CMP Proposes Investing in Maine’s Future Plan

CMP's proposal includes grid strengthening for hundreds of thousands of customers, hires 400 new full-time employees, including 200 new lineworkers

Augusta, ME - September 16, 2025 - Central Maine Power (CMP), a subsidiary of Avangrid Inc., today announced it has filed its "Investing in Maine's Future Plan," a proposal for a major, five-year workforce and grid strengthening initiative, with the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC).

As part of CMP's proposal, the company is seeking approval to hire approximately 400 new full-time, Maine-based employees, including 200 new union lineworkers. Other hires would include customer service staff, engineers, project planners and digital services employees. CMP intends to pair this major workforce initiative with a five-year grid strengthening and enhanced vegetation management plan across its service area.

Proposed measures include:

• Installing stronger utility poles
• Running hundreds of miles of new covered wire to reduce tree-related outages
• Installing new smart technology in thousands of locations across the CMP grid
• Building advanced, modern substations
• Expanding the CMP Danger Tree program

"Today, we are submitting a structured plan to help stabilize the impact and cost of extreme weather in Maine," said Linda Ball, President and CEO of Central Maine Power. "Year-round, our electric grid is challenged by extreme heat in the summer and powerful storms in the winter. That's why we're planning to invest in a stronger, more resilient grid, built by a growing, Maine-based workforce trained right here in our state. Over the next five years, these targeted investments will not only enhance reliability but also provide greater financial stability and predictability for our customers."

CMP's Plan to Strengthen Grid Infrastructure

CMP has decades-old poles, wire, substation components, and other grid equipment currently in use across its service area. As storms become stronger, communities grow, and Mainers use the grid in new ways, 20th century infrastructure is being strained by 21st-century challenges.

Today's filing, along with other regional project filings for Greater Portland and Greater Bangor that are linked to CMP's "Investing in Maine's Future Plan," will help address the following:

• Right now, the potential loss of some lines (due to a downed tree, extreme weather) can knock out power to tens of thousands of customers at once. Customers in communities from Scarborough to Carmel have few backup feeds for power to reach them. This slows restoration and disrupts daily lives, including in densely populated areas of the state. Upgrading these lines can reduce the risk of these larger outages.
• Falling trees are CMP's #1 cause of outages. Maine is the most forested state in the nation. Threats to rural cities and towns from tree damage are being made worse by extreme weather and pests. CMP's plan proactively addresses this by replacing unprotected wire with covered "tree wire" in more areas of Maine.
• Reducing outage vulnerability in regions with critical facilities. Southern Maine is a major service and economic driver for the entire state with large hospitals, medical care facilities, university campuses and businesses concentrated in the area. Outages or power interruptions that disrupt healthcare, commerce and education on a large scale are harmful to all Mainers. Grid strengthening can mitigate these risks.
• Present day access to additional energy is constrained. Without new investment, large commercial and electrification projects in Maine could face challenges in the future, as some areas have become constrained by aging infrastructure. For example, in Cumberland and York Counties, CMP is proposing a new network of 21st century substations and high-capacity infrastructure. These upgrades would benefit 200,000 customers in communities from Cumberland to Old Orchard and across Greater Portland.

CMP's Goal: Create Price Stability in Face of Extreme Weather

CMP is proposing a structured, five-year investment plan. The goal of this plan is to create price stability for customers while allowing the company to make critical grid investments to lower what customers pay due to extreme weather events in the future.

The company's proposal would require a stepped increase in annual revenue ranging between $400-450 million by the end of the five-year rate plan. By implementing a multi-year plan, the company seeks to minimize the financial net impact to our customers as hundreds of millions of dollars in one-time storm costs are cycled off customer bills.

As is typical, the MPUC and the Office of the Public Advocate will carefully review and scrutinize CMP's proposal during a public and transparent process. These estimates do not account for potential changes in the non-CMP portion of a customer's electric bill, including electric supply and other charges. If approved, the earliest this plan would be implemented is mid-2026.

CMP is Proposing 21st Century Grid Improvements that will:

• Install grid components built with stronger materials. These include steel poles and taller, thicker wooden streetside poles. These modern poles will better withstand extreme storms like the March 2024 ice storm that impacted densely populated areas of Southern Maine and April 2024 Nor'easter that impacted a large number of rural communities CMP serves.
• Help line crews respond to outages and restore power quickly by upgrading the layout of the energy grid to today's standards. CMP's Energy Control Center (ECC) will be able to restore power to large numbers of customers remotely using smart devices. Line crews on the ground can focus repairs on areas with the highest impact from damage during outages. Adding 2,500 smart devices over the next five years will deliver the benefits of 21st century technology to more than 400,000 customers.
• Alleviate "energy bottlenecks". Parts of the Southern Maine grid like the Portland Peninsula are already being pushed to their usable limits and have little or no extra capacity to carry more energy. Installing modern materials like larger wire and smart technology to monitor system conditions can allow new grid uses. These uses include a range of options for community consideration including construction of new housing units to opportunities for cruise ships to use shore power when docked.
• Move limited, targeted line sections underground. In several locations, like Windham and Skowhegan, sections of line that feed large numbers of customers are proposed to be moved underground. These are areas where customer benefit and increased resiliency outweigh the generally higher cost of undergrounding.
• Link isolated parts of Maine's grid together so power can flow more easily between neighborhoods and towns. Communities will have backup sources of energy. If one line feeding a community is damaged by a storm, another can serve the same customers while repairs are made. The grid will be better "tied" together across CMP's grid.

About Central Maine Power: Central Maine Power Company (CMP), a subsidiary of Avangrid, Inc., is Maine's largest electricity transmission and distribution utility. Established in 1899 and based in Augusta, Maine, CMP serves approximately 646,000 customers across 346 communities in central and southern Maine. It operates approximately 23,500 miles of distribution lines and 2,900 miles of transmission lines. Over the last decade, the company has invested approximately $3.5 billion in Maine system infrastructure. For more information, visit https://www.cmpco.com.

About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. is a leading energy company in the United States working to meet the growing demand for energy for homes and businesses across the nation through service, innovation, and continued investments by expanding grid infrastructure and energy generation projects. Avangrid has offices in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, and Oregon, including operations in 23 states with approximately $48 billion in assets, and has two primary lines of business: networks and power. Through its networks business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.4 million customers in New York and New England. Through its power generation business, Avangrid owns and operates more than 75 energy generation facilities across the United States producing 10.5 GW of power for over 3.1 million customers. Avangrid employs approximately 8,000 people and has been recognized by JUST Capital as one of the JUST 100 companies - a ranking of America's best corporate citizens - in 2025 for the fifth consecutive year. The company was named among the World's Most Ethical Companies in 2025 for the seventh consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information, visit https://http://www.avangrid.com.