The Maine PUC says time of use electricity pricing is coming.
This graph below displays the wholesale prices of electricity per hour in the ISO-NE market for today. 02-06-2025
Due to the present cold snap occurring, hourly prices are peaking in the morning hour between 7 and 8 am. People are turning up the thermostats as they awake, and the market is responding to the steep ramp up of load. No help from solar, wind generation is ramping down. Natural gas-fired generation plants are yielding to natural gas heating units for fuel. Heat pumps are operating in inefficient ranges.
This exposes the ineptness of Government Policy that favors wind and solar over natural gas. 27% of generation to feed New England is being imported from Canada and New York. Nuclear generation is holding steady, supplying 23% of load and the market could use an additional 40% increase in nuclear generation right now. Hydro storage will be released to help meet the peak. Coal will burn. Oil will burn. Wood will burn. Natural gas will wait for fuel, and, as they are the "dispatchable fuel", they set the wholesale price.
This is an indication of a failing electric system. Government is about to force people to change lifestyles to keep their wind and solar policies intact. With time of use applied to billing, mornings like today will be costly. Imagine what retail prices would be if wholesale prices are 18 cents per kilowatt hour. And that is only the supply portion of the bill. 40 cents + per kilowatt hour is on the horizon.
The Maine PUC is telling you as a ratepayer " The success of a Time of Use standard offer/delivery rate likely requires an opt-out rate, as opposed to an opt-in or mandatory rate." This is the same PUC who assessed the wholesale market and assembled long term contracts for wind and solar generation purchases supposedly to reduce ratepayer costs. A favorable assessment of the market would have produced a contract that reduces ratepayer costs, but the experts assessing the market produced contracts that increases ratepayer costs by millions of dollars.
Allowing the PUC to determine how the market will move going into the future is the type of risk that electricity customers in Maine cannot accept.
There is nothing worse than waking up in the frigid cold.
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Comment by arthur qwenk on February 6, 2025 at 4:04pm
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It started this way.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/how-green-legislation-...
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Dumb Energy Policy from the GREEN DREAM SCAM initiated by Obama's Wind Power Scam in 2008 was the cause of this insanity. Thank PL-661....Gov. Baldacci's "Emergency" Wind Law of 2008 for all this stupidity.
Maine is now reaping what it has sewn. Those wind groups that slowed this stupidity down years ago were way ahead of their time.
Remember, WE TOLD YOU SO!
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The Dysfunctional State of Maine?
The over-taxed, over-regulated, already-impoverished Maine people are super-screwed, trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real growth Maine economy
The Maine economy has lots of low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit, bs jobs
The Maine economy has lots of woke, leftist bureaucrats
Screwed-over Mainers also have to pay for poverty-stricken, aliens of different cultures from all over, who illegally enter the US, a federal felony
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Those illegal aliens:
– are the dregs of Third World countries, sent to Maine by their US-hating, leftist, woke governments, in cahoots with Soros-financed NGOs
– are getting free housing, free food, a never-empty credit card, free healthcare, free education and whatever other goodies they want. They mainly suck from the government tit
– have no skills, no training, no education, no modern industrial experience.
– will take low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit jobs away from screwed-over Mainers.
– are often good at crime, murder, rape, drug and human trafficking and mayhem.
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Many millions of illegal aliens have to be shipped back where they came from, before they ruin the US.
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Down-trodden Mainers often have to put up with the visual ugliness and noise of hundreds of windmills, that are often idle, because of too little wind year-round, and many thousands of acres of solar panels, that are often covered with snow and ice in winter; there is no solar at night.
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MAGA may lead to higher CO2 ppm to 1) increase growth of flora and fauna all over the world, and 2) increase crop yields to feed hungry people. What is not to like?.
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NEW ENGLAND ELECTRICITY 100% FROM WIND AND SOLAR by 2050?
In New England, we have Net Zero nut cases. They know nothing about energy systems, but spout lots of nonsense.“Keep it in the ground”, they say. “All electricity from wind and solar”, they say.
