To understand the massive misunderstanding of the fundamentals of energy and electricity, Lars Schernikau discussed the conclusions reached from 70 interviews over three years with various ministries, governmental economic organizations, universities, industrial conglomerates along with energy think tanks…. “The overarching theme from these interviews,” he found, “was a lack of understanding of the true full cost of electricity and the continued misuse of the marginal cost measure LCOE to compare the cost of variable ‘renewables’ with conventional sources of power.”
I recently finished reading The Unpopular Truth: about Electricity and the Future of Energy by Dr. Lars Schernikau and Professor William Hayden Smith. The authors address how the energy market works rather than how the mainstream media, environmental activists, and policymakers portray it.
Not surprisingly, the book explores the misunderstandings of policymakers and their advisors about the workings of the electricity and energy systems. …
“Why was there only one bid in response to Rhode Island Energy’s RFP if offshore wind is desirable (politically) and key to decarbonizing our economy? Was it because inflation and high-interest rates caused developers to hesitate over whether they could earn a reasonable profit?”
Last October, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee announced a request for proposals (RFP) for offshore wind procurement in compliance with a new law. The law required the State’s primary utility company, Rhode Island Energy, to seek to contract up to 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new offshore wind generating capacity at market-competitive rates.
This offshore wind procurement has the potential to satisfy 30% of Rhode Island’s estimated 2030 electricity demand. When added to the 30-MW Block Island Wind farm and the contracted 400-MW Revolution Offshore Wind 1 project, the state will have secured about half of its projected energy needs from offshore wind. …
“With two of the three projects in trouble, Massachusetts will not meet its clean energy goals, and when they do, the power prices will be higher than expected…. The energy chaos in the state is getting interesting with significant implications for the offshore wind business.”
The ongoing saga of Commonwealth Wind’s future took another twist in late January when it filed with the Massachusetts Supreme Court a petition to set aside the order by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (PUC) issued on December 30, 2022, approving the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) prices negotiated with the three local utilities purchasing the electricity.
The challenging, worsening economics have upset the future of the project. Avangrid, the developer of the Commonwealth Wind project, wishes to renegotiate the PPA prices or to have them rejected by the PUC which would then allow Avangrid to rebid the project’s output in the next Massachusetts wind power solicitation scheduled for this spring.…