It shouldn’t be surprising a power company has good ideas about where wind power should be developed within Maine. Moving electricity across the state, after all, is their bread-and-butter.

Maine’s had site-by-site fights on wind power for too long. The battleground names – Redington Pond Range, Black Nubble Mountain, Byron, Roxbury – have adopted a Civil War-like resonance.

Somebody needed to emerge with a specific idea about where in Maine wind turbines should go. The state’s wind power task force, despite its hard work and detailed findings, stopped short of recommending actual places.

It said organized Maine should have expedited reviews of wind projects, a theory tested – and broken – by the divide in Roxbury and Byron. The presence of town governments there didn’t make wind development any smoother.

So, enter Central Maine Power and its twin transmission projects: the Maine Power Reliability Program and the Maine Power Connection. In short, these projects seek to make billions in transmission upgrades, and connect Maine Public Service in Aroostook County to the larger, stronger southern grid.

The details are horrendous. (Permitting in 80 towns, purchasing land and rights-of-way and Maine’s omnipresent NIMBYism are only some the obstacles, not to mention the terrain.)

The guiding principles, however, are simple and smart.

Under these plans, Maine remains part of the ISO-New England grid, despite legislative action and industrial pressure to secede. Industrial users are wary of paying millions for transmission projects elsewhere through the ISO.

There are also great arguments for secession, and for Maine to unite electrically with New Brunswick. Changing the status quo, however, is critical. This is where all sides of the energy debate agree.

CMP formally opposes leaving the ISO. It wishes to use Maine’s potential for wind development, and the ISO’s renewable energy mandates, as leverage for $1 billion from ISO ratepayers for Maine transmission projects.

The crowbar is Aroostook County, where thousands of wind megawatts are for the harvesting. Connecting the County with the state’s grid would ensure this renewable energy flows into the ISO, and ISO dollars flow back.

It’s an interesting idea, with the added benefit of a definitive statement where wind power is best developed.

Aroostook County has the resource and the opportunity for such investment. All it needs is the transmission.

Connecting the County to the world could benefit the rest of Maine, by allowing the state’s first electricity transmission upgrade in 37 years to be funded by ratepayers elsewhere, just as Maine ratepayers have funded theirs.

More important, this plan realizes Maine is suited to exploit its resources for saleable benefit, rather than personal use. States that can export energy have a precious commodity to sell – especially if it is renewable, like wind.

CMP is saying, and we agree, that Maine would be foolish not to leverage it.