http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/07/31/ag_wrests_price_cut_from_cape_wind/

Why are the number always wrong? Number don’t lie, but wind promoters?? Oh Well.
Let’s look at some number.
EIA data shows US Wind produced 34,449,000 MWHours of electricity in 2007. Divide by 8760 hours in a year to yield about 4,000 MW of power. But EIA gives net 2007 summer capacity of 16,500 MW’s of wind, so real output is only 25% of possible capacity, not 35%, The wind association only “exaggerated” and added another 40% of output to the 25% REAL OUTPUT.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1_11.pdf
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1_12.pdf

In most cases those who install the solar equipment capable of turning it into electricity and fed back into grid, are usually the better off in the community. Often they can use the feed-in tariff to offset 100% of their electricity costs, and you can often see flyers and brochures advertising this fact.

This means that those who don’t have the access to this offset will be paying not only their own electricity costs, but also the higher priced electricity coming from these small individual generators.

Consequently, it becomes the case of a society where the well off pass their energy costs onto the poorer members of that community. In terms of public policy it has to be one of the most stupid ideas ever.

That type of incestuous “revolving door” rarely involves utility employees, who are typically viewed as the “enemy”.

Meanwhile, in nearby WV and PA, utilities and regulators have teamed up to push through massive new utility lines, in large part to carry wind to market–all the while acknowledging this is “necessary” for “environmental improvements.”

What Marita Noon describes here is the same kind of procedural goonishness that I’ve seen in my area, where the usual suspects in the renewables lobby are appointed to “commissions” to study future options, taking public testimony in cherry picked times and places, and controlling the agenda tightly, to prevent skunks from spoiling their picnic.

I acknowledge that my 36 year experience in the utility industry might not have been universally representative. However, during my career, I worked with many people, from many utilities, at all levels in the organizations. I did not experience anyone attempting to ” ram rate increases down the throats” of consumers. I did experience lots of people trying to achieve rates which would permit full cost recovery plus allowable rate of return on rate base under normal economic and weather conditions. I experienced regulators and courts “piercing the corporate veil”. I also experienced federal and state legislators and executive branch agencies “picking winners” among the utilities.

Much of the conflict between utilities, regulators and consumers’ advocates is the result of rate structures which force utilities to recover a significant portion of their fixed costs through the variable portions of their rates. These rate structures result in under-recovery of costs during economic recessions and periods of mild weather; and, over recovery during periods of economic growth and extreme weather.

Utilities are creatures of their regulators. They are also required to abide by state law, including a state RPS.

The utility is required to achieve very high levels of reliability (99.9%+), even in the face of mandates to “rely on the unreliable”, in the forms of solar and wind.

The utility must receive approval from its regulator before investing in new facilities or improvements, to assure that the investments in those facilities will be included in its rate base.

The utility is assured the opportunity to earn a reasonable return on its investment in the facilities required to provide reliable service to its customers, plus recovery of its reasonable fuel and labor costs, all of which are subject to review by the state utility commission.

Utilities in many states are required to “net meter” power for residential customers with on-site generation, thus forcing them to forgo both cost recovery and return on investment for power they provided as required which was then netted out of the customers’ bills, frequently at times when the power is not necessary and least valuable. Some states are considering applying feed-in tariffs to on-site generated power fed into the grid, requiring utilities to pay more for that power than their all-in costs of delivering that power from their own facilities.

Regulators and legislators have a tendency to view utilities as adjunct social service agencies. They require the utilities to do things which increase their costs, then pillory the utilities in the media for requesting rate increases to allow them to recover the costs.

BOHICA