To the Editor:

The State of Maine Legislative Bureaucracy now polices our electric markets and because they favor wind, you will pay.

Whether you are supplying the electricity or buying the electricity, the law targets you. How do they accomplish this invasion on our pocketbooks? Laws that provide penalties for not complying and/or complying with a little known law called the renewable portfolio standard (RPS ). You lose if you comply and you lose if you don’t. ObamaCare, anyone?

Really the interaction we have with wind now is when we have to curtail it. These words are from someone associated with keeping the complicated electric market running smoothly and without interruption.

Wind as an electric supplier wants us to buy their output, even if it means shutting off a supplier that cranks out kilowatt after kilowatt of dependable and cheaper power (interrupting the market). The RPS effect and the electric bills rise.

And when wind’s output hits the market at the wrong time and is curtailed to protect the existing transmission lines and devices, they cry out to have a new transmission infrastructure built just for them. The RPS effect and the electric bills rise.

According to ISO-New England 2013 Regional Electricity Outlook, “An analysis conducted at the request of the six New England governors found that the cost to interconnect from 2,000 MW to 12,000 MW of wind power would be between $1.6 billion to $25 billion in transmission upgrades.”

Wind generated electricity is expensive and a weak power producer. It’s weaknesses are covered over with favorable laws and generous federal handouts of taxpayer money.

Can anything be done to amend the RPS law to replace the weak wind with good solid and marketable renewable power such as hydroelectric? Who knows? Most of the elected bureaucrats think raising electric rates with wind is growing an economy.

Dan McKay,

Dixfield

Copy the Story Link