A planned 10 megawatt, gas-fired power plant to provide electricity and heat to a major redevelopment on the Portland waterfront is stoking opposition from neighbors and climate activists in the city.
Barbara Vestal, who lives on Fore Street near the proposed development said she and others were shocked and surprised to learn about developer PF Land LCC's plans for the power plant. The company has requested that Maine Public Utilities Commission rule its facility will not be regulated as an electric utility.
Vestal said the proposal is a major deviation from a master plan for the $1 billion housing, retail, office and hotel development on the 10-acre site of the former Portland Co. approved a decade ago.
"It's bringing a major source of emissions, and noise and vibration to this neighborhood," Vestal said.
The proposed plant may not even be allowed under zoning rules around the Portland development, Vestal added. Installing the power plant would include four 114-foot-tall emission stacks according to its state license, a facility never included in the developers' earlier plans, Vestal added.
"Those are major changes that need to be reviewed, and it seems like they're just envisioning this happening without applying to the city for any permission to do this," Vestal said.
Maggy Wolf, another neighbor of the Portland Foreside development said the development conflicts with climate goals adopted by Maine and Portland to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"Even though it's considered a transition to clean energy, it locks us into fossil fuels whereas the state is going to be renewable by 2040," Wolf said.
The Portland Climate Action Team also weighed in against the project in a letter to the Public Utilities Commission. Building new fossil fuel burning generators will set the city back of its target to reduce 80% of its emissions by 2050, team members Bill Weber and Joey Brunelle said in the letter.
Central Maine Power has assured developers that it has capacity to provide power to the housing, offices, hotel and restaurants planned in the development, Weber and Brunelle added.
"But by allowing a major development to generate their own power from fossil fuel negates the benefits of a green grid and creates major challenges to the state in reaching its 'Maine won't wait' goal," Weber and Brunelle said, referring to Maine's climate action plan.
Developers were granted an air emissions license from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection last summer.
But the proposed development apparently went unnoticed until PF Land LLC requested an advisory opinion from the Pubic Utilities Commission to confirm the facility would not be treated as an electric utility.
Casey Prentice, CEO of the Prentice Organization which is developing Portland Foreside said in an email that some of the criticism of the project reflected a "misunderstanding" of what was being proposed and in some cases came from individuals who have opposed the project for more than a decade.
Generating heat and power on site is more efficient than drawing electricity from the grid and heating buildings with separate boilers, Prentice added. The company's engineers estimate the proposed system would reduce greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emissions by 38% compared to conventional alternatives, Prentice added.
"The relevant question is not whether new development will increase energy use relative to today, but whether the systems serving that development are as efficient as possible," Prentice added.
Portland's Planning and Urban Development Department is still learning what the developer is planning and what, if any, regulatory role the city may have, said spokesperson Jessica Grondin in an email.
The approved master development plan and subsequent site plans for Portland Foreside did not include a cogeneration facility or emissions stacks, Grondin added.
"As a result, the addition of a cogeneration facility could require an amendment to the approved plans to ensure compliance with any applicable regulations in the Land Use Code," Grondin said.
The Public Utilities Commission on Tuesday is expected to start considering the developers' request for exemption from utility regulation.
