Delmarva Power's four power purchase agreements with wind developers should begin paying dividends by the end of the year, with the first clean-energy electrons flowing to the state later this fall. One land-based wind farm under contract to the local utility could start sending electricity to Delaware by year's end, and another in western Maryland could get its permit soon despite concerns the turbines could harm endangered species. That project has an easier path to approval thanks to a controversial new law that exempts smaller wind farm projects from an extensive environmental vetting.

H. Russell Frisby Jr., who was chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission from 1995 to 1998 and now represents the advocacy group Marylanders for Reliable Power, said Friday at the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference that the clock is ticking for Maryland to free up enough capacity to meet the state's growing demand, and residents need to realize that.

Maryland has opened energy supply talks with a Delaware offshore wind developer, hoping to tap into green energy from an expanded wind farm off Rehoboth Beach. State Energy Administration officials in Maryland said Wednesday that options now under review include using Bluewater's proposed turbine complex to power all of Maryland's state and county buildings, and possibly drawing energy from a second wind farm that could be built off Ocean City. ... "This is in its infancy. At first blush, I would say: Build it in Delaware, let us look at it, let us see how it looks and what kind of problems you have first," Hall said. Neither of Bluewater's talks in Maryland and New Jersey currently involve forced contracts or costly, regulator-driven deals of the type used in Delaware to produce the Delmarva contract.

Though two Synergics wind turbine projects in Garrett County have not yet been filed with the Maryland Public Service Commission, the energy expected to be produced by them has already been put under contract. ...The contracts signed are for a proposed Synergics project on Roth Rock bordering Mettiki Coal Co. on Backbone Mountain, according to Frank Maisano, wind-power industry spokesman. This project is expected to begin delivering 40 megawatts of power in September 2009. The second Synergics project will likely be on Four Mile Ridge near Avilton, where Synergics has meteorological towers situated to study the wind potential there, Maisano said. This project is expected to produce 60 megawatts of power by December 2010.

A surcharge on electric bills in Delaware and surrounding states that was designed to increase generating capacity hasn't delivered on its promise, four states are arguing in a complaint filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The states of Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania filed the complaint late Friday, together with a coalition of electricity buyers and consumer advocates. They say the surcharge will overcharge electricity consumers in the 13-state territory in the PJM Interconnection grid by $12 billion between 2008 and 2011. As a share of that, Delmarva Power ratepayers in Delaware will overpay by about $125 million in "unjust and unreasonable" rates, the states claim.

Legislators in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic passed a number of bills applying to the electric power industry, with several states committing to emissions reductions through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and other states making broad organizational changes to their regulatory processes.

WASHINGTON - The House rejected a resolution Wednesday that would block government plans to spur construction of major new power lines in many states regardless of local opposition. The issue has been contentious in parts of the East Coast and in the Southwest, where two high priority transmission corridors for power lines were proposed. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., warned colleagues that unwanted power lines could come to their district.

he United States Department of Energy issued a proposal yesterday that could reopen the way for a 190-mile high-voltage transmission line through central New York that state and local officials tried to block last year. The department declared a multistate area from West Virginia to upstate New York a "National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor," where congestion of existing power lines makes the electricity grid unreliable and subject to blackouts.

States with renewable portfolio standards have generated growth in the renewable energy sector, but many of the Appalachian states don't have one. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New York all have some fairly progressive goals, but West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee don't have a state RPS and wind projects often ignite battles.