Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

New England Offshore Wind Electric Grid Distress Signals 2024

New England now has two massive offshore wind projects and an onshore antique electric grid.

The Gulf of Maine is the next big 2024 offshore wind proposal. The area is two million acres between Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, ranging from 25 to 100 miles off the coast.

The first project since 2016 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have led an intensive effort to advance millions of acres of offshore wind in leasing areas 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. There are only 5 turbines off Massachusetts and 5 off Block Island, Rhode Island.

Massachusetts regulators in 2023 terminated all power purchase agreements with offshore wind companies ending offshore wind renewable energy goals. New bids were posted in 2024 but won't be approved until November 13, 2024, ending the 2024 goals. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are now negotiating with offshore wind for 2025.

Last week it was announced after years of electric grid studies that six New England states are finally partnering to get federal funds for states from Maine to Connecticut to upgrade electric transmission and battery backup sites for offshore wind connections.

To put what is happening with offshore wind we need to look back at the Massachusetts land-based political wind agenda of 2000 megawatts of wind power by year 2020. The state placed megawatt wind turbines in residential neighborhoods creating health problems from noise and massive lawsuits. Massachusetts has less than 100 megawatts of land-based wind power today. The land-based wind agenda was a financial and health disaster.

Abbott and Costello performed a classic "Who's on First?" in 1945. The New England onshore wind electric grid problems are duplicating the 1945 act, which looks like the Massachusetts land-based wind fiasco. Permitting from the ocean turbines to the shore is akin to taking your children out in a boat and dropping them off to teach them how to swim.

ISO-NE, Independent System Operator New England controls the electric grid by conducting years of studies. The FERC, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission oversees ISO-NE which created the New England agency in 1997.

After years of offshore to onshore electric grid studies, ISO-NE came out with the 2050 Transmission Study in February 2024. Due to the recent announcement of the Gulf of Maine offshore wind project appendixes are being added to a study only a few months old.

With the announcement of the Maine wind sites major changes will be needed on the Cape Cod onshore wind sites to be moved to Connecticut aka more studies and delays.

The major issue is federal and state politicians allowed the wind projects' electric grid to be permitted from the ocean to the shoreline. Now homeowners in residential neighborhoods don't want buried cables double the output of the 680-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear plant buried outside their front door.

In Europe, offshore wind cables go directly by submarine cables directly to large cities or military installations as they should in New England. New England states are ignoring residential property rights to advance offshore wind electric grid connections.

Anbaric a Boston company and the Brattle Group in 2019 proposed an ocean wind turbine grid that would have provided a planned ocean grid that would have saved the current confusion and delay without taking residential property rights devaluing home values.

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Note # There has been a large increase in whale deaths from New England to North Carolina. Hundreds of humpback whales including right whales have washed ashore, critically injured or dead, from 2016-2023 on East Coast beaches. Many feel environmental groups receiving resources from offshore wind companies calling the whale deaths a coincidence is disingenuous.

The increase in whale deaths coincides with offshore wind farm acoustic surveying and driving systems into the seabed.

The term a deaf whale is a dead whale is a term used by groups like "Save the Whales", "Protect our Shores" and "Green Oceans". Whales lose hearing from offshore construction and can no longer communicate, navigate, or feed themselves.

Citizens who value intellectual honesty should not quietly be fleeced by such mendacity, even from their government agencies.

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Comment by Willem Post on April 28, 2024 at 3:56pm: Frank,

The New England grid is far from antique.

It was completely adequate to serve the demand of New England users, and its system reserve capacity was per FERC REQUIREMENTS

However, the capital costs of ADDING VARIABLE offshore wind and solar, producing at 16 c/ kWh or more, is much higher than of adding traditional plants, producing at 6 c/kWh

The added capital costs for w/s grid work are at least 2 to 3 times per MW of w/s., based on German Denmark, and UK experience. That cost has a c/kWh

Plus, you need plants to counteract the ups and downs of w/s outputs, and to provide power in case of too little wind, no sun, or too much wind. You think that is for free?

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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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