MAINE MONITOR • March 12, 2023
Another solar farm has bumped into a grid capacity problem — this one in Searsport, where New Hampshire-based ReWild Renewables has scaled back plans for a 5 megawatt solar farm to 1.2 megawatts, a fraction of its initial proposed size. The Searsport proposal is the latest in a slew of energy projects attempting to connect to a grid that’s aging and undersized for our increasingly electrified world. Late last year, in Trenton, a man ran into a similar issue when he wanted to put up solar panels on his house and was told the grid was at capacity. Lawmakers are trying to fix the issue, and have directed the Maine Public Utilities Commission to undertake a grid planning process aimed at helping understand the state’s current infrastructure and looking at near-term investments that could be made to alleviate the backlog.