PPH - Inability to Secure Power Purchase Agreement Halts NJ Wind Project

The U.S. Department of Energy says Fishermen’s Energy failed to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to have a power purchase agreement in place.

The department is revoking most of the $47 million in funding it pledged to the project in 2014; about $10.6 million has been spent already on preliminary work.

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/01/03/department-of-energy-cuts-off...

OTHER:

Wind And Solar Will Provide Mere 4% Of World’s Energy By 2040
http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/03/wind-and-solar-will-provide-mere-...

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Comment by Barbara Durkin on January 4, 2017 at 12:10pm

Great News!  Same thing happened to Cape Wind that never secured their financing.  Northeast Utilities and National Grid cancelled their contracts.  Thank God. 

Our energy needs will neither be addressed by former ENRON execs, nor the Mafia associated, unless they've changed their spots.

If not for public subsidies that attract nefarious characters who lack intention to provide public benefits, I wonder why citizens think public benefits can be derived from entities that historically do not deliver public benefits....an understatement.

ENRON execs, more than a decade following the CA Energy Crisis their energy market traders triggered, dominate the on and offshore wind energy markets in New England.   

ENRON Energy Services Chris Wissemann is Fishermen’s Energy Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Freshwater Wind.  Wissermann is Chief Operating Officer of Winergy Power, LLC and the Founder of DeepWater Wind, and past President of Garden State Offshore Energy.  Wissermann spearheaded legislation to create long term power purchase agreements for DeepWater Wind which he founded.

APEX First Wind Steve Vavrik Vice President, Origination was with ENRON in London in a project development and gas trading capacity. His role at ENRON included trading natural gas forward contracts and negotiating structured power deals.

UPC First Wind President Michael Alvarez is responsible for First Wind operations and assets.  After beginning his energy career with GE Capital, he joined ENRON in London.

In 2002, GE with CEO Jeffrey Immelt, spent $358 million to buy the assets of the bankrupt ENRON  Corporation, Zond Wind, founded by James Dehlsen in 1980.  Months later, GE petitioned the courts for the return of over half the money they spent on ENRON assets claiming the value of these assets wasn't worth the price GE paid.  GE’s Immelt led President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. 

Mike Cutbirth is former head of Global Finance for Zond Corporation and ENRON Wind.  He served 4 years as the first CEO of Clipper Windpower formed by ENRON.   

The first customer of the $40 million dollar, publicly-funded, Charlestown, MA Wind Turbine Testing Center was Clipper Wind, founded by ENRON Director James Dehlsen.  Clipper Wind has since filed for bankruptcy protection.  MA Wind Turbine Testing Center Executive Director  Rahul Yarala is a staffer at MA Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), and the former Director of Engineering at Clipper Windpower, Inc., formed by ENRON.   

CGEI Wind is jointly owned by Good Energies and Champlin Windpower, LLC and is lead by Mike Cutbirth. Mike was formerly head of Global Finance for Zond Corporation and ENRON Wind and served 4 years as the first CEO of Clipper Windpower.  

DeepWater Wind Board Member Brian Redmond is Founder of Paragon Energy Holdings, LLC; former President of Houston Pipe Line Company and President of Louisiana Resource Company, Managing Director of ENRON, and Executive Director of UBS Warburg Energy.

http://www.fishermensenergy.com/leadership.php

NOTES: 

*“Regulatory Capture” is a term attributed to Chicago School of Economics Professor George Joseph Stigler whose theory is that regulators eventually identify with and aspire to join the well-heeled people they regulate. 

*Another example of “Regulatory Capture” also reveals a “Revolving Door” where the Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer at First Wind, Kurt Adams, had served as Chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission and former Chief Legal Counsel for ME Governor Balducci.  Adams,  according to  Naomi Schalit of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, “…negotiated a pretty sweet deal for himself about a month before leaving the state's employ, with  first-year compensation at the firm totaled $1.3 million, which included $315,000 in salary, $658,000 in stock, $29,000 in "other" compensation and $315,000 in "non-equity compensation." Source:  ‘Revolving door the norm in D.C. but rare in Maine’ by the Editorial Board of the Sun Journal [4/23/10].

He who writes the rules wins!  Mass revolving doors under the Patrick admin...

UPC First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor was appointed by former MA Governor Patrick as Co-chair of The Climate Protection Advisory Committee under the Global Warming Solutions Act. Gaynor also served as co-chair of the Mass Department of Environmental Protection Advisory Committee Low Carbon Energy Supply Subcommittee.

First Wind CEO Paul Gaynor served as Advisor to Ian Bowles then MA Secretary of Energy and Environment.  Door revolves...

First Wind names Director Ian Bowles the former MA Executive Secretary of Energy and Environment  under the MA Governor Deval Patrick Administration.  Bowles is also the Founding Chairman of the Mass Clean Energy Center MassCEC that surcharge ratepayers to fund renewable ventures. 

Former MA energy chief Bowles restructured the MA energy market approximately 7 times with the help of Paul Gaynor CEO of First Wind and a Boston-based wind developer.  First Wind also formed DeepWater Wind with 20% failure rate at the gate as America's First mechanically challenged offshore wind project.  One of the five offshore turbines has failed mechanically. 

