Generator Installation in South Portland, Maine

The storms of January 9 through 13, 2024 damaged Willard Beach and Bug Light Park, and later that year the City Council asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study coastal flooding and erosion along the shoreline at Willard Beach, Southern Maine Community College and Bug Light, on outer Front Street near the Coast Guard station, and along the Anthoine Creek stretch of Broadway. The city is also working on a coastal resilience overlay zone. For houses in those areas, the first generator question is height: the unit, its transfer switch and its fuel supply need to sit above the water that the next surge could bring.

Outages are a citywide concern, not just a shoreline one. Statewide, the windstorm at the end of October 2017 took down service for over 400,000 accounts, with some restorations running past a week, a record for weather outages in Maine at the time. Restoration follows the damage, and neighborhoods with mature trees along the lines can wait longer than others. In South Portland, gas and oil heating systems both depend on electricity for burners, pumps and controls, and almost one home in five heats with electricity directly, so a long winter outage leaves most houses cold. Sump pumps in basements near the water and refrigeration for food and medicine usually complete the essential list.

Natural gas is an option in much of the city, since about a third of homes already use it for heat and a standby generator can connect to the same service where a main is present; propane fits streets without gas. Automatic transfer switches start the generator and switch the house over within seconds, while an interlock kit with an inlet lets a portable feed selected circuits safely. Goodnow Electric sizes the generator to the loads that must run, handles the electrical permit, and coordinates with the licensed gas technician who pipes the fuel. A portable should never be run in a garage or backfed through an outlet. Carbon monoxide from a generator near a door or window is a real risk, so placement matters as much as size.