Long Islander's Blog (3,017)

The USFWS recommends that new wind energy development should be sited outside of an 8-km buffer zone around active leks in prairie grouse habitat (Manville 2004). Our results show that both male and female Greater Prairie-Chickens have negative behavioral responses to wind energy development within 8 km of turbines (Winder et al. 2014b, present study). Lek persistence was also affected by habitat and number of males. Further work is needed to test for lag effects and to explore how wind…

The state high court overturned a lower court ruling Thursday that had chastised the Department of Environmental Protection’s commissioner for loosening noise requirements for the island’s wind turbines.

http://bangordailynews.com/2015/05/08/news/midcoast/state-high-court-overturns-ruling-clears-dep-in-island-wind-case/

The omnibus energy bill passed in 2013 authorized the Maine Public Utilities Commission to have the state’s investor-owned electric utilities buy up to $75 million in natural gas capacity annually from a pipeline company, for up to 20 years.

The PUC is still evaluating proposals from the different companies, against power price forecasts it commissioned from various consulting groups......…

Portland energy company opening Irish facility

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/05/06/local-energy-company-opening-irish-facility/

Angus King's legislation could dramatically alter distributed energy markets nationwide. Does it stand a chance?
By Gavin Bade | May 6, 2015

http://www.utilitydive.com/news/maine-senator-unveils-unprecedented-federal-distributed-energy-bill/394599/

During its 2007 session, the Maine Legislature enacted an Act to Stimulate Demand for Renewable Energy.  This Act established a new "Class I" standard, requiring Maine electricity suppliers to source specified percentages of their electricity from “new” renewable resources...........

http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/report-on-maine-renewable-portfolio-stan-30718/

Also…

 “I value a commission that is independent and objective, and I’m looking at the economics of the choices and are they cost-effective and what’s the impact on the economy and the effect on ratepayers.”…

"Maine already has the highest renewable portfolio in the nation and only two states' electricity sectors have lower CO2 emissions than Maine," O'Connor said. "We are doing great at being clean - now it's time to be smart."

And, she said, there's more. "This repeals the zone changes that made wind energy a permitted use," O'Connor said. "Thousands of residents choose to live in parts of Maine where, in 2008, a zoning decision that was made in Augusta - they lost their ability to…

Elin Katz, a Connecticut consumer official, said winter 2015 electricity prices averaged 17.34 cents a kilowatt hour across New England compared to a 12.81-cent average across the three states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Malloy said the price spikes collectively added about $7.5 billion to the region’s electricity tab over the last two winters and LePage said the high costs put the region at a competitive disadvantage.…

Don't let the door hit you on the way out Mr. Littell.

By Darren Fishell, BDN Staff

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Posted May 05, 2015, at 7:55 p.m.…

The announcement of the study came just two hours ahead of a hearing on a bill, LD 1329, before the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee, that seeks to dramatically rewrite Maine laws aimed at helping wind energy grow in a way that opponents of wind development say would better factor in the rights of Mainers who own property near wind farms....

(Maine Sierra Club): “Despite its misleading and rather Orwellian title, LD 1329 is clearly designed to minimize, if not…

From Newton, Mass.

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This is a very important bill for us. If you cannot attend in person, please tune in at 1:00PM today. (5/5/15).

Tune-in Alert: Public Hearing at EUT Today (May 5, 2016) at 1:00PM  - Very Important Bil

Listen live on the Web 

After clicking the link below, turn up your speakers and use the audio buttons immediately to the right…

May 5, 2015 - A new article this morning from the Bangor Daily News following up on Governor LePage's nomination yesterday of Bruce Williamson to the Maine PUC begins with the words:

"One of the biggest and broadest challenges ahead in the electricity world is how to pay for the grid upgrades expected to cost about $1.5 trillion nationally between 2010 and 2030, an estimate developed by consultants at The Brattle Group".…

Renewable energy developer SunEdison has decided not to seek a long-term contract with Maine utilities for its Weaver Wind project, following the Maine Public Utilities Commission’s reconsideration of the terms of a 25-year power purchasing agreement.…

“That’s why I have introduced legislation to eliminate the production tax credit.” Marchant noted, “Since its creation in 1992, the PTC has ballooned from a temporary boost for energy innovation into a massive special interest handout for the now multibillion-dollar wind industry. Today the wind industry regularly produces more energy than the market demands while hardworking taxpayers shell out billions of dollars each year in PTC support.…

And if a $38 million scam bothers you, then you should be many, many times more upset about the $1.4 billion scam called the Maine Power Reliability Project (MPRP) or CMP Upgrade, a gift to the wind industry funded by duped ratepayers which most of the powers that be deny is such a gift. In fact just this week, our so called Public Advocate in essence stated that transmission build doesn't have anything to do with wind.

The game they have played is that they will say it is not…

Nowhere is this truer than in the IRS’s repeated expansion of the controversial wind-production tax credit, which provides federal subsidies to wind-energy producers. Over the last two and a half years, the agency has shown how a slow-but-steady watering down of federal law can completely reshape its original scope and intent — alarmingly, without any congressional action.…

ROCKLAND, Maine — The City Council voted Friday morning to grant an option to a Boston-based energy company that wants to build a $200 million natural gas power plant on land where City Hall is now located.

The decision came two days after the council failed to grant the option to Rockland Energy Center. Councilors voted 2-1 Wednesday night in favor of the option, but three affirmative votes were needed for approval.…

The importance of having firm generation capacity as opposed to non-dispatchable sources like wind power may be touched upon today in the discussion of LD 1313. As noted in FMM's most recent legislative update,  LD 1313 would remove the referendum requirement for installing nuclear plants that are small. The idea in this Governor's bill is that we need firm generation capacity as opposed to non-dispatchable…