PPH: In windstorm’s wake, CMP feels blows of critics

12/3/17

In windstorm’s wake, CMP feels blows of critics

A post-mortem of the extensive power outages from the October storm focuses intense scrutiny on the response by Maine's utilities.

Issues bound to be scrutinized include inaccurate information on CMP’s Web-based outage tracker, the pros and cons of installing more coated “tree wire” that’s resistant to damage and the cost of moving vulnerable overhead lines underground.......................One review will come from the Office of Public Advocate. The agency says it will hire a private consultant to look at data that CMP will soon be submitting to the PUC, containing details of what it spent to get the lights back on...........................

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/12/03/in-windstorms-wake-cmp-feels-...

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Perhaps CMP can explain why the gigantic federal taxpayer gift they got for their "Smart Meters", didn't seem to deliver reliable help on outage location. Perhaps CMP management was too busy counting their money, admiring their waterfront estates and showing off their Mercedes', all obtained with the money this world class rent seeker wrests away from us with the help of our government "representatives".

Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, who co-chairs the Legislature’s committee that oversees energy and utilities, submitted a bill that aims to protect residences and businesses from rising electricity costs by improving how utility companies are managed. He submitted the bill, which is up for review Nov. 30 by the 10-member Legislative Council, in early September out of concern for rate rises and poor performance by utilities, he said.

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/11/25/business/maine-officials-prep...

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Where's the Reliability Wind Pusher CMP? (BDN)

Excerpted from BDN on 11/17/17:

CMP has been criticized because it invested $1.4 billion in a Maine Power Reliability Program to modernize and enhance transmission of its 40-year-old bulk power system in 2012. That program, and its smart grid system, appear to have done little to lessen the number of outages or to accurately track where power was out and when it would be restored.

http://bangordailynews.com/2017/11/17/opinion/editorials/wind-storm...

The Maine Power Reliability Program which cost ratepayers $1.4 Billion (and counting) was sold to us on the basis of aging lines and population growth - both wholly misleading claims. Its sole purpose was rather to have ratepayers provide a 100% free gift to the Maine industry, without which the electrons from future Maine wind "farms" would be bottlenecked, blocking them from pickpocketing tax payers. The Maine media were complicit in executing the real reason for this project. These are the same Maine media who refuse to this day to let the Maine public know that in Dec 2015, John Baldacci, former governor and father of the heinous Maine expedited wind law became Vice Chair of Avangrid, CMP's parent and second largest wind company in the U.S.

For more, start by reading the following and please share via email, social media, etc. with everyone you know: 

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/maine-electricity-rates...

Demand a special investigation into how this $1.4 Billion travesty was perpetrated on Mainers so that justice can prevail and so that this will never happen again. The coming wave of wind project applications from Mass and Ct would not have any chances of real success without the MPRP having been put in place.

Take special note of the revisionist materials now published now which attempt to show that CMP had publicized the wind power enabling aspect of the MPRP. Anyone reading the papers walked away with the idea this was all about compensating for aging lines allowed to degrade over 40 years.

Huge scam hidden in plain sight thanks to the media.

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Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on December 3, 2017 at 11:53am

"  Restoration time was actually much faster in October than after the historic ice storm of 1998. " 1998 was the longest outage I have witnessed in 40 years at that time, 14 hours is far shorter than the 4 days this past October. It seems the more reliability we purchase, the less we get.

Comment by arthur qwenk on November 26, 2017 at 3:35pm

Photo: Representative Stacey FittsRepresentative Stacey Fitts, all of them racing against the clock to grab up the subsidies, so there is a real urgency for you to act now, before all our ridgelines are covered with turbines and it's too late." He went on and asked, "if not here, where? And if not now, when?" A befuddled committee, led by an unintelligible and dottering Senator Bowman, stared blanky back at Thurston. Thurston went on, pleading with legislators to pass the bill so that people could be heard and so that turbines could not. Committee members Stacey Fitts and David Van Wee ridiculed those who dared to come to their state capitol to tell the truth. It was a shameful demonstration of how a government can be wholly owned and controlled by a corporate entity....in this case, an industry: Big Wind".

Comment by arthur qwenk on November 26, 2017 at 3:31pm

Stacy Fitts, Wind scoundrel now works for NOVATUS Wind who controls numerous wind projects in Maine as Director of Asset Management, Novatus

See http://www.windtaskforce.org/photo/kleinschmidtassociatesboastsab-1...

Comment by arthur qwenk on November 26, 2017 at 3:27pm


Comment by arthur qwenk 2 minutes agoDelete Comment

DON'T FORGET ANOTHER SCOUNDREL WHO is now working for NovaTUS Wind in Maine, WHO SHOT DOWN EVERY ATTEMPT OF MAINE  citizens to be heard in reference to wind projects WHILE Chair of the Maine EUT. He was working for Kleinschmidt Associates who had interests in wind project development at the time. Note how that fact  is EXcluded  from his resume below, as he worked for Kleinschmidt  WHILE on EUT, and never recused himself  from wind proceedings at all.

What a low life, but this is the pattern of Wind developers in Maine.

Stacey Fitts

Director of Asset Management,NOVATUS

  • Mr. Fitts has 28 years of experience in the renewable energy industry, including operations, engineering, and asset management of hydroelectric, wind and solid fuel projects.
  • Mr. Fitts served 8 years as a State Representative in the Maine State Legislature and served on the Joint Standing Committee on Energy Utilities and Technology, and was the Chair of that Committee in his final term. During his time in the Legislature, he also served on the Wind Power Task Force, which crafted the landmark policies and drafted the legislation which passed as the Maine Wind Act, setting the stage for the development of wind power projects in appropriate areas in Maine.
  • Prior to joining Novatus, Mr. Fitts was a Plant Manager in two hydroelectric projects in Maine and New Hampshire, served as an engineering consultant to a tire incineration plant in Connecticut, served as President of the Independent Energy Producers of Maine (now Maine Renewable Energy Association) and was the Director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs at Summit Natural Gas of Maine.
  • He holds a Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering from Maine Maritime Academy and attended the Harvard Kennedy School as a Senior Fellow in their State and Local Government Program.
Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on November 18, 2017 at 11:34am


Transmission Reliability "from point of generation" to "point of distribution" upgrades are really nothing to do about Maine's needs, but rather more to do with the increased capacity to Southern New England. Though maybe a capability to add capacity to Maine at Orrington exist as it passes through from Canada to the south, while we import fossil fuels to generate, it shows that Maine is not in Need of added capacity. Maine is not in need of added (any) Wind capacity or Solar that is grid tied. Maine is a Net Exporter, however, Maine is also Plantation of Transmission lines expanding ever more, heading south. CMP and others that are not generators are classified as Transmission, and in that sense of the word being used synonymously with Distribution, they have neglected to Maintain their Distribution portion and redirected funds that should be set aside for the purpose. Cut the umbilical cord to the south for a year, to take a true measure of how much Maine really needs in reliability transmission vs reliability distribution. Could the generators with fossil fuels and all the Transmission lines be justified afterward?

Comment to BDN article

Comment by Long Islander on November 18, 2017 at 11:18am

Let's not forget Kurt Adams who presided at the Maine PUC as they greased the skids for ratepayers to fund the MPRP:

  • Kurt Adams: When the governor’s task force was doing its work, Adams was head of the state’s Public Utilities Commission, although he had already had communication with wind developer First Wind about possibly going to work for them. In their report, task force members wrote “PUC Chairman Kurt Adams and agency counsel Mitch Tannenbaum, and DEP Commissioner and Task Force member David Littell were particularly helpful to the Task Force in developing and presenting information regarding the regional energy system, electric transmission, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and other renewable energy policy issues as they relate to wind power.  Adams left the PUC to take a high-level position with First Wind in May, 2008; in April, he had received 1.2 million units of equity in First Wind — akin to stock options — while he was still at the PUC. An investigation by Attorney General Janet Mills determined Adams had done nothing wrong.

http://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/

 

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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