One of the Many Devious Maine Policies That Increases Rates Every Year for Years to Come
RECs are bought by Maine electric customers and are included with the supply portion of their bill, and there is no opt-out choice.
The suppliers are obligated to purchase RECs to comply with the Maine Renewable Energy Standards.
The Renewable Energy Standards provide renewable energy projects huge profits by allowing them to sell RECs to suppliers who, in turn, include these costs in supply rates, such as the Standard Offer Provider and CEPs (Competitive Energy Providers such as "Electricity Maine")
The Renewable Energy Standards raises the amount of renewable energy that suppliers must purchase every year until 2040 when the amount will have to represent 100% of Maine's supply needs.
So, you can see as the REC amount rises every year, the corresponding rates must rise every year.
No one knows what happens after 2040, but everyone knows that Maine will never have 100% renewable energy as the sole source of electricity in Maine's power lines.
Maine has and will be paying dearly for useless paper certificates for who knows how long.
If someone sold you a product that has no value like RECs, you would rightfully consider it a crime.
BTW, a $60 per Megawatt-hour REC is 6 cents per kilowatt-hour plus at retail prices.
Maine residential customers purchase about 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year
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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain 37 minutes ago
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Comment by Willem Post 8 hours ago
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The battery storage cost for wind and solar is much higher, because:
1) the batteries must not be charged above 80% and not be discharged below 20%, meaning only 60% of capacity is available on a daily basis.
2) the battery system ages at about 1.5% per year, meaning any available capacity decreases
3) the turnkey capital cost is closer to $600/installed kWh delivered as AC at outlet of backend electronics.
4) the battery system plus auxiliaries has an A to Z throughput loss of at least 20%
5) the battery system life is about 15 years, meaning all costs must be amortized over that period
6) a solar system lasts at most 30 years, meaning you need two battery system to cover its lifeNow you know why Europe, with a lot of expensive, short-live, wind, solar and battery systems, is no longer viable, because its energy costs/kWh are about 2.5 times higher than the US, plus it is spending more on defense, plus it has to deal with tens of millions of Islamic destroyers of European traditional cultures
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...by Willem Post
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Utility-scale, battery system pricing usually not made public, but for this system it was.
Neoen, in western Australia, turned on its 219 MW/ 877 MWh Tesla Megapack battery, the largest in western Australia.
Ultimately, a 560 MW/2,240 MWh battery system, $1,100,000,000/2,240,000 kWh = $491/kWh, delivered as AC, late 2024 pricing. Smaller capacity systems cost much more than $500/kWh
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Annual Cost of Megapack Battery Systems; 2023 pricing
Assume 45.3 MW/181.9 MWh; turnkey cost $104.5 million; 104,500,000/181,900 = $574/kWh, per Example 2
Amortize bank loan, 50% of $104.5 million, at 6.5%/y for 15 years, $5.484 million/y
Pay Owner return, 50% of $104.5 million, at 10%/y for 15 years, $6.765 million/y (10% due to high inflation)
Lifetime (Bank + Owner) payments 15 x (5.484 + 6.765) = $183.7 million
Assume battery daily usage, 15 years at 10%; loss factor = 1 / (0.9 *0.9)
Battery lifetime output = 15 y x 365 d/y x 181.9 MWh x 0.1, usage x 1000 kWh/MWh = 99,590,250 kWh to HV grid; 122,950,926 kWh from HV grid; 233,606,676 kWh loss
(Bank + Owner) payments, $183.7 million / 99,590,250 kWh = 184.5 c/kWh
Less 50% subsidies (tax credits, 5-y depreciation, loan interest deduction, etc.) is 92.3c/kWhSubsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt.
.Excluded costs/kWh: 1) O&M; 2) system aging, 1.5%/y, 3) loss factor 1 / (0.9*0.9), HV grid-to-HV grid, 4) grid extension/reinforcement to connect battery systems, 5) downtime of parts of the system, 6) decommissioning in year 15, i.e., disassembly, reprocessing, storing at hazardous waste sites. Excluded costs would add at least 15 c/kWh
COMMENTS ON CALCULATION
Almost all existing battery systems operate at less than 10%, see top URL, i.e., new systems would operate at about 92.4 + 15 = 107.4 c/kWh. They are used to stabilize the grid, i.e., frequency control and counteracting up/down W/S outputs. If 40% throughput, 23.1 + 15 = 38.1 c/kWh.
That is on top of the cost/kWh of the electricity taken from the HV grid to charge the batteries
Up to 40% could occur by absorbing midday solar peaks and discharging during late-afternoon/early-evening, in sunny California and other such states. The more solar systems, the greater the midday peaks.
See top URL for Megapacks required for a one-day wind lull in New England
40% throughput is close to Tesla’s recommendation of 60% maximum throughput, i.e., not charge above 80% and not discharge below 20%, to perform 24/7/365 service for 15 y, with normal aging.
Owners of battery systems with fires, likely charged above 80% and discharged below 20% to maximize profits.
Tesla’s recommendation was not heeded by the Owners of the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia. They excessively charged/discharged the system. After a few years, they added Megapacks to offset rapid aging of the original system, and added more Megapacks to increase the rating of the expanded system.
Regarding any project, Banks and Owners have to be paid, no matter what. I amortized the Bank loan and Owner’s investment
Divide total payments over 15 years by the throughput during 15 years, to get c/kWh, as shown.
Loss factor = 1 / (0.9 *0.9), from HV grid to 1) step-down transformer, 2) front-end power electronics, 3) into battery, 4) out of battery, 5) back-end power electronics, 6) step-up transformer, to HV grid, i.e., draw about 50 units from HV grid to deliver about 40 units to HV grid. That gets worse with aging.
A lot of people do not like these c/kWh numbers, because they have been misled by self-serving folks, that “battery Nirvana is just around the corner”.
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NOTE: EV battery packs cost about $135/kWh, before it is installed in the car. Such packs are good for 6 to 8 years, used about 2 h/d, at an average speed of 30 mph. Utility battery systems are used 24/7/365 for 15 years
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NOTE: Aerial photos of large-scale battery systems with many Megapacks, show many items of equipment, other than the Tesla supply, such as step-down/step-up transformers, switchgear, connections to the grid, land, access roads, fencing, security, site lighting, i.e., the cost of the Tesla supply is only one part of the battery system cost at a site.
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NOTE: Battery system turnkey capital costs and electricity storage costs likely will be much higher in 2023 and future years, than in 2021 and earlier years, due to: 1) increased inflation rates, 2) increased interest rates, 3) supply chain disruptions, which delay projects and increase costs, 4) increased energy prices, such as of oil, gas, coal, electricity, etc., 5) increased materials prices, such as of tungsten, cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc., 6) increased labor rates.
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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