Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

Negative Wholesale Electricity Prices- A Unique Manipulation By Wind and Solar That Is Rattling Markets

ISO-NE produced a timely report on March 25,2026 explaining negative pricing in the real time market. This Spring, times that saw real time negative pricing occurred 11 days out of 25 days in March.

In this public service report, ISO-NE notes resources like wind and solar and even hydro are no-fuel cost generators which " produce energy virtually for free whenever the wind is blowing or the sun is shining" A following statement that wind and solar are intermittent resources would have been appropriate here, Nevertheless, what other information does the report offer for explanation?

This report does reveal that "wind and solar earn revenue outside the wholesale market in the form of state power purchase agreements and policy incentives. In such cases, it may be economical for them to sell energy at a negative price. They are essentially paying — rather than being paid — to put energy onto the grid. But even if they lose money in the energy market, they may be able to earn it back, and then some, via contracts or incentives." An interesting word in this statement is "earn". Perhaps state powered favoritism would more accurately replace the word "earn." The grid operator, in previous reports has described how these policy incentives double and in some cases, can be ten times the amount of revenue they receive from the wholesale market. That is quite the incentive to barge your way onto the market, so the ratepayer delivers your "earned" revenue. This sounds more like market manipulation, but the Independent System Operator's explanation avoids this tiny little item.

Another statement that describes "local occurrences" which, although not mentioned, is predominately a Maine event. "At times, certain resources selling electricity at negative prices can fully satisfy local demand, displacing other nearby resources. These displaced resources may be offering their electricity at prices that would clear in the wider regional market, but insufficient transmission capacity prevents them from selling it." This occurs when wind developments in Maine receive so much "free fuel", they oversupply the capacity limitations of the transmission system. Keep that in mind as ISO-NE looks to build a 2 billion+ dollar transmission project across the length of Maine to accommodate even more wind development proposed outside the ISO-NE territory in Aroostook County.

The wholesale electricity administrator goes on to describe the implications that additional "fuel free" intermittent units will have going forward. "While instances of negative pricing are relatively rare today, they could increase in frequency as more wind and solar resources enter the markets and as midday demand for grid electricity continues to drop. This could contribute to lower average energy prices, but there may also be downsides." and "Prolonged periods of negative prices have the potential not only to displace more expensive fossil fuel resources but also resources that don’t emit carbon. This could result in significant “curtailment” — an industry term for wasted energy."

Although ISO-NE delivers a fairly good explanation of negative prices, they left out another problem inherent to intermittent and state favored resources; their output is damn near impossible to forecast. Forecasts are the essential elements that sets the ISO-NE market apart from local utility management of generation.

The Independent System Operator uses a "day ahead market" and a "real time market' to balance electricity supply and demand. They forecast demand a day before the next day to procure appropriate supply. They make adjustments during the next day to match actual demand. The closer the day ahead estimate is, the better for ratepayers, but when the day ahead forecast deviates from actual real time needs, additional costs to ratepayers pop up. Such an event occurred on March 25,2026 when the day ahead forecast for 2:30 pm procred 10,547 megawatts of supply and the actual real time demand was 7840 megawatt. Negative prices dropped to -$164.40 per megawatt at this time. The difficult task of estimating day ahead solar/wind output can rattle the market and will only get worse with more intermittent generation called for in public policies.

ISO-NE allows negative prices to occur versus forced curtailment of excess supply as a signal to generators to self curtail output. Obviously, there is a time lag for this to happen. When generation was managed by local utilities like Central Maine Power and Versant, enforced curtailment of generation to avoid negative prices was common and effective.

To see the report : https://isonewswire.com/2026/03/25/explainer-why-are-energy-prices-...

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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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