Bowle’s green policy-development Advisor was Paul Gaynor of UPC First Wind by former MA Governor Deval Patrick’s appointment.

SunEdison’s “executive level job” went to Alicia Barton, former CEO of MassCEC founded by Bowles

SunEdison SUNE purchase of Boston-based First Wind for $2.4 billion created the world’s largest renewable energy developer.

SunEdison (former) Executive Vice President Paul Gaynor is the former CEO of Boston-based UPC that changed their name to First Wind.  

SUNE stock value plummeted 71.4% within three months following the First Wind transaction,

GreenTech Media Erci Westoff on January 26, 2016 reports Paul Gaynor has departed SunEdison.

UPDATE SUNEDISON's former EVP Paul Gaynor is the subject below, a clip provided:

SunEdison Shareholders Made Stunning Accusations In Court

Dec. 14, 2016

The letters from shareholders vary in purpose and quality, but among their requests are: calls to prosecute Paul Gaynor (former First Wind CEO), Larry Summers (Chief of National Economic Council), Rahm Emanual (former White House Chief of Staff), Steve Scharzman (CEO of Blackstone), and John Podesta (Lobbyist for Renewable Energy) of wide spread collusion, corruption, and fraud; as well as several pleas to reverse the Official Equity Committee denial.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/4030452-sunedison-shareholders-made...

Not so long ago...

Andrew Walden

Paul Gaynor, CEO of First Wind stood comfortably with Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie, Rep Mazie Hirono, and HECO CEO Dick Rosenblum at the grand opening of the Kahuku Wind energy project on Oahu’s North Shore Thursday.   As he should. 

First Wind–formerly known as UPC Wind--got its start in wind energy by launching Italy’s IVPC--a company now subject to a record breaking asset seizure by Italian police.  The Financial Times September 14, 2010 explains:

Italian anti-mafia police have made their largest seizure of assets as part of an investigation into windfarm contracts in Sicily. Officers confiscated property and accounts valued at €1.5bn belonging to a businessman suspected of having links with the mafia.

Roberto Maroni, interior minister, on Tuesday accused the businessman – identified by police as Vito Nicastri and known as the island’s “lord of the winds” – of being close to a fugitive mafia boss, Matteo Messina Denaro.

General Antonio Mirone, of the anti-mafia police, said the seized assets included 43 companies – some with foreign participation and mostly in the solar and windpower sector – as well as about 100 plots of land, villas and warehouses, luxury cars and a catamaran. More than 60 bank accounts were frozen.

Until his arrest last November, Mr Nicastri, based in the inland hill town of Alcamo, was Sicily’s largest developer of windfarms, arranging purchases of land, financing and official permits. Some projects were sold through intermediaries to foreign renewable energy companies attracted to Italy by generous subsidy schemes….

The renewable energy sector is under scrutiny across much of southern Italy. Some windfarms, built with official subsidies, have never functioned….

Mr Nicastri sold most of his windfarm projects to IVPC, a company near Naples run by Oreste Vigorito, also president of Italy’s windpower association. Mr Vigorito was also arrested last November on suspicion of fraud and later released. He denied wrongdoing.

Of course the folks who started IVPC know nothing about any of this.  Reacting to an earlier round of arrests, First Wind founder Brian Caffyn told the November 15, 2009 Boston Herald: “I read about it in the papers, and I was very surprised.”

Will Hawaii’s windfarms actually work?  The “Clipper Liberty” wind turbines installed at Kahuku are made by a company founded by a former Director of Enron Wind.  Clipper Liberty Vice President of Engineering is also an Enron Wind veteran.

Gaynor and Caffyn were once much more public about their corporate ties to Vigorito’s IVPC.  First Wind was originally known as UPC.  The UPC Solar website touts “Mr. Caffyn personally oversaw the establishment and construction of the largest wind energy company in Italy — Italian Vento Power Corporation.”

IVPC’s english-language website states:  “The Group came to light in 1993 from an idea of Oreste Vigorito who formed the company I.V.P.C. S.r.l. on behalf of UPC, an American company which operates in the wind sector in California.”  (Emphasis added.)

The UPC Solar website explains: “UPC’s earliest wind farm developments were built in 1995 in Italy. At the time UPC sold IVPC, its Italian wind business, in 2005, it had built approximately 650MW of capacity representing over 50% of the total installed Italian wind capacity.”

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute News Summer, 2005 reports on the activities of WPI alumnus Gaynor: 

"...As president and CEO of UPC Wind Management, located in Newton, Mass., Gaynor was tapped to bring the success of the parent company, UPC Group, to North America. In Europe and North Africa, UPC affiliates—including Italian Vento Power Corporation—have raised over $900 million in financing and installed some 900 utility-scale wind turbine generators (WTGs), with a total capacity of more than 635 megawatts. UPC subsidiary companies, positioned across the United States and in Toronto, are currently pursing some 2,000 megawatts in projects from Maine to Maui..."

