A Christmas Wish List from Maine Electricity Customers to the Ruling Elites

Bills that must be presented for hearings during this legislative session:

1.End Maine's participation in RGGI. The supply portion, whether by the Standard Offer or by any of the Competitive Providers, is setting new record high prices that are crushing ratepayers and RGGI is a main driver to these costs. The C02 reduction levels have bottomed out and the reliability of the grid is at severe risk as continued pressure from RGGI caps will drive reliably valued natural gas-fired plants out of the market, as evidenced from the Mystic Station retirement this year. 
2. Stop state mandated Power Purchase Agreements with Wind, Solar and Battery Storage Systems. The most recent solicitation came with pricing terms set at $135 per MWh, 4 times the average wholesale market rate. The PUC justified this assault on electric bills by saying it was a ratepayer cost reduction to the Net Energy Billing status quo. These concessions to solar developers still represent significant cost increases to utility customers. 
3. Eliminate the Renewable Energy Credit Market which is only an additional profit for wind and solar developers. In the "2023 Annual Market Report" issued by ISO-NE: "The profitability of wind and solar units in the region is intricately linked with state policies, with both resource types generally relying on additional revenue streams to those in the wholesale markets to be economically viable. Between 2021 and 2023, the solar unit would have earned 80% to 90% of its revenues from the sale of renewable energy credits; similarly, 30% to 50% of the wind unit’s revenue would have been attributable to RECs." Very soon REC prices will overtake the "Alternative Compliance Payments" because demand will be matched with inadequate supply and a REC acquisition battle will ensue between the States of New England at the expense of ratepayers. 
4. Repeal Net Energy Billing  Self-explanatory, the 16% of the ratepayers who participate in NEB and greedy developers should not be stealing money from other ratepayers to the tune of hundreds of million dollars.
5. Repeal adversarial regulations on nuclear power. Nuclear Power needs to be part of the power supply, it will not be stopped. Embrace it with business-friendly policies. Nuclear power provides baseload power and has a capacity factor over 90%
6. Reverse all laws that attack natural gas pipeline expansion. Natural gas is the most dispatchable generation available and adequate supply will lower the wholesale price. Nuclear, a baseload power source, is complementary to natural gas, unlike wind and solar which suck off natural gas attributes. Pipeline capacity is desperately inadequate during winter months and Maine people will be in peril on deadly frigid days without solid natural gas supplies and any amount of wind, solar and batteries will not change anything. A solution is in order.
7. Let the ISO-NE wholesale market work the way it was designed, as a competitive market void of government favors, malice or intervention.
8. Revisit the C02 issue. Consider the work of many scientists, geologists and engineers that oppose the present, quickly enabled " Settled Science". C02 is a very important component to Earth's vegetation growth cycle. Please read the following reports and stop closing your mind to debate. It is far from over. 

We Are in a CO2 Famine

9. No to offshore wind. The costs exceed the meager and fleeting jobs benefits. Remember the PUC decision on January 19, 2014 "The Term Sheet agreed outlines the conditions under which Maine Aqua Ventus I will sell an estimated 43,000-megawatt hours per year to the grid from its two, six-megawatt turbines at a price of 23 cents per kilowatt hour."
 
Almost 11 years have passed since this term sheet proposal. Estimates today would put prices at 36 to 42 cents per kilowatt hour.
Try making a monetary ratepayer benefit reselling a $420 per megawatt hour electricity into a wholesale market that averages $37 per megawatt hour. 420 minus 37 = 383 dollars times 43,000-megawatt hour production = $16,469,000 per year.
Now, remember: Enacted LD 1895 authorizes procurement of 3,000 MW of offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine installed by 2040.  Maine Aqua Ventus I was a proposed 12-Megawatt project. Extrapolating, 3000MW Goal divided by 12 = 250. 250 times 16,469,000 = $4,117,250,000 per year (that's $4.117 billion PER YEAR! and $82.345 billion over 20 years!)
 
Now, ISO-NE determines the least cost transmission route from offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine would be landfall in Massachusetts. How does this sound to Maine people? 
 
And the Sears Island Wind Port costs? This is even more prosperity-killing than Net Energy Billing.
 
11. Finally, let's look at Efficiency Maine Trust which appears to have earned the TRUST of the PUC to set up demand response programs effectively giving them control of appliances within the homes of Maine. They are at a $250 million dollar FY 2025 budget funded by 1.  $83 million dollars from Maine ratepayers through line item "Electricity Efficiency Procurement" ,  2. Nearly $60 million dollars from RGGI proceeds that are derived from a carbon tax on 6 critically, reliable fossil fuel generation plants in Maine and paid through the supply portion of monthly bills.
       MERRY CHRISTMAS, ONE AND ALL

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Comment by Willem Post on December 25, 2024 at 8:09am

Thank you.

You hit the nail on the head

Keep driving these nails down, especially after Trump suspend the subsidies

U.S. Sen Angus King

THE UNTOLD STORY OF RECORD HILL WIND

The Untold Story of Record Hill Wind, continued

 

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

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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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