MAINE MONITOR • March 13, 2022
The news reports were glowing: A planned microgrid on Isle au Haut could “hold the answer to the future of electricity,” wrote an environmental media outlet. The project, depicted in 2020 as being on the verge of installation, would include solar panels to generate energy and supercapacitors and heat pumps to store it. No longer, the media reported, would the Maine island outpost be tethered to the mainland by an old-fashioned, underwater electrical cable. Reality on Isle au Haut proved much more complicated. While the Isle au Haut Electric Power Company did install a few heat pumps and has solar panels sitting in storage, the board has decided to move away from the microgrid, supercapacitor storage plan. It is looking much more seriously into simply replacing the cable connecting it to the mainland grid, in large part due to concerns over reliability and unproven technology.