"Homeowners will pay $85 more per year on their electricity bill and business will pay more than $600 annually," says LePage - citing a study by the Maine Heritage Policy Center and Beacon Hill Institute. "Industrial users will suffer the most taking on more than $14,000 per year because of the mandate."

If the measure gets on the ballot this November and wins voter approval, he said, it will force people and businesses to leave for places with lower energy costs. "This will destroy the state of Maine," he said, appealing to the crowd to fight the initiative.

Green jobs. Maine is trying to position itself as a leader in a clean-energy economy. Advocates envision thousands of green jobs, buttoning up drafty homes, developing wind farms and installing solar panels. But a new report by the Maine Department of Labor says the reality is more complicated. It's not possible now for the state to develop a detailed plan for green work force development, the department has concluded. Researchers can't even confirm the number of green jobs in Maine today.

An occasional critic of state and federal energy policies, Van Scotter said he doesn't see that help coming anytime soon. He believes that while government pursuit of alternative energy sources is basically worthwhile, wind power is still far too erratic to provide much immediate relief to state industry.

Electricity from wind farms off the Maine coast is likely to cost more than what customers now pay, experts say, and a power purchase deal for a proposed offshore wind project in Rhode Island is raising questions about how much.

Local fishermen have raised a number of concerns about the state's plans to use Boon Island as a demonstration site for offshore wind turbine testing. The turbines would take away prime fishing, lobstering and shrimping areas, according to lobsterman Pat White of York, who initiated two recent meetings on the issue at the York Senior Center. At least a dozen fishermen and lobstermen attended each.

Local fishermen have raised a number of concerns about the state's plans to use Boon Island as a demonstration site for offshore wind turbine testing. The turbines would take away prime fishing, lobstering and shrimping areas, according to lobsterman Pat White of York, who initiated two recent meetings on the issue at the York Senior Center.

The program, launched this month by Larkin Enterprises, an electrical contractor and worker placement company in Lincoln, gives the students initial training for jobs in an industry that promises great things, but one many concede is still young and undeveloped. ...Catherine Renault, director of Maine's Office of Innovation, voices caution. She says it's hard to prepare a work force when it's not clear what type of jobs are needed, or when it will be necessary to fill them. "To me it's a balance," she says.

Freedom residents who hoped the wind turbines on Beaver Ridge would bring a lower tax bill got a surprise this year as other factors sucked up most of the windfall. ...Freedom town officials, with help from the state, valued the Beaver Ridge development at $9.7 million and the Central Maine Power transmission lines running up the ridge at an additional $480,000. But the value added to the town made barely a dent in the mill rate, which went from 17 to 15.5.

Officials with the Maine Power Connection wrapped up a weeklong tour of Aroostook County on Thursday morning, addressing business leaders, legislators and community members about a proposal to build a new $625 million transmission line from central Maine to connect northern Maine to the New England electric grid. The project would bring wind turbine projects online and close a 25-mile gap between the Maine Public Service system lines in Houlton and the Maine Electric Power Co. ..."Northern Maine customers will be held harmless," he stressed. "Northern Maine delivery rates can't go up - that is our goal. If that doesn't happen, this project is a no-go."

County commissioners unveiled a draft agreement Thursday for a tax-increment financing district that could bring the county up to $4 million over 20 years to use for economic development in unorganized territories. ...But Carrabassett Valley Town Manager Dave Cota said the draft agreement would shift more of the county tax burden to organized towns and let the company get away with not paying its fair share of taxes. Mitchell said the purpose was to reach a balanced agreement that would benefit all of the county directly and indirectly. The TIF would capture 75 percent of the new tax revenue for the first 10 years and 50 percent for the latter 10, with the county keeping 40 percent and TransCanada getting 60 percent. The remaining tax revenue gained would go into the state's unorganized territory fund.

A portion of the wind energy generated from newly installed wind turbines located in PEI was wheeled through PEI and New Brunswick and sold to the New England Power Pool (NEPOOL) via the international interconnection node in Keswick, N.B. The renewable energy certificates (RECs) that were generated from this transmission were sold separately to independent buyers located in the NEPOOL.

"Our analysis finds that there are no insurmountable legal, economic or technical barriers to withdrawing from ISO-NE," he said. "Viable alternatives to ISO-NE now exist, such as the formation of a Maine independent transmission company or the creation of a Maine-Canadian Maritimes market." Adams said the MPUC continues to study both options and will make its recommendations in a final report to the Legislature in January 2008. The preliminary report indicates that the final report will focus on "opportunities" with Canada's Maritime provinces.

MARS HILL, Maine — Something has turned terribly sour for about 18 homeowners who live along the mountain roads where the state’s first and only wind farm has recently gone on line. To a man and to a woman, they feel betrayed, cheated, used, ignored, and dismissed. Put them in a room and they are spitting mad. Collectively, as they gather on a Saturday morning inside a home that sits in the shadow of the turbines, their anger is barely palatable. Since the turbines started up, they say, silence has become a luxury.

It seems few in this town of about 1,500 people can agree on UPC Wind Management’s newly completed $85 million project, which makes the unassuming potato-growing and truck-brokerage community home to New England’s largest wind farm. But there’s one thing everybody can agree on: The place sure looks different. Long before a visitor arrives at Mars Hill, the towers become visible along what used to be just another mountain. The total height from the ground to the tip of the blade is 389 feet. Each tower has three blades, which spin in winds whipping west to east toward Canada just a few miles away.

A federal law designed to ease electricity transmission bottlenecks and improve power reliability could hit Maine ratepayers in the pocketbooks, twice. The measure could force the construction of transmission lines to move Maine’s surplus power south. Not only could the loss of the surplus increase the price of electricity in the state, but Maine consumers would also have to pay part of the cost of building the lines.