By Murray Carpenter, Maine Public About a quarter of the electricity generated in Maine comes from hydroelectric power, and most of it is produced by Brookfield Renewable, which owns dozens of dams in the state, from Saco to Millinocket. In total, Brookfield generates about 87 percent of the hydroelectric power and 21 percent of the wind power in Maine.
By Murray Carpenter, Maine Public
About a quarter of the electricity generated in Maine comes from hydropower, with most of it produced by Brookfield Renewable, which owns dozens of dams in the state, from Saco to Millinocket.
In total, Brookfield generates about 87 percent of the hydroelectric power and 21 percent of the wind power in Maine. It has also begun to generate an increasing amount of solar energy, as well as some biomass.
Brookfield’s parent company is a growing investment firm based in Canada that owns more than $925 billion in assets, with real estate, energy and infrastructure projects around the world.
As Maine moves toward its goal of running on 80 percent renewable energy by 2030, Brookfield appears poised to play a huge role in the transition.
Yet aside from high-profile conflicts over fish passage through its dams, Mainers rarely hear of this megacorporation. Few realize the extent of their influence in Maine: from the state’s largest dam to its oldest wind farm and one of its only battery storage systems.
A history of hydro
Brookfield began in Maine in 2002, when its corporate predecessor, Brascan Corp., purchased the extensive hydroelectric network along the West Branch of the Penobscot River from the ragged remains of Great Northern Paper.
Brascan had been founded more than a century earlier as a Canadian company developing energy in Brazil. In the 2000s it was owned by the Bronfman family, heirs to the Seagram liquor fortune, and had gained a reputation for aggressively buying up undervalued companies.
In a series of corporate changes, Brascan changed its name to Brookfield in 2005, and Brookfield consolidated its renewable energy assets. It took a big step toward dominating Maine’s hydropower market in 2012, when Brookfield Renewable purchased a group of 19 dams from NextEra. The dams, in the Androscoggin, Kennebec, Presumpscot and Saco basins, were valued at about $760 million.
It was a time of frequent changes of prey. The paper mills were struggling and realized they could sell their dams for a profit. The Maine Restructuring Act, often called electrical deregulation, required the state’s electric companies to sell their power generation assets. And policy changes by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opened up the wholesale electricity market.
Brookfield’s structure is notoriously abstruse, with hundreds of corporate entities, and it has come under scrutiny for its business practices in a hostile bid for a Canadian oil pipeline company, mortgage defaults in Los Angeles and the question of whether Qatar was involved in financing the rescue of the corporation. of a property in Manhattan owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The parent company is so large that it is the largest owner of commercial properties in Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Washington. It owns thousands of kilometers of railways around the world and has large investments in fossil fuels.
Most of the corporation’s renewable energy is owned by Brookfield Renewable; Brookfield Corp. has a 48 percent stake in that company. And hydropower in Maine is managed by Brookfield Renewable US, a wholly owned subsidiary of Brookfield Renewable.
Solar and wind projects in Maine are owned by several entities whose names indicate no connection to Brookfield but are owned by the corporation, such as Luminace and TerraForm.
Current operations
Brookfield’s dozens of dams are spread across Maine. They include the state’s largest: Wyman Dam and Harris Station on the upper Kennebec River, as well as the dams impounding Chesuncook, Flagstaff and Moosehead lakes in the North Woods.
Brookfield also owns dams in the hearts of cities and towns, including Brunswick, Ellsworth, Lewiston, Rumford, Skowhegan, and Saco and Biddeford. The Middle River Dam on western Maine’s Rapid River, famous for its trophy brook trout, is another corporation property. In total, the Brookfield dams have about 615 megawatts of generating capacity.
Through a different corporate structure, TerraForm, Brookfield has also been investing in Maine wind projects. It now owns the Bull Hill, Rollins and Stetson projects, as well as Maine’s oldest wind farm at Mars Hill. In total, its turbines have 220 megawatts of capacity.
Brookfield also owns solar farms in Maine with nearly 100 megawatts of capacity, primarily through the state’s lucrative net energy billing program. This includes 56 megawatts owned by Brookfield’s Luminace company (and more under construction) and 57 megawatts owned by Standard Solar, which Brookfield purchased in 2022.
All of Brookfield’s energy (hydro, solar, wind and biomass) generates renewable energy certificates, or RECs, which convert megawatt hours of renewable energy into commodities.
Brookfield also has one of the only battery storage units in Maine, a series of 20-megawatt Tesla Megapacks along the West Branch of the Penobscot River near East Millinocket.
