The Great Wind Energy Bait and Switch is a scenario that should have been avoided. 
Ratepayers have been assured by the industry that wind energy is a reliable energy
source that would reduce electricity costs, and these promises were parroted by our
policy makers. Only after spending billions of public dollars on wind, we are being
informed by the beneficiaries of our largess, UPC First Wind, New England's largest
wind developer,
that:

"Curtailment could become a bigger issue as more wind is placed in the system, First Wind acknowledges."

Posted:Today
Updated: 6:36 AM
Maine Sunday Telegram
Inadequate transmission lines keeping some Maine wind power off the...

"Ratepayers will likely bear the cost of future upgrades to fix the problem, which could get worse."

Is this not doublespeak by Ibedrola of Spain, AKA Central Maine Power?

"But the Maine Power Reliablity Project wasn't designed to hook up individual power plants through smaller, 115-kilovolt lines, according to John Carroll, a CMP spokesman."


http://www.pressherald.com/news/there-is-a-problem-withwind-power-i...

Is there no penalty for misrepresentations, or omissions, that cause financial harm to the public? 

2008 FERC Order:
   1. Central Maine asserts that the Project will reduce line losses,
assure a safe and secure supply of power in Maine, improve power
quality and operating efficiency, increase opportunities for new
renewable generation (particularly wind generation), and reduce
congestion. *20 * Central Maine also claims that the Project will
enhance reliability, decrease the risk of cascading outages,
voltage collapse, and widespread blackouts, eliminate the
potential for future NERC violations, and improve system
performance for scheduling, outage coordination, and maintenance.
*21 *

http://www.ferc.gov/whats-new/comm-meet/2008/101608/E-26.pdf


Ratepayers are now on the hook for wind energy failure, and its integration failures?

Why?

Let the beneficiaries of public subsidies, rate increases, Production Tax Credits, Renewable Portfolio
Standards, State Tax Credits, Renewable Energy Tax Credits, Investment Tax Credits,
accelerated five-year depreciation of wind energy equipment, Section 1603 Cash Grants,
"
bonus depreciation” under Section 168(k), and recipients of ARRA stimulus
funding pick up the transmission tab. It's quite apparent that wind developers don't have to produce
anything to benefit from the Production Tax Credit...and by no coincidence.
Wind developers are well
aware that their projects fail to produce energy, yet they can continue to collect public subsidies.

Why should tax and ratepayers be forced to continue to fund First Wind's failed wind projects,
like the Kahuku project in Hawaii for which we guaranteed a $117 million dollar federal loan?

Hawaii Free Press
July 29, 2013

'Photo Essay: Skeletons of Dead Windfarms'

clip-

"Kahuku developer First Wind, formerly known as UPC Wind, got its start in the 1980s California wind rush before abandoning the state and
transferring operations to Europe. Title to dozens of UPC-built wind
farms would be seized in 2010 as part of a $1.2B Italian Mafia asset
confiscation. Many were found to be completely non-functional,
producing nothing but tax credits.
First Wind is now one of the
largest windfarm developers in the US.

When the current wave of wind profiteers goes the way of their
predecessors, the only thing that will be left are the brand new
‘peaker’ plants—powered by natural gas-- built to smooth the erratic
flow of low quality electricity from the wind turbines."

Kennebec Journal
May 13, 2012

'Shortcoming leads to pointing fingers, possible fix':
In the end, if some renewable power producers are unable to use
CMP's new transmission system economically, they have the option of
building their own lines.
http://www.kjonline.com/news/shortcoming-leads-to-pointing-fingers-...

Let's look at the predictability of wind energy failure. Specifically, UPC First Wind
subsidiary and affiliate IVPC formed to sell wind energy in Italy for profit.
http://www.sce.com/nr/sc3/tm2/pdf/1452-e.pdf
This company history offers lessons ignored by our policy makers-and to the detriment 
of tax and ratepayers.

I've resisted this temptation long enough...I told you so.

Fox

News Report:

Mafia Invests in Sicilian Wind Farms

Tuesday, May 05, 2009 The Mafia may be going green.

[Anti-mob prosecutor Roberto Scarpinato]:

"This is the amazing thing -- that developers got public money to build wind farms that did not produce electricity," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519000,00.html

Mafia Tied to Wind Fraud in Italy

Posted By Environmental Leader On November 17, 2009 @ 8:11 am

The “Gone with the Wind” sting operation, started in 2007, netted 11 others who were charged but were not arrested. Italian police told Financial Times that the fraud charges are related to obtaining millions of dollars in public subsidies to construct wind farms that never worked. Police confiscated seven wind farms with 185 turbines in Sicily linked to IVPC, according to the article.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/11/17/mafia-tied-to-wind-fr...

President of Italian Wind Energy Association arrested for fraud

By Red Nek Engineer

By Guy Dinmore in Financial Times, November 12, 2009

The renewable energy sector is under scrutiny across much of southern Italy. Some windfarms, built with official subsidies, have never functioned.

http://redneckusa.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/president-of-italian-wind-energy-association-arrested-for-fraud/

 

Financial Timee

Anti-mafia police make largest asset seizure

By Guy Dinmore in Rome

Published: September 14 2010 19:31 | Last updated: September 14 2010 19:31

The renewable energy sector is under scrutiny across much of southern Italy. Some windfarms, built with official subsidies, have never functioned.

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c96d2de2-c02b-11df-b77d-00144feab49a.html

 

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Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi 

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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