Pine Tree, Aqua Ventus or Whatever You Call Yourself, Disclose Your Terms or Cease and Desist
- On May 27, 2022, Pine Tree Offshore Wind, LLC (“Pine Tree”) asked for approval of a long-term contract of at least 20 years with Central Maine Power Company (“CMP”) for capacity, energy or renewable energy credits to be generated by a floating offshore wind research array project to be located at a site to be leased in the Gulf of Maine from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”). Our communication to you does not seek to provide any recommendations on the merits of the proposal itself. However, AARP Maine is concerned about the lack of information to properly evaluate this proposal including the prices and costs to ratepayers of this twenty-year contract.
- The headlines I see today have a common theme: inflation’s impact on working, older, and lower income Mainers. Basic essentials like food, gasoline, and utilities are seeing prices triple causing not just stress, but a focus on each and every rising price tag
- . For this reason, we would hope any energy contract impacting Maine ratepayers and their monthly bills, would be a transparent, inclusive, and open process for public input. That doesn’t appear to be unfolding with the above-mentioned petition from NEAV and Pine Tree.
- Unfortunately, the proposal and accompanying documents do not include any information on the cost of the project or the price of the proposed contract that, if approved, must be paid by ratepayers as part of the regulated distribution service provided by CMP.
- It is our understanding that the Presiding Officers granted a request from Pine Tree Offshore Wind LLC to label the terms and conditions of the proposed power purchase agreement, including the price and bill impacts on CMP’s ratepayers, as confidential allowing them to be excluded from the public documents filed with the Commission.
- We urge the Commission to reverse the decision.
- Chapter 327 requires that the Commission review the proposal to determine whether it meets the “public interest” criteria set forth in the statute.
- In the Procedural Order issued on May 13, 2022, the Presiding Officers stated that further review of the forthcoming application will be done to determine if any information designated as confidential should be made public.
- However, meaningful participation requires full transparency including disclosure of the costs and benefits to ratepayers in the short and long term, as well as the risks associated with assumed forecasted benefits and bill impacts over the proposed 20-year contract. Pursuing an investigation of the proposed contract without any such transparency is not in the public interest, especially when cost and price impacts to residential customers are front and center.
- We appreciate the Commission’s prompt attention to this important matter of transparency.
NEAV, University of Maine partner to develop floating offshore wind project
- Mitsubishi’s subsidiary Diamond Offshore Wind and RWE Renewables have collaborated with the University of Maine for the development of Maine floating offshore wind demonstration project.
- A joint venture company between Diamond Offshore Wind and RWE Renewables, named New England Aqua Ventus (NEAV), will own and manage all aspects of permitting, construction and assembly, deployment and on-going operations for the project.
- UMaine’s advanced structures and composites centre, which designed the VolturnUS hull technology, will continue to design and engineering, research and development and post-construction monitoring works on the project.
- A single semisubmersible concrete floating platform which will support a commercial 10 to 12MW of wind turbine will be included in the project.
- It will be installed in a state-designated area that is 3.2 km south of Monhegan Island and 22.5km from the Maine coast.
Diamond Offshore Wind and RWE Renewables will invest $100m in the project
- According to the University of Maine, the project aims to evaluate the floating technology, monitor environmental factors, and develop practices for offshore wind to coexist with traditional marine activities.
- Diamond Offshore Wind and RWE Renewables will jointly invest $100m to construct the project and help demonstrate the technology at full scale.
- UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center executive director Habib Dagher said: “Diamond Offshore Wind and RWE Renewables bring global expertise in offshore wind project development and construction, and we look forward to working with them to demonstrate UMaine’s floating hull technology in Maine waters.
- “Our design is ideally suited for deepwater deployment anywhere and has the potential to play a significant role in global efforts to decrease dependence on fossil fuels.”
- Furthermore, the project is estimated to result in over $150m of total economic output, apart from creating hundreds of Maine-based jobs during the construction period.
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Comment
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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on September 20, 2022 at 11:03am
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MUST SEE Tucker Carlson 9/19/22 Episode
If you haven't been looking at what is going on in some schools between teachers and young children:
- Kids are being used as props in sexual fantasies
- These are sexual fantasies (of teachers) playing out with our kids in public
- You are not allowed to bring children into your sexual fantasies as that is a species of child molestation
- Keep children away from your sex life sicko.
- They don't want you to use the word pedophile but want you to use MINOR-ATTRACTED PERSONS "because they are the most vilified group in our culture"
- Tucker: "In a healthy country with intact social fabric, neighborhood dads would mete out instant justice to anyone who even thought about sexualizing their kids"
- The instinct to protect children is the deepest of human instincts and it has to be
WEBLINK:
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Comment by Willem Post on September 20, 2022 at 8:03am
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Nobody can afford to work for charity.
The money has to come from somewhere
Only in government lalaland does it grow on trees.
The owners need to make at least 10%/y to recover their investments over 20 years and make a profit, especially with wind turbine cost inflation at 9 to 10%/y, and long-term interest rates for risky projects at least 6 to 8%/y.
What would need to be the cost per kWh, to pay just the owners and the banks?
What onshore investments are required to assemble the turbine pieces and float them on barges to the site.
The people on Mohegan Island will gain a noisy, highly visible neighbor, with 24/7/365 strobe lights, on the 800-ft tall wind turbine. Have those people been informed of that monster?
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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