CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

A gridlocked New England power grid in Maine has stalled a Harpswell developer's plan for a $50 million biomass boiler in Millinocket.

Jerry Tudan, of Peregrine Technologies, had already lined up financing for the 17-megawatt project that would bring 45 jobs to the Katahdin region when he got the bad news from the grid manager.

Tudan said his company sought to register the site with ISO-New England, only to be told that a northern Maine wind farm project had registered earlier and had "maxed out" any available access to the grid at this time.

Tudan has no quarrel with First Wind, the Massachusetts developer of Stetson Mountain and other wind projects in northern Maine. But he said that company is among several that have queued up for so much space on the grid in coming years that no one else can fit.

"There's no bitter tears here toward First Wind about it," Tudan said. "That's the marketplace, though I feel very bad about how it went because we had a beautiful project."

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