CMP bills to decrease almost 3% for home customers in July
Comment
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Comment by Dan McKay on June 19, 2022 at 7:37am
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Natural gas prices remain high, so why isn't wind and solar generated electricity coming to the rescue with their "free" energy?
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Comment by Penny Gray on June 18, 2022 at 6:45pm
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Thank you for your insight and excellent data, Willem Post, it is much appreciated.
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EXHORBITANT REAL COST OF WIND AND SOLAR ELECTRICITY
“All-in” Electricity Cost of Wind and Solar in New England
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-costs-of-wind-sol...
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-shifting-is-the-na...
Pro RE folks point to the “price paid to owner” as the cost of wind and solar, purposely ignoring the other cost categories. The all-in cost of wind and solar, c/kWh, includes:
1) Above-market-price paid to Owners
2) Subsidies paid to Owners
3) Owner return on invested capital at about 9%/y
4) Grid extension/augmentation
5) Grid support services
6) Future battery systems
Comments on table 1
- Vermont legacy Standard Offer solar systems had greater subsidies paid to owner, than newer systems
- Wind prices paid to owner did not have the drastic reductions as solar prices.
- Vermont utilities are paid about 3.5 c/kWh for various costs they incur regarding net-metered solar systems
- "Added to rate base" is the cost wind and solar are added to the utility rate base, used to set electric rates.
- “Total cost”, including subsidies to owner and grid support, is the cost at which wind/solar are added to the utility rate base
- “NE utility cost” is the annual average cost of purchased electricity, about 6 c/kWh, plus NE grid operator charges, about 1.6 c/kWh
for a total of 7.6 c/kWh.
- “Grid support costs” would increase with increased use of battery systems to counteract the variability and intermittency of increased build-outs of wind and solar systems. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reduction...
NOTES:
1) NE wholesale grid price averaged about 5 c/kWh, starting in 2009, due to low-cost CCGT and nuclear plants providing at least 65% of all electricity loaded onto the NE grid, in 2019.
https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/
https://nepool.com/uploads/NPC_20200305_Composite4.pdf
2) There are Owning costs, and Operating and Maintenance costs, of the NE gridISO-NE charges these costs to utilities at about 1.6 c/kWh. The ISO-NE charges include:
Regional network services, RNS, based on the utility peak demand occurring during a monthForward capacity market, FCM, based on the utility peak demand occurring during a year.
Table 1/VT & NE sources
Paid to
Subsidy
Grid
GMP
Added
ISO-NE
Total
NE
Times
paid to
support
to rate
RNS+
utility
owner
towner
cost
adder
base
FCM
cost
cost
c/kWh
c/kWh
c/kWh
c/kWh
c/kWh
c/kWh
c/kWh
c/kWh
Solar, rooftop, net-metered, new
17.4
5.2
2.1
3.5
20.9
1.6
29.8
7.6
3.92
Solar, rooftop, net-metered, legacy
18.2
5.4
2.1
3.5
21.7
1.6
30.8
7.6
4.05
Solar, standard offer, combo
11.0
6.74
2.1
11.0
1.6
21.44
7.6
2.82
Solar, standard offer, legacy
21.7
10.5
2.1
21.7
1.6
35.9
7.6
4.72
Wind, ridge line, new
8.5
3.9
2.4
8.5
1.6
16.4
7.6
2.15
Wind, offshore, new
9.0
4.1
2.4
9.0
1.6
17.1
7.6
2.25
Sample calculations:
NE utility cost = 6, Purchased + 1.6, (RNS + FCM) = 7.6 c/kWh
Added to utility rate base = 17.4, net-metered, new + 3.5 = 20.9 c/kWh
Total cost = 17.4 + 5.2 + 2.1 + 3.5 + 1.6 = 29.8 c/kWh
Excludes costs for very expensive battery systems
Excludes costs for very expensive floating, offshore wind systems
Excludes cost for dealing with shortfalls during multi-day wind/solar lulls. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/wind-and-solar-provide...
“Added to rate base” is for recent 20-y electricity supply contracts awarded by competitive bidding in NE.
