On Jun 12, MA DOER granted Hydro Quebec approval for 108MW of wind to be eligible for the MA Rec market. There is an additional 212MW of wind that is already operating and may soon follow. DOER's decision is attached. A number of folks familiar with the New England REC market believe this decision, to be followed by others, will seriously depress REC values.

In November 2001, Cape Wind Associates, filed an application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permission to construct the nation’s first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The project would consist of 130 wind turbines, each approximately 420 feet tall, arrayed over a 24 square mile area of the Sound known as Horseshoe Shoals. The wind farm would be sited five miles off the coast, in federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) waters. From there, undersea cables would transmit power through state waters to an onshore distribution grid. The project, according to Cape Wind, would have an installed nameplate capacity of approximately 468 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

...the MEA Report can be used to estimate the value (avoided emissions) of Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) by providing both REC suppliers and stakeholders with information that can be used to communicate the environmental benefits of RECs and works to enhance the overall REC marketplace.

Editor's Note: As noted below under Methodology [emphasis added], this report appears to substantiate the point that wind energy would not backdown "baseload" generation.

When considering local bylaws regulating wind turbine development, towns need to consider whether and to what degree they should be encouraged. The question of how much revenue they might generate for the town will be among the first issues raised. To determine this, there are many things a town with land suitable for commercial wind development needs to consider. Particular attention needs to be paid to long-term trends as well. This paper explores some of these factors and their implications.