When presented with numbers and facts their eyes glaze overHere is a simple analysis, if no fossil fuels, no nuclear, and minimal other sources of electricity
ELECTRICITY STORAGE WITH TESLA POWER MODULES
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-example-of-ele...
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It is assumed, 1) all W/S output, based on historic weather data, is loaded into batteries, 2) all demand is drawn from batteries, based on historic load on the grid, as published by ISO-NE.
An annual storage balance was created, which needed to stay well above zero; the batteries are not allowed to "run dry" in bad W/S years. The balance was used to determine the wind and solar capacities needed to achieve it.
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New England would need a battery storage system with a capacity of about 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to the HV grid.
Daily W/S output would be fed to the batteries, 140 TWh/y
Daily demand would be drawn from the batteries, 115 TWh/y in 2024
Battery system roundtrip loss, HV to HV, would be 25 TWh/y, more with aging
Transmission and Distribution to users incur additional losses of about 8%, or 0.08 x 115 = 9.2 TWh
The battery system would cover any multi-day W/S lulls throughout the year
Batteries would supplement W/S output, as needed, 24/7/365
W/S would charge excess output into the batteries, 24/7/365
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
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The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be about 10 TWh / (0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 18.5 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet.
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The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 18.5 billion kWh = $11.1 trillion, about every 15 years.If all money were borrowed from banks, the cost of amortizing $11.1 trillion at 6% over 15 years = 1132 billion/y, slightly less than the New England GDP
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital....
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High Costs/kWh of Wind and Solar Foisted onto a Brainwashed Public
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The three main US subsidies are:
Federal and state tax credits and cash grants,
5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project
Deduction of interest of borrowed money.
The effect of the three items is to reduce the owning and operating cost of a project by 50%, which means electricity can be sold at 50% less than it costs to produce.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
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Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, the current UK level:
- Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
- Traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, about 2 c/kWh
- Traditional power plants providing electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings and at night, about 2 c/kWh
- W/S electricity that could have been produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
- Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
- Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
- Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more wind and solar systems are added to the grid
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in such big do-doUK and Norway
Norway gets 90% from hydro reservoir plants and 10% from west coast windmills.
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Because of long distances, there is little connection between the north and south grid.
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Any draw by the UK during W/S underproduction affects the south grid.
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The grid is pumped by generators with 50-cycle electromagnetic waves which travel at near the speed of light.
Electrons do not travel. They just vibrate at 50 Hz
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Any UK underproduction, resulting in voltage drops, is immediately sensed, and compensated for, by opening the water valves to hydro turbines in Norway.
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A few years ago, Norway oversupplied Germany and the UK, which resulted in much higher wholesale prices in the south grid, low water levels in reservoirs, rationing, aka blackouts/brownouts, and lots of Norwegians with EVs and heat pumps being p..d off.
.This time it happened again, and, just like that, the government fell.
INSTANT DEMOCRACY.We should have it in the US, instead of endless lying, obfuscation, grandstanding, obstruction, etc., for up to 4 years, or, God forbid, 8 years
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NOTE: I lived in Norway for 3 years. My brother-in-law worked at Norsk Hydro, which provides almost all hydro power in Norway. We talk shop. He thinks the nutcases in Oslo should be exiled to Nova Zembla.
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Comment by Dan McKay on February 6, 2025 at 8:18am
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I hear that 434,000 homes in Maine heat with oil. Hang on to those oil burning units, Trump is going to unleash the oil sector, which should lower the costs for oil and propane.
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When temps go below 15 F, I do not use my three heat pumps, because they are inefficient
I use my propane stoves
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Time of use is in effect in Germany, California and the UK and all three are extremely dysfunctional.
Germany and UK wind and solar percentage on the grid is over 30%, and both have the highest electricity prices in Europe, rendering both economically uncompetitive in world markets
At some point wiser heads have to prevail, because CO2 is a highly necessary gas for growing flora and fauna, which includes us.
NET ZERO BY 2050 IS A SUICIDE PACT
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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