“Added to rate base” would be much higher without subsidies and cost shifting.
Areas with better wind and solar conditions, and lower construction costs/MW have lower c/MWh, than NE
New England has average winds, has highest on-shore turnkey costs ($2,400/kW in 2020), has highest PPA c/kWh
See page 39 of URL
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-08/Land-Based%20Win...
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Penny,
Wind and solar electricity is about 2 to 3 times more expensive than coal and gas and hydro
Wind and solar have high subsidies to make their electricity APPEAR less costly than in reality
Wind and solar projects have financial structures, so they will serve as tax shelters for the rich
Wood burning power plants are only 25% efficient, which means the energy equivalent of 3 of 4 trees is wasted
The toxic emissions of wood burning power plants are significantly greater/kWh than of coal
COST SHIFTING IS THE NAME OF THE GAME REGARDING WIND AND SOLAR
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/cost-shifting-is-the-na...
Regarding wind and solar, cost shifting is rarely mentioned, identified or quantified. Those costs, as c/kWh, could be quantified, but it is politically expedient, using various, often far-fetched reasons, to charge them to:
- Directly to ratepayers, via electric rate schedules, and/or added taxes, fees and surcharges on electric bills
- Directly to taxpayers, such as carbon taxes, user fees and surcharges.
- Directly to federal and state budgets and debts
Per Economics 101, no cost ever disappears.
Eventually, the various shifted wind and solar costs, plus direct and indirect wind and solar subsidies, would increase the prices of energy and of other goods and services.
Efficiency and productivity improvements elsewhere in the energy sector, and other sectors of the economy, may partially, or completely, offset such increases.
However, wind and solar subsidies would divert capital from other sectors of the economy, which likely would result in fewer improvements in efficiency and productivity in these sectors.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-demand-and-low-win...
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Biden Energy Secretary: Buy an EV Peasant!
Essay by Eric Worrall
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who last month pocketed 1.6 MILLION exercising share options on an Electric Vehicle company, has suggested people experiencing gasoline pain should just buy a medium-size crossover EV, for about $45,000, plus sales tax, dealer prep/documentation.
Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm insists high gas prices are ‘a very compelling case’ to buy an electric car.
She is worth $8 million and recently exercised $1.6 MILLION stock option in electric car company
Granholm, in a clip surfaced Tuesday, made the case for going electric amid sky high gas prices
If you filled up your EV [electric vehicle], and you filled up your gas tank with gasoline, you would save about $60 per fill-up,’ she said
Granholm made similar points in a White House press briefing in May 2021. ‘If you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you.’
Granholm, who is worth $8 MILLION according to Forbes
Last month she also exercised stock options in Proterra, an electric vehicle company where she served as a director
She ended up pocketing $1.6 million on the transaction, according to an energy department spokesperson
What a self-serving charmer – Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm financially benefitted from a company whose value is soaring thanks to a gasoline price crisis which the Biden administration she serves helped to create, via their war on oil pipelines and oil and gas exploration.
No word yet, if any of the Biden family serves on the boards of EV companies Jennifer is involved with. Hunter, where are you? The boards are calling for your “services”
Breitbart reports Biden has instructed Granholm to meet with oil companies, to figure out ways to boost crude production and reduce gasoline pump prices.
This follows on from a letter Biden sent to oil companies, which contained the ominous warning “my Administration is prepared to use all reasonable and appropriate Federal government tools and authorities to increase refinery capacity and output in the near term”.
Biden expects oil companies to bring an explanation for their lack of production to their meeting with Granholm.
Report: Philadelphia’s Electric Bus Fleet in Complete Shambles
By Paul Homewood
Proterra, which had Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on its board of directors, when Philadelphia pulled the buses off the streets last year, has been highlighted by the Biden administration as a business of the future.
President Joe Biden visited the company’s factory in April and pledged in his initial infrastructure package proposal to include federal money for the electric vehicle market.
The company has since been touted by top officials including White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy, who in a public meeting asked Proterra’s CEO how the federal government could spur demand for Proterra buses.
The cost of Proterra’s electric buses has gained attention in recent weeks.
