Is net energy billing screwing standard offer customers?

 The Maine OPA wants the PUC to investigate the impact NEB has on standard offer supply offers:

"While in prior years the impact on standard offer rates was likely negligible, the recent sharp increase in NEB projects may be having a significant impact on standard offer prices."
 "Because the standard offer rate is set through annual competitive bidding, without further investigation it is impossible to know the precise impact of NEB on standard offer rates. However, the NEB program likely impacts standard offer rates in three ways. First, under NEB the SOP loses the revenue associated with a retail sale for each kWh credit applied to a customer’s bill. In exchange, the SOP receives a credit that reduces the load obligation, reducing the amount of energy the SOP must purchase in the wholesale market. However, the energy credit is almost always less valuable than the retail sale that is lost.7 As a result, the SOP loses revenues with each kWh credit applied to a customer’s bill, and this lost revenue must be recovered from other ratepayers".
    "Second, the NEB program presents a timing risk for the SOP. Under the NEB program, a participating customer is allowed to bank credits in the customer’s utility account for up to 12 months. As a result, energy generated by an NEB project in July can be “spent” by the NEB participant in February.8 The OPA does not know whether, on balance, the periods when NEB projects are generating electricity is during times when wholesale energy prices are higher than average or lower than average. Similarly, the OPA does not know the extent to which credits are banked by customers and used in later months. These are important questions to understand the timing risk faced by the SOP. Sufficient generation data and billing data are available and it should therefore be possible to estimate the impact of credit banking."
    "Finally, the NEB program creates new uncertainty in the amount and timing of energy that must be supplied by the SOP. As the Commission is aware, the SOP must provide service on an “all requirements” basis and, as such, must assume all risk associated with the amounts and timing of the SOP customer load. Because the distributed generation resources participating in NEB are primarily intermittent resources, it is impossible to precisely predict the timing and magnitude of the generation from these facilities and their effect of the SOP’s load serving obligation. In addition, it is uncertain how many NEB projects will come online and at what time. As a result, prospective standard offer providers must accept the risk that their sales forecasts may be unreliable and will likely price that risk into their bids".

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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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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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