Maine Renewable Energy
Despite the numerous solar and wind projects built in Maine in recent years, hydropower remains the leading source of renewable energy in the state.
According to the Federal Energy Information Administration, renewable sources accounted for more than 62 percent of the 12.8 million megawatt hours of energy produced in Maine in 2022. Of those, hydropower accounted for 3 million megawatt hours, or 38 percent. percent of renewable energy.
But the energy generated in Maine doesn’t stay here; flows into the regional electrical network. Afton Vigue, spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Energy, said 51 percent of the energy consumed in Maine is renewable and the state is working toward its goal of 80 percent. Vigue said this will reduce Mainers’ dependence on natural gas, which remains the largest source of electricity on the regional grid, and save them money.
But Vigue wouldn’t discuss Brookfield’s dominance of renewable energy in Maine. “With respect to Brookfield, our office does not regularly monitor or track the ownership of generation projects in Maine,” Vigue said. “We cannot comment.”
Despite Brookfield’s outsized role, Maine Public Defender Bill Harwood said his office “has no immediate concerns about Brookfield’s size.” Harwood noted the security barriers provided by the regional grid operator.
“ISO-NE (a regional transmission organization) works hard to ensure that the New England wholesale electricity market is competitive,” Harwood said in an email. “And both ISO-NE and FERC carefully review the potential for market power or manipulation by sellers.”
Richard Silkman has watched Maine’s energy markets for decades and recently retired after serving as CEO of the consulting firm Competitive Energy Services. (Some of the company’s customers have contracts with Brookfield Renewable.) Silkman said Brookfield may be dominant in Maine, but not in the regional energy market.
“They are a great company, let’s face it. But they don’t have the ability to exert market power, which is really the criterion that economists consider when we focus on concentration within the industry,” Silkman said.
“If Maine were isolated and couldn’t import energy from anywhere else but had to use its own resources, then I think that degree of concentration could become concerning. But that is not the case.”
Eliza Donoghue, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, which counts Brookfield among its members, said other large renewable energy companies in Maine include Onward Energy, with about 384 megawatts of capacity, and Competitive Power Ventures, with about 81 megawatts of capacity. Regarding Brookfield, Donoghue said she has done business in Maine for a while and is diversifying her portfolio.
A green institution?
As one of the world’s largest renewable energy companies, Brookfield says it delivers sustainable strategies for decarbonization. But it has faced significant opposition from environmentalists over fish passage at its Maine dams.
In 2021, the state recommended Brookfield remove four of its dams on the Kennebec River because of the damage they were causing to endangered Atlantic salmon. Brookfield sued the state that same year, and Gov. Janet Mills eventually backed down. The conflict became a flashpoint during Mills’ re-election campaign. Her opponent, former Gov. Paul LePage, sided with the Sappi paper mill in Skowhegan and defended the status quo.
NOAA concluded that the dams could support salmon recovery if Brookfield dramatically improves fish passage. The company says it is looking for solutions.
Last year, fishing advocates criticized Brookfield for a malfunction at the Ripogenus Dam that caused part of the West Branch of the Penobscot River to run dry for several hours; for debris-clogged fishway at Brunswick Dam; and for the management of the Milford Dam on the Penobscot River.
Overall, the relationship between Brookfield and Maine environmentalists has been strained.
“They present themselves as a green institution. It doesn’t quite jibe with what’s happening on the ground and their fight to preserve the status quo,” said Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation that has fought with Brookfield to improve fish passage at Union River dams. . “There is a big difference between who they are and who they say they are.”
Brookfield argues otherwise, citing its staff’s experience in fish passage and its plans to improve fish passage in the Kennebec, which NOAA says could cost $100 million.
The future
In Maine, Brookfield typically operates by purchasing completed energy projects, not developing new initiatives. A spokesperson declined to comment specifically on future plans.
“We are proud to play a role in providing Maine with the energy needed to meet growing demand for electricity while contributing to the state’s path toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2040,” the company said in a statement.
Brookfield is steadily expanding its role as one of the world’s largest renewable energy companies. But its reach is already so broad that it can be difficult to track.
When the biomass plants in Jonesboro and West Enfield went bankrupt in 2022, Hartree Partners, which had been a creditor, took ownership in bankruptcy court. Hartree is owned by hedge fund Oaktree Capital. The hedge fund is owned by Brookfield Asset Management.
This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization. For regular Monitor coverage, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.
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