As with any new market, changes take awhile, but the added costs from the new, Maine wind market are real and coming fast.
Wind Timeline Costs:
   1. ITC, federal program using tax-paid or more correctly, future tax-paid funds plus interest,  which grants a wind development company 30% of the costs of construction.
    2. Long term contracts with regional utilities lasting 15 to 20 years that sell energy output. This attracts investors, quelling fears of lower cost resources bumping wind out of the on-going market. With Long tern contracts, wind is guaranteed to be part of the market and lower, alternative resource costs get concealed due to non-entry, scaling back the opportunity for ratepayer cost relief.
    3. Bundling of renewable energy credit assets and pre-selling at fixed prices. Again, a favored investment feature which gets quick returns.  Renewable Energy Credits are purchased by electricity suppliers from wind plant developers and the cost passed on to the ratepayer. The developer can do whatever he wants to do with this money, it's value is well above plant costs.
     4. Transmission upgrades costs to accommodate remote siting of wind plants, which become part of the delivery billing on ratepayer bills. As wind is incrementally added, transmission costs, likewise, are incrementally built and added to costs.
     5. Reliability costs associated with integrating wind into the wholesale market due to wind's natural, intermittent tendencies. Critical time/load compensation engineering and methods increase costs for the sake of reliability. It is hidden within the many regional wholesale markets, but, it is considerable.
      6. It is extremely disastrous to concentrate wind plant installation within  set aside geographical areas,  which extenuates the intermittent nature and corresponding reactions from system operations and other nearby generators. A market with sputtering exporting and importing of electricity raises costs far above a market developed from harmonious, dispatchable generation interaction.  

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Comment by Hart Daley on March 23, 2015 at 8:02am
Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on March 22, 2015 at 3:51pm

Though long term contracts are allowed by the Maine PUC and probably State statute, which allows the company to show the DEP, BEP and others including the EUT that the company has financial stability and a NEED for this energy they "should be"  ban. The financial security is the job of the Parent Company to secure sufficient stockholders, who take that risk (vs taxpayers and ratepayers) so that they "earn their reward" through dividends. The NEED portion should be a market driven demonstration, not a contractual one. Something that could not otherwise be proven during a permitting process, other than the demonstration that the market price increases based on demand. These new methodologies of energy production should demonstrate either a leveling of market prices or reduction due to the increase in production, not cause an increase with each new generator coming on line due to the added contracts which must maintain a set fee to meet the contractual obligations. We are essentially allowing them to pre-determine (price fixing) the cost of our current and future electricity energy. PTC's REC's LTC's all part of the SʯELL game to "We the People", our  somewhat trusted elected officials and/or state employees in various agencies.  

Comment by alice mckay barnett on March 22, 2015 at 12:07pm

thank you

 

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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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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