IN DECEMBER, A company called CleanChoice Energy mailed out a sales pitch to electricity customers in eastern Massachusetts. The letter acknowledged that 100 percent renewable energy from solar and wind would cost “a little more” than “polluting energy,” but said the added expense was worth it.
“That’s because the energy you are choosing is better for you and the planet,” the brochure said. “When you add more renewable energy to the electric grid, you are reducing toxic waste and air pollution, making the world a healthier place with cleaner air.”
In smaller print, CleanChoice Energy said the current fixed rate for the company’s clean energy was 14.8 cents per kilowatt hour, which compared to 8.2 cents a kilowatt hour for the electricity procured for customers by Eversource through competitive bidding.
The difference in price is huge. For a typical customer using 600 kilowatt hours a month, the Eversource price is $49.20, while the CleanChoice product costs $85.20. That’s just the price for electricity, and doesn’t include separate transmission, distribution, and customer service charges assessed by Eversource.
The state Department of Public Utilities operates a website where customers can compare electricity offers, and 100 percent renewable energy offers are all priced higher. At press time in December, there were five options for people seeking 100 percent renewable energy, with prices ranging from a low of 10.1 cents a kilowatt hour with Champion Energy Service to a high of 15.8 cents with CleanChoice. The CleanChoice price apparently went up since the mailing.
Those companies with lower renewable energy prices tend to have cancellation fees if the customer wants to get out of the 12-month contract early. Champion, for example, charges a fee of $10 a month for each month left on the contract. Green Mountain Energy, which charges 10.2 cents a kilowatt hour for renewable energy, assesses a $150 fee for early cancellation.
Eversource procures power for customers in six-month increments. Its 8.2-cent price expired at the end of December, and rose to 9.996 cents per kilowatt hour for the six-month period which ends at the end of June. The July-December price is typically well below the January-June winter price.
Michael Durand, a spokesman for Eversource, said the company used to offer a renewable energy option to customers called NStar Green, but discontinued the program a year ago. Few customers took advantage of the program, which relied primarily on power from wind farms.
“We established it to give customers a green option back at a time when those options weren’t as prevalent as they are now,” Durand says. “We’re now using the power generated by those two wind farm contracts as part of our basic service portfolio.”
This “green power” is such a scam. We pay for this power over and over and over again through taxpayer subsidies, transmission costs and electricity rates. Wind and solar make up a tiny fraction of power being produced for the grid, none of it is dispatchable, and in the case of wind, the environmental destruction far outweighs the intermittent trickle of power produced. What the wind industry is doing to Maine is appalling. Our mountains are being destroyed, our forests clear cut, our critical wildlife habitat is being fragmented and our rural residents are being tortured. This isn’t even touching on the raptors, migratory birds and endangered bats being killed. For shame that we allow this sort of thing to happen.
#1 Wind power plants have been documented to “pollute” our communities when sited too close to residential neighborhoods. In fact, in Kingston, Ma a single 2MW turbine was found to violate our state’s Air Pollution Regulation at a mere 639 kW of power. Noise Pollution is real and neighbors have been suffering as a result for over 4 1/2 years.
#2 Where is the reporting on the human costs of wind power which has been falsely sold as “clean” energy?
Example from just this morning, January 11, 2017:
background: 4 Gamesa G-97 wind turbines operating in the town of Plymouth, Ma on the border with the town of Bourne – What follows is personal testimony from neighbors about the impacts of last night’s operations:
Neighbor 1 – “This is the 3rd time I woke from the noise being generated, woke up feeling like the washer was spinning, can hear it over the white noise I have, sounds like a plane won’t ever arrive”
Neighbor 2 – “Very noisy night…woken twice here after I finally fell asleep.”
Neighbor 3 – “Same! So annoying”
Neighbor 4 – “Same here, still have a headache.”
Neighbor 5 – “Same here. I woke up from it at 2 am and filed the report at 4…And have a headache too.”
Dear Bruce Mohl – please peel back the covers from the as yet to be reported on public health impacts resulting in many communities which have wind power plants sited TOO CLOSE to residential neighborhoods
note: the Plymouth project’s permitting file includes a letter of Professