PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 6, 2025
Maine lawmakers on Thursday began to dig into the details of how to charge less to electricity ratepayers who plug in an electric vehicle in the middle of the night or run a washing machine before breakfast. The concept, called time-of-use rates, incentivizes people to use electricity at odd hours to reduce the load on the region’s electric grid. Reducing the load frees up the grid to accommodate greater use of electric vehicles, heat pumps and other electrification to replace fossil fuels. It would also reduce the need to upgrade or build costly transmission lines that are billed to ratepayers.