PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 21, 2026
I understand why many Mainers are protesting Central Maine Power’s proposed rate increase. But the question isn’t whether we’ll pay for grid improvements. The question is when, and how much. CMP’s proposal represents a shift from reactive emergency spending to proactive infrastructure investment. Key improvements include:
• Tree management: Falling trees are our number one cause of outages.
• Smart grid technology: Installing 2,500 smart devices would restore power remotely for up to 400,000 customers.
• Grid interconnection: Creating redundancy means if one path fails, power flows from another while repairs are made.
Our grid isn’t getting younger, our storms aren’t getting milder and emergency repair costs aren’t going down. Every year we wait, our aging infrastructure becomes more vulnerable and more expensive to fix. ~ Arthur W. Cleaves, York County Emergency Management Agency