The WindAction Group (www.windAction.org)
This new analysis prepared by the Beacon Hill Institute of Suffolk University shows how Massachusetts green energy policies will cost State ratepayers more than $9.8 billion over the next decade. These costs will be in addition to the market prices for energy, already among the highest in the nation, according to the authors.
TransCanada Power, an energy supplier that also owns a Maine wind farm, is challenging a state law that requires utilities to buy their future renewable energy from Massachusetts-based firms. Download the filing by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.
This 60-day notice of violations of the Endangered Species Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and other laws, was filed with the U.S. Department of the Interior in connection with the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind energy facility. The detailed notice and supporting appendices explain fundamental failures of the Minerals Management Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Fish and Wildlife Service to adequately assess the risks to the natural environment and to protected and endangered species.
Memo from the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities Chairman, Paul Hibbard, to the ISO New England. Chairman Hibbard expresses his concerns over the push to regionalize costs for building expensive transmission lines to service renewable projects (wind) built far from load centers. Current FERC rules are unclear on how to justify distribution of the costs across all ratepayers within the region unless it can be shown such transmission is needed to ensure the reliability and integrity of the grid.
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.
Renewable energy sources have disadvantages as well as advantages, however. Although their costs have decreased in recent years, many renewables are still more costly than traditional sources. Some are also available only intermittently; for example, wind can be variable and hydroelectric is seasonal. And while many people are in favor of renewables in principle, many are also unhappy when faced with the prospect of a windmill or a trash-burning power plant in their neighborhood. These facilities face the same siting and investment difficulties that any electrical facility would, as the developers of a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod have discovered in recent years.
...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.
If you really want to cut energy consumption, reduce pollution, improve public health and protect our environment, it’s time to contact your elected officials, educate them about the lessons of Denmark, Germany and elsewhere, and tell them you want tougher energy efficiency measures instead of wind power plants. Otherwise, in the next few years, you’ll be looking at wind turbines in some of your favorite places, with the knowledge that they’re doing little more than funneling your tax dollars to a few lucky corporations and landowners, and away from better solutions.
The purpose of this report is to identify and characterize the range of options available to municipalities for purchasing green power and improving the efficiency with which electricity is consumed. Municipalities have several viable options for purchasing electricity in a fashion that is consistent with the energy, cost, and environmental goals of the community. Municipalities are in a better position to achieve certain policy goals than are individual customers through their collective buying power. A municipality’s advantage lies in the size of its electricity load, in the potential for more sophisticated decision-making than individual customers can apply, and in the potential for reflecting more of the public interest in the decision-making process.
Comments to FERC by the New England Conference of Public Utility Commissions and the Vermont Department of Public Service
Facts, analysis, exposure to industrial wind energy's real impacts