Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Massachusetts Offshore Wind Energy Dimming

August 11, 2023

Inflation, interest rates, the war in Ukraine, insurance, maintenance costs, faulty blades, and gears along with wind companies backing out of contracts are dimming the Massachusetts renewable energy agenda. The only alternative for Massachusetts state officials is raising electric rates to the point of becoming a second mortgage on homes and businesses.

Whale deaths or what are called "takes" by federal officials have followed ocean wind turbine construction since the 2016 Block Island, Rhode Island wind farm into New Jersey, New York, and this year Rhode Island and Massachusetts. NOAA Fisheries has declared an unusual mortality event for humpback whale strandings along the Atlantic coast. The event began in 2016 and remains in effect.

Questions remain over who insures and finances this offshore wind experiment.

Massachusetts politicians are also ignoring New England weather which consists of bomb cyclones, tropical storms, northeasters, hurricanes, and recently multiple tornadoes which would devastate offshore wind energy. With all the power plants shut down, there is no backup.

The United Kingdom’s Dogger Bank, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, is kicking off the installation of its first size 13 megawatts turbines this month.

GE Renewable Energy is supplying 190 Haliade-X turbines for Dogger Bank A and B.

The project will be the first in the world to feature the 13 MW variant of GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade-X platform.

In 2021 a Norwegian government-funded study showed Dogger Bank, the world's largest offshore wind project under construction will be unprofitable. Shrinking rates of return and long payoff times are eating away at the profitability of European offshore wind projects. By the end of 2022, multiple offshore wind companies backed out of wind contracts approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities and years of regulatory state legislation since 2016

GE Renewable Energy has received an order from Vineyard Wind to supply Halaide-X turbines for Vineyard Wind 1, the first utility-scale offshore wind installation in the U.S. The project will be installed 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and will feature 62 units of the Haliade-X 13 MW turbine.

Notes

# In 2010 Dong had problems at the UK Dogger Bank and Gunfleet Sands wind farms, as well as the Danish Horns Rev 2 facility. The offshore wind turbines had a design fault allowing them to slide on their foundations.

# In 2009 Governor Deval Patrick committed Massachusetts to a goal of installing 2,000 MW of wind energy before 2020 as part of his plan to increase our supply of renewable energy, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and make Massachusetts a global leader in clean energy. The plan was disastrous to residential homeowners with only around 100 megawatts of wind power by 2023.

# Massachusetts has had 50 years of wind energy failures starting with Cuttyhunk Island one of the world's first 200-kilowatt wind/diesel systems in the 1970s.

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Comment by Willem Post on August 13, 2023 at 10:04pm: US/UK 56,000 MW OF OFFSHORE WIND BY 2030; AN EXPENSIVE FANTASY

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/biden-30-000-mw-of-off...

Assume an offshore project consists of wind turbines and cabling to shore at $4,000/kW.

Amortizing a bank loan for 50% of the project at 6%/y for 20 years will cost about 4.36 c/kWh.

Paying the Owner for his investment of 50% of the project at 9%/y for 20 years will cost about 4.74 c/kWh (9% because of high inflation).

Offshore O&M, about 30 miles out to sea, is at least 6.5 c/kWh.

Total energy cost 4.36 + 4.74 + 6.5 = 16.33 c/kWh

After subsidies, and accelerated depreciation, and deduction of interest on borrowed money, etc., the ANNOUNCED energy cost is at least 8.17 c/kWh (what a bargain!)

Not included are the following:

The levelized cost of any onshore grid expansion/augmentation, about 2 c/kWh

The levelized cost of a fleet of quick-reacting power plants to counteract/balance the ups and downs of wind output, 24/7/365, about 2 c/kWh

The levelized cost of decommissioning, i.e., disassembly at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites

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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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