Central Maine Power's transmission lines in Wiscasset are included in the company's plans to upgrade 475 miles of transmission lines throughout southern Maine, Wiscasset officials learned recently.

Town manager Arthur Faucher said he met on December 12 with representatives from the law firm of Bernstein Shur who are making the rounds to towns and cities that will be affected by the upgrades.

The upgrades in lines and substations, called The Maine Power Reliability Program, are designed to make sure Maine has all the power it needs in the coming years.

"We want to make sure CMP will have a reliable system by the year 2017 and beyond," said Sue Bell, senior project manager for Government Solutions, a public relations and communications division of the Bernstein Shur law firm.

CMP once owned both generating facilities and transmission facilities, but sold off the generating facilities after deregulation in the late 1990s. One of those facilities CMP sold was the Mason Station in Wiscasset, where CMP still has a huge switching station, transformers, a garage and transmission lines. The Mason Station land was first sold to Florida Power & Light (FPL), which subsequently sold it to National RE/sources, which is planning to build the Point East Maritime Village on 31 acres of land. CMP also has transmission facilities on about 200 acres of land where the now-closed Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant once stood. Maine Yankee was the biggest generator of power in the state until it closed in 1997.

"The transmission lines that make up the backbone of our system were built in the early 1970s," CMP President Sara Burns says on the company's website. "Those lines are now like a congested roadway with too many cars and trucks. This congestion raises costs and makes the whole system less reliable. What we built nearly 40 years ago has served us well, but it's our responsibility to modernize our system and keep ahead of growing demand."

CMP has already invested $340 million in local distribution and transmission facilities in the last five years, according to the website.

CMP under the direction of ISO New England, is nearing completion of a study expected to be ready next month which will tell the company what investments should be made where.

"We want town officials to know why CMP is studying this," Bell said, referring to the recent visit she and Larry Benoit, managing director of Government Solutions, recently made to the Wiscasset Town Office.

"There's still a lot of work that needs to be done," Bell said. "If something is going to come through a community, we want town officials to know about it. The town will get more specific information as we get ready to come before each town's Planning Board and Codes Enforcement Office."

The presentation made to Wiscasset and other towns shows that electrical demand in Maine will increase from one to two percent a year for the foreseeable future. There are currently 96 separate generating units in the state.

In the presentation, it was reported that a needs assessment study "will identify where the system fails to meet applicable standards and predict the 2017 peak load forecast." There will also be computer simulations "to test the system for loss of generators, loss of transmission lines and failure of other critical equipment."

If upgrades to the system are not made, CMP says, "Preliminary results indicate that many potential equipment or transmission line failures could result in regional blackouts or rolling local blackouts by 2017."

Included in CMP's findings, which are also part of the presentation to town officials, are: (1) "If nothing is done, Maine's very reliable bulk power system will become unreliable before 2017; (2) "the loss of the single 345V line between central Maine and Bangor would result in system collapse, causing a widespread blackout;" (3) "loss of a double circuit tower on a midcoast corridor with dual 3435V lines could black out central, northwestern, midcoast and Downeast Maine;" and (4) "the overload of large autotransformers in southern and central Maine could result in widespread blackouts."

CMP by federal law is part of ISO New England, which is directing the study. The ISO is responsible for making sure that standards established by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are followed, Bell said. The study is looking at both transmission alternatives and non-transmission alternatives.

"Later this spring CMP will take the results of the study and decide what the best solutions are for Maine. Once they make that decision, CMP will file an application with the state Public Utilities Commission," Bell said. Then each town will be notified, and the various town planning boards will be approached.

There are a number of firms involved in the Maine Power Reliability Program. In its role of managing the program, Bell said the Cianbro Corporation put together a team of companies, including Government Solutions, which will carry out various aspects of the project, including Pierce Atwood, which will handle legal matters; engineering companies, including Power Engineers, GDS Associates, Inc., RLC Engineering, and LaCapra Associates; and an environmental assessment firm, TRC.

For more information about the Maine Power Reliability Program, the Web site is cmpco.com.