In March, Gaynor secured financing for a $70 million project on the island of Maui. [The project is a joint venture with Makani Nui Associates, which owns 49 percent.] The 30-megawatt wind farm at Kaheawa Pastures will be Hawaii’s first utility-scale project to be put into service since the 1980s. Plans call for 20 towers, 180 feet tall, with 1.5-megawatt General Electric turbines. Construction is expected to begin this summer, and the project should be completed by the first quarter of 2006. When operational, the wind farm will supply up to 9 percent of demand to customers of Maui Electric Company.

The Kaheawa Pastures site is situated on state conservation land, between Ma’aleaea and Olowalu, at elevations ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 feet.

Makani Nui is also a partner in the Kahuku Wind project.

Business Week reports that Caffyn is a Director or Partner in dozens of Limited Liability Corporations tied to wind energy projects.  These include Hawaii’s Kaheawa Wind Power, LLC, Kaheawa Wind Power II, LLC, Hawaii Wind Construction, LLC, and UPC Hawaii Wind O&M. 

Caffyn is also listed as a Director or Partner of Italian Vento Power Corporation (IVPC), Srl, IVPC 4, Srl. (Italian Vento Power Corporation), IVPC 6, Srl, IVPC 2000, Srl., IVPC Energy B.V., IVPC Energy 3 B.V., IVPC Energy 4 B.V., IVPC Energy 5, B.V., IVPC Energy 6, B.V., IVPC Energy 7, B.V., IVPC Gestione, Srl, IVPC Management, Srl, IVPC Management 2, Srl and IVPC Marche, Srl. Mr. Caffyn served as Director or Partner of IVPC Marche 2, Srl., IVPC Puglia, Srl, IVPC Service, Srl, IVPC Service 2, Srl, IVPC Service 3, Srl, IVPC Service 4, Srl, IVPC Service 5, Srl, IVPC Service 6, Srl, IVPC Sicilia, Srl., IVPC Sicilia 2, Srl., IVPC Sicilia 3, Srl., IVPC Sicilia 4, Srl., IVPC Sicilia 5, Srl., IVPC Sicilia 6, Srl., IVPC Umbria, Srl., IVPC Wind, Srl.

The UK Independent September 16, 2010 reports:

After decades of drug-running, extortion and prostitution, the Mafia appears to have found a rather more ecological way of laundering their money: green power.

And if the assets of the Italian police's latest target are any indication, the Mafia is embracing the renewable energy business with an enthusiasm that would make Al Gore look like a dilettante. The surprising revelation of organised crime's new green streak came as Italian police said yesterday they had made the largest recorded seizure of mob assets – worth €1.5bn (£1.25bn) ($2.1bn US) – from the Mafia-linked Sicilian businessman Vito Nicastri, who had vast holdings in alternative energy concerns, including wind farms.

Organised crime in Italy has previously been notorious for trading in environmental destruction – principally earning billions of euros by illegally dumping toxic waste. But most of the newly seized assets are in the form of land, property and bank accounts in Sicily, the home of Cosa Nostra, and in the neighbouring region of Calabria, the base of the rival 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

So naturally, First Wind is very comfortable with Hawaii politicians and business leaders. 

---30---

THE FUTURE: Wind Energy's Ghosts

The list First Wind owned companies (some inactive) registered in Hawaii includes the following:

http://hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/4008/Hawaii-Win...

The Public Prosecutor at the Court of Italy has arrested the president of ANEV Oreste Vigorito together with other lords of the wind in a criminal investigation for conspiracy to commit a fraud on the subject of government grants in favor of wind farms.

Asset seizures in Italy related to wind fraud bear the seal of DIREXIONE INVESTIGATIVA ANTIMAFIA, and represent the largest seizure of Mafia assets in the history of the Mafia that include:

1.3 billion euros ($1.7 billion) connected to renewable energy farms. According to the AP, local police seized 43 wind and solar energy companies and 66 bank accounts belonging to Vito Nicastri — known as 'Lord of the Wind' for his role in developing his energy businesses.

 The mega confiscation of goods is covering western Sicily, Lombardy, Lazio and Calabria. The seals were affixed to the assets attributable to Vito Nicastri, 57 years of Alcamo (Trapani), a leading entrepreneur in the field of photovoltaic power generation and wind power. Nicastri, involved, say the investigators, in many events, including criminal implications, it would be "reported consistently with members of Cosa Nostra." The economic and financial surveys, conducted by Dia, allowed, according to the prosecution to establish that the leading position in alternative energy from the entrepreneur was acquired thanks to the "conscious and constant proximity to the interests of crime organized. " Nicastri according to the Anti-Mafia Investigation Department "through a tumultuous dynamics of business has relations with Luxembourg companies, Danish and Spanish." For investigators "this close to the most well known Mafiosi, favored its transformation from a contractor electrician specializing in the development of power plants from renewable sources, giving it a leading position in the regions of the South." (Reuters).

Reference--

The Italian Parliament Senate of the Republic -125- Chamber of Deputies: (Energy page 10 forward)

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://...

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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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