Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 6 4 5 People for power outages. Grid Solar installed solar panels, ener- gy-efficient light bulbs, and air-condition- ing units that create ice during off-peak hours and then use it to cool buildings when the sun is at its highest point. As a backup to these technologies, they also in- stalled a bank of industrial batteries and a diesel generator. Thecombinedcostofthealternativesto- taled$6milliondollarscomparedtothe$18 millionCMPwouldhavespentrunningtrans- missionlinesalongtheBoothbayPeninsula. “The project has been performing flaw- lessly,” Silkman says. “And as an aside, it turns out we were 100 percent correct in our prediction that the cost of solar pan- els would plummet and that CMP’s load wouldn’t expand. CMP’s load has actually shrunk since 2009.” He adds, “if this fore- cast had been made back in 2008, [the state] probably would not have built the Maine Power Reliability Project and spent a billion and a half dollars…but that’s water under the bridge.” Silkman is currently drafting a report for the Public Utilities Commission detail- ing how well his non-transmission alterna- tives have worked and arguing to use them more extensively throughout the Midcoast. But at the same time he’s been working with the PUC, Silkman has been fending off a lawsuit from another energy agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commis- sion (FERC). Filedin2013,thesuitclaimsthatCompet- itiveEnergyserviceshelpedtwopapermills commitfraud.Intheongoingcase,FERCal- legesthepapermills,actingunderSilkman’s advice,selectivelyusedtheirin-housegenera- torstomakeitseemliketheywerereducing theirelectricityconsumptioninordertore- ceivestate-sponsoredincentives. “We are convinced we didn’t do any- thing wrong,” Silkman says. “Halfway through the project we talked to ISO New England, and they told us to keep doing what we were doing, that that was the ap- propriate way to operate. At some point we’ll get to go to court and prove it.” Silkman, who lives in Scarborough with his wife, says the lawsuit doesn’t faze or up- set him–it’s all part of the same battle he’s been fighting for most of his career. “We have minor victories, but most of the time it’s an enormous effort to move the ball forward.”n –Michael Schoch