St. John Valley towns explore joint effort to address rising electricity costs

ST. JOHN VALLEY, Maine (WAGM/WABI) - The towns of Madawaska, Frenchville, and St. Agatha are looking at whether working together could help residents and businesses deal with rising energy costs. Officials say no decisions have been made, but the communities are exploring a possible grant to study their options.

In the St. John Valley, residents and business owners have been feeling the pressure of higher electricity bills.

Madawaska Town Manager David Daigle says town officials have heard repeated concerns from people seeing their bills go up. Now, Madawaska, Frenchville, and St. Agatha are working together to see if there may be a more affordable way forward.

“We’re currently exploring a grant opportunity to do a feasibility study on the potential of creating our own electric utility district here in the St. John Valley. Residents back in December of 25 and the beginning of January 2026 businesses and residents alike started to tell us about their escalating electrical rates without the delivery being any different by like 20% to 50%.”

Daigle says those complaints pushed the town to revisit an idea leaders had considered before but never moved forward with.

“I think we owe the residents an understanding of why electrical rates have gone up and what other opportunities can we create to lower those electrical costs. I think it’ll answer the primary question; can we do electricity more affordable and is it possibly getting our electrical source from maybe Canada or other types of sources?”

If the grant is awarded, officials say the feasibility study would include input from stakeholders in each community.

They also plan to keep residents informed and give the public a chance to weigh in as the process moves forward.