Maine's Public Utilities Commission has ruled that the company is a generation facility, not a utility.

State regulators have ruled that Grid Solar LLC, the company that's pitching itself as an alternative energy distributor in Maine, does not qualify as a utility under state law. Public Utilities Commission Chair Sharon Reishus says Grid Solar made some interesting arguments on its own behalf, but failed to show that it is anything more than a generation facility.

"Transmission and distribution utilities typically have poles and wires and create the bills, and the ratepayers pay those bills, and so they were arguing for a very small piece of that that they wanted to play, but we just couldn't get there on the basis of their arguments," Reishus says.

Grid Solar is proposing to distribute solar and propane generated electricity through a model it is presenting as an alternative to Central Maine Power's proposal of expanded transmission lines. Reishus says today's decision has no bearing on the CMP case, which will have hearings before the PUC beginning next month.