RGGI presents New England electric customers with a dilemma. Even if Maine decided to stop participating in RGGI, the costs of RGGI developed from other New England State's RGGI membership will permeate throughout the ISO-NE wholesale markets where the supply portion of monthly electric bills originate. The alternative would be to divert the amount of RGGI payments paid by the five fossil fuel plants located in Maine that are dedicated to Efficiency Maine Trust and return this money to the Maine ratepayers to offset wholesale market mark ups by RGGI.

 
If Maine sited fossil fuel plants can avoid the margin where the clearinghouse price is set, their market payments would include the production price including the RGGI costs from other state's fossil fuel plants as long as these other States remain a RGGI participant. 
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If, on the other hand, other New England States also return RGGI payments back to ratepayers, RGGI still regulates emissions, but the whole experience becomes a zero sum exercise. The amount of laundered money through RGGI and back to ratepayers would rapidly grow as the cap on emissions keeps shrinking, thus raising the prices that plants would have to receive to offset production losses due to the ever shrinking, regulated emissions caps. 
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Now for the Catch 22. The regulated caps would eventually cause such a loss in allowable production that emitting plants would be forced into retirement and the loss of dispatchable generation would cause the electric sector to collapse.
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This is where the ISO-NE market is headed and these grid operators lack the courage to tell the States that RGGI is a suicide mission. It is just a matter of time until the dispatchable plants start falling like dominoes, and where do we point the finger as power dwindles away or is only available at rationed limits according to the breezes and daylight sunshine? The States? RGGI? ISO-NE? CMP and Versant? The energy providers?

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

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(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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