Friday, January 20, 2012

Maine's Public Utilities Commission Recommends Against Wind Deal

PUC staff: No go for energy firms’ wind deal | Sun Journal:
"First Wind, Maine’s largest wind-energy developer, last April trumpeted a multimillion-dollar deal that would pay for the company’s ambitious plans to erect more wind turbines throughout Maine and the Northeast.
But in just the past week, the Maine Public Utilities Commission dealt a potentially fatal blow to the deal.
Faced with what opponents have called the first serious challenge to the state’s landmark electricity deregulation law, which went into effect in 2000, PUC staff on Jan. 13 recommended that the agency give a thumbs-down to the deal.
“We deny approval of the ‘proposed Transactions’ as we find that the risk of harm to ratepayers exceeds the benefits,” the draft decision reads, “even if conditions intended to mitigate the risk of harm to ratepayers were imposed.”"
Article continues at the Sun Journal site 

2 comments:

  1. Current rates in Maine are here: http://www.maine.gov/meopa/electric/current_rates.html
    and less then they are in Ontario and we know that ours are destined to rise a minimum of 46% in the next three years. It's the same throughout the US where rates are heading down.

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    1. The US Energy Information Administration recently released it's short-term outlook, which noted, on pricing:
      "After having risen by 2.1 percent between 2010 and 2011, EIA expects average U.S. residential electricity prices to rise only 0.6 percent in 2012 and then stay flat in 2013."
      A chart is displayed showing % changes since 2000 too - which will really infuriate those who think electricity pricing is going up everywhere!
      http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/electricity.cfm

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