MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 28, 2021
Maine’s ambitious goal of cutting carbon out of its economy by the mid-21st century is facing a harsh reality: The network of wires and substations built to feed power from central generating stations to homes and businesses isn’t up to the job of handling the two-way, intermittent flow of energy from solar and wind farms to electric vehicles, heat pumps and giant storage batteries. It’s one thing for politicians to enact aggressive laws and policies, such as Maine’s goal to cut carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030, and 80 percent by 2050. It’s another matter to figure out exactly how to do that on the ground, and how the billions of dollars in costs to upgrade the system are going to be shared among developers, utilities and customers.