Van Buren, Maine — This small border town has something that most other towns in Maine don’t. It’s cheap electricity.
Local leaders are now looking to use that to their advantage, launching a marketing campaign to attract more businesses to Van Buren.
Van Buren Light & Power has been in operation for more than a century and sells power for 12.5 cents per kilowatt hour, about 10 cents less than the state average. Only the city of Halton in southern Aroostook County offers electricity for as low as 11.4 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to 2023 average electricity rates posted on the state’s website.
A conversation between Van Buren Mayor Luke Dyer and U.S. Sen. Angus King about the town’s electricity costs led Van Buren to launch a new marketing effort to promote lower costs in partnership with a South Carolina university. It became.
“He basically asked, ‘Why didn’t I know that?'” Dyer said of his conversation with King. “I responded that I believe we have the second-lowest electric rates in New England, if not the entire East Coast, and that I am generally not good at touting the benefits.”
Dyer said King suggested the town produce a brochure to market the community to developers who rely on large amounts of electricity for their operations. Maine’s high electricity costs are often cited as a deterrent to businesses locating in the state.
The new campaign comes amid a revitalization effort in the town of about 2,000 residents that began last year with a grant from the Citizens Institute for Rural Design. Van Buren was one of 17 communities in the United States to receive a grant supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Although the amount was not specified, the grant helped the town obtain state and federal funding for future projects.
The City of Van Buren is also working with the Maine Department of Transportation on a Village Partnership Initiative project to completely renovate the downtown area. And new companies like Northern Maine Colache Co. are attracting customers from far beyond small border towns.
Dyer said this is the first time the town has produced a marketing brochure since the 1970s. Local power companies will be featured prominently in this campaign.
Bill Schofield, manager of Van Buren Light & Power, said that by keeping delivery overhead costs low, the utility is able to keep them well below the state average of 22 cents per kilowatt hour. .
“We have several employees,” Schofield said. “We have old equipment. We have old poles and wires. We don’t have the best of the best equipment. We don’t have the ability to know when the power is burning at this moment or at that moment. No customer needs the ability to know.”
Schofield said the utility, which started in 1902, has two full-time employees in the office and three full-time employees who work outside. In total, it serves approximately 1,380 customers, including approximately 12 customers just outside Hamlin town lines.
Schofield said the power is purchased from New Brunswick’s NB Power and sent through the Versant transmission line to the Van Buren substation. Most of this electricity comes from hydropower.
The district said it looks forward to being featured in future marketing brochures and contributing to the revitalization of the area.
Discussions with Mr. King led to a collaboration between the town and Clemson University. Dyer contacted Scott Schmidt, an instructor who teaches information design and data visualization classes, about helping create the brochure.
Schmidt is also a professor at Georgetown University and Drexel University. Earlier this year, Van Buren collaborated with Schmidt’s class at Drexel University’s Westphal School of Media Art and Design to create about a dozen pieces of art for Van Buren’s historical trajectory.
Schmidt said Clemson University’s classes are being held online and there are five students enrolled in the master’s of public administration program. According to Schmidt, the skills learned in this class include graphic and information design principles, visualization literacy, and storytelling using appropriate tools.
“It’s not about making things look pretty,” he said. “The key is how effectively we can collect large amounts of information and present it to the public in a concise and understandable way.”
In addition to highlighting the town’s competitive electricity rates, Schmidt said the brochure will focus on four broad categories: activities, people, revitalization and heritage. Dyer said he also wants to highlight the town’s year-round outdoor recreation opportunities, ATV trails and boat launches, which have become popular for muskie and bass fishing on the St. John River.
After hosting a focus group with the community via Zoom on Thursday, Schmidt said the next morning that the next step is to continue iterating on the design and present the results at the Town Council meeting on Dec. 4 at 6 p.m. spoke.
Dyer said distribution will begin once the pamphlet is complete.
“I’m definitely going to give a bunch of them to Sen. King, and then I’m going to put them somewhere else, maybe in Houlton or in the visitor center or something like that,” Dyer said. spoke.
A digital version of the pamphlet will also be distributed online.
“Having a project like this and having this class of resources available was very unique and really beneficial to our town,” Dyer said.
