Emera Maine has shaken up its top leadership, giving former president and chief operating officer Gary Chasse a new role in charge of developing “smart grid” technology for the utility.
Alan Richardson, the company’s former vice president of transmission, took over Chasse’s previous role as president and chief operating officer of Emera Maine on Friday.
The company has also promoted former vice president of operations Kim Wadleigh to a position reporting to Chasse, as vice president of smart grid strategy.
“Smart grids” refer to systems that can manage more detailed information about power use and maintain power reliability while incorporating intermittent power generators like home-based solar panels.
Susan Faloon, a spokeswoman for the company, wrote in an email the company does not seek to become Maine’s “smart grid coordinator,” a designation state energy regulators are considering to manage projects like a pilot in Boothbay run by the Portland-based company GridSolar.
Faloon said the new division will focus on “grid modernization” and generate new ideas for structuring rates and using new technologies.
Emera Maine, which includes the former Bangor Hydro and Maine Public Service territories, delivers electricity to 154,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers across 9,350 square miles in five counties in eastern and northern Maine.