On a recent trip by Biden to La Crosse, Wis., it was revealed that two buses the city ordered from Proterra for $1.5 million in 2018 have still not been delivered.
Over the past five days, Proterra’s stock price has fallen over 25 percent.
Philadelphia’s Proterra buses were first rolled out for the 2016 DNC convention with a promise that the city was “plugging into an emissions free future.”
Granholm was on Proterra’s board from 2017 until earlier this year. It was during that time that both SEPTA and Proterra learned that the heavier buses were cracking, according to the WHYY report.
Philadelphia placed the Proterra buses in areas where it thought they could succeed but quickly learned it was mistaken. Two pilot routes selected in South Philadelphia that were relatively short and flat compared with others in the city were too much for the electric buses.
“Even those routes needed buses to pull around 100 miles each day, while the Proterras were averaging just 30 to 50 miles per charge,” WHYY reporter Ryan Briggs wrote. “Officials also quickly realized there were not parking spaces room at the ends of either route for charging stations.”
Similar problems have been found in other cities that partnered with Proterra. Duluth, Minn., which, like Philadelphia, waitedthree years for its Proterra buses to be delivered, ultimately pulled its seven buses from service “because their braking systems were struggling on Duluth’s hills, and a software problem was causing them to roll back when accelerating uphill from a standstill,” according to the Duluth Monitor.
Proterra did not respond to a request for comment.
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/report-philadelphias-pr...
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Penny,
Wind and solar electricity is about 2 to 3 times more expensive than coal and gas and hydro
Wind and solar have high subsidies to make their electricity APPEAR less costly than in reality
Wind and solar projects have financial structures, so they will serve as tax shelters for the rich
Wood burning power plants are only 25% efficient, which means the energy equivalent of 3 of 4 trees is wasted
The toxic emissions of wood burning power plants are significantly greater/kWh than of coal
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Bills should decrease by at least 75% when we're 100% invested in wind and solar and weaned off fossil fuels. Don't forget, wind and solar are FREE. Can't wait!
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Long Islander,
Yes, and these solar systems’ turnkey capital costs will be about 25% greater than in 2020, and the electricity produced BY THEM, MOSTLY AT MIDDAY, will also be 25% greater, because Biden’s teleprompter controllers have policies designed to destroy the U.S., the opposite of MAGA
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Comment by Long Islander on June 15, 2022 at 6:57am
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State officials have estimated that power delivery rates – which only account for half the bill – could rise by at least 35 percent by 2025 if solar projects totaling 1,667 megawatts of capacity come online as planned.
https://www.pressherald.com/2022/06/14/cmp-delivery-rate-to-drop-al...
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The deranged EU bureaucrats in Brussels had been drinking the UN KOOL-AID, and were eagerly dancing to the UN climate tunes, and telling member countries not to sign long-term gas supply contracts with Russia, because it looked bad regarding fighting global warming.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-plot-is-thickening...I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP; JUST GOOGLE.
As a result, EU members had to buy gas on the SPOT market, which went through the roof, because Russia supplies gas only to customers with long term contracts, AS DO ALL OTHER GAS SELLERS.
Normally, the SPOT market is just a very small fraction of the total gas market, but now, IN EUROPE, it had become the 800-lb gorilla in the room.
The EU bureaucrats were PISSED at Russia, because they had thought Russia would supply gas to the SPOT market, which it did not.
The EU bureaucrat scheme fell apart, much scrambling to shift the blame, egg-on-faces every where.
IDEOLOGY-DRIVEN EU bureaucrats had shot themselves in the foot, AGAIN
All that happened in 2021, well before Ukraine, with EU gas storage levels at record lows, and WIND AND SOLAR HAVING UNDERPERFORMED FOR MONTHS.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...THE LEVEL OF EU STUPIDITY AND LACK OF REAL-WORLD INSIGHT, AND WIND/SOLAR HUBRIS, ETC., WAS ASTOUNDING TO RATIONAL OBSERVERs
The UN nutcases, and EU bureaucrats, and other Climate Posses are holding hands and dancing in a circle of deranged, positive-feedback madness.
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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