“The Rest of the Story” LD 1646

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This week LEI released their long awaited study concerning LD 1646. What was obviously missing from the report is our current reality concerning delivery of power in the State of Maine! To make an informed decision concerning creating a new Maine consumer owned utility we need all the facts.

First of all Maine already has some of the highest delivery rates in the country. CMP’s rates have increased 52 percent between 2008 and 2018 and they just received an additional 6+ percent from the MPUC. At the current trend CMP’s customers can expect an additional 50-100 percent increase in rates over the next 10 yrs. When LEI states that a new COU would cost more during the first 10 yrs that does not take into consideration the “status quo” need for greed of our IOU’s nor the MPUC’s continual open pockets with customers money. Because of CMP’s bleeding the system dry, they currently face at least 10 yrs of rebuilding a tired and antiquated system which will add increases to their customers rates. LEI failed to mention any of this. The reality is a new COU is needed to reduce those increases over the next 10 yrs, More of CMP means more price increases using inefficient contractors to waste more Maine money.

Secondly LEI failed to mention Maine’s “worst in the nation reliability” The report was quick to say that a new COU “could not guarantee better service.” What they ignored is that without a new COU we can guarantee more reliability issues. 10 yrs ago CMP won awards for service, but that is not what management in Spain wanted. Awards don’t add to bank accounts. Reductions in maintenance and upgrades lead to a fatter bank account until we are here 10 yrs later with the worst reliability in the nation. Someone blows out the candles on a birthday cake and somewhere in Maine people have a power outage. But LEI doesn’t mention that! Want a guarantee? Stay with CMP and we will continue to get pitiful performance!

Rev. Darien (Deke) Sawyer
Jackman

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13 Comments

  1. Deke, Is a little honesty beyond you?
    Some delivery rates around New England.
    VT: 10 cents per KWh
    MA: 12 cents per KWh
    NH: 10 cents per KWh
    CT: 9 cents per KWh
    RI: 10 cents per KWh
    ME: 8 cents per KWh
    Some randomly chosen states.
    CA: 16 cents per KWh
    WY: 12 cents per KWh
    WA: 10 cents per KWh
    AR: 9 cents per KWh
    KS: 11 cents per KWh

    Maine does not have high delivery rates, mid ranged would be a better description.

  2. What (Deke) fails to mention is how sparse much of Maine’s population is. Of course rates are higher and service a bit less reliable when miles of power line service a handful of customers on a poorly maintained dirt road in areas all over the state. I’ve always been told to count my blessings; maybe (Deke) should pause his ranting and do the same.

  3. Captain. Jackman hasnt moved in years. Your argument is invalid. Try again. This time acknowledge that CMP doesnt do preventative line maintenance anymore.

  4. Hold the phone, maybe you should hold an English comprehension textbook instead. I’m positive I never stated that Jackman just packed up and moved. (Not impossible but surely extremely difficult). I will not acknowledge that CMP doesn’t do line maintenance as I see it happening all the time. My point that you struggle to understand is the miles of line to CMP customer ratio is much higher in Maine than say Rhode Island, thus raising the ultimate cost to power your interweb thingy.

  5. Jesus, Unlike the EIA list, I actually Googled the rates and bills of ALL the states I listed and chose the largest investor owned power companies operating within that state, avoiding CO-OPs and others and got the information I required, the EIA takes ALL rate sources and adds them all together and makes their list based on the total figures, so their figures are total cost per KWh. However, you can’t trust that information from the EIA, because Maine like every state doesn’t have a single power company, they don’t have a single power supplier, they have many, CMP for the most part is the delivery boy that brings the pizza that Pizza Hut supplies, delivery and supply are not synonymous. Myself, I pay 14 cents for electricity, that’s for delivery and supply, 6.7 cents of that is CMP’s delivery charge, 7.3 cents goes to the supplier which is NextEra, I chose NextEra because they were the cheapest, my rate is almost 4 cents lower than the one listed by the EIA data and almost 3 cents lower than the state average, I can’t complain when my bill hovers around $65 a month. My advice, learn how to negotiate.

  6. The tag teaming of Deke’s letter seems to be a bit harsh and makes me wonder who is actually a former or current cmp employee. As for rates – how is it that I drained my water pipes, made sure that the antifreeze in my hot water system was ‘fresh’ and turned off the main circuit breaker in my house and walked out of there for over 9 months and was charged by cmp $60 per month while I was gone and my December bill doubled because I turned on my Christmas tree lights and the lights on my house – well, except I didn’t because I WASN’T HOME. So, for 9+ months, with my main breaker OFF I was charged approximately $600 for ZERO KwH use. Now there’s a scam. Anyone care to respond to this one. Will be interested to see where you stand on people getting cheated by cmp so that they can pay their shareholders.

  7. This is from the BDN today,,
    Another example of how CMP is Crooked.

    London Economics has been under scrutiny for that study after the Bangor Daily News reported this month the firm won the $500,000 contract despite past work for Emera Maine that should have disqualified it under state rules. It later emerged the firm was working for a subsidiary of Hydro-Quebec when it was hired to do a 2018 study on the economic impact of the proposed Central Maine Power corridor, which would bring Hydro-Quebec power to the regional grid.

    You can’t trust CMP.
    Time for the Gov to rescind her support.

    No CMP CORRIDOR.

  8. Ozerki, That’s an easy one. The smart meters need to be close to each other to “broadcast” your usage to CMP, similar to a HAN or WAN network, if you are too far away from the network the meter just stores the info until a CMP “meter reader” comes close to retrieve the data, when CMP doesn’t get info from the meter, they take the last highest bill and average it with the past 6 months of usage and that amount becomes the monthly amount charged. CMP doesn’t live at your house, they don’t know when you are home or not. If you have a discrepancy with your bill, it is up to to you to take care of it with either CMP, the MPUC or the AG’s office, CMP is under no legal obligation to sort out your life for you. CMP even recommends that you call them if you are closing down a house or camp for the season, did you call them and let them know you were closing your house down for 9+ months? Seeing how you say your bill was that high, I’m guessing you didn’t, so they kept charging you. That’s not CMP scamming you, that’s CMP not being psychic.

  9. HB – yes, called cmp to notify them that I would not be living in my home for at least 9 months. Called cmp even while overseas because I get my bills online. They might have smart meters but not smart people answering phones. I am close enough to either a HAN or WAN for when I am home and usage is variable (eg. ZERO). So, meanwhile, cmp has now mastered another screw up by not passing the NECEC to another entity because keeping it under the cmp umbrella means they violated Chapter 820 of PUC rules (need to transfer non-core activities to a Special Purpose Entity – which they didn’t). So, in summary – their smart meters are not as dumb and incompetent as their customer ‘service’; they don’t follow rules; they cheat customers; and they need a babysitter for their CEO. Can’t make up this crap.

  10. Ozerki, assuming your story is accurate, are you still out all the money overcharged or did CMP make it right?

  11. Lucus Tree master of utility work,spread all through New England,the south and parts of Canada including the Maritimes. I wonder just how much of this expense is for real or just numbers on a page. I mean just because CMP sends bills out for imaginary usage does not mean I should be concerned.

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