwood told the Bangor Daily News on Thursday essentially the same thing. He said this isn’t a Republican or Democrat problem. It’s a Maine problem facing Maine ratepayers and we need to do what’s best for them, which I know is a priority for me and my Republican colleagues.

It’s obvious the green energy policies at both the state and federal level are now hurting Maine’s families. A Republican bill, LD 1347, aims to fix that. With Harwood’s input, the bill will make the necessary changes to fix the net-energy billing issue and stop future rate increases.

Inaction is not an option.

Again, I am Senator Eric Brakey of Androscoggin County. I hope you have a great weekend.

Sen. Eric Brakey represents the communities of District 20. He is the Senate Republican Lead for the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee and State and Local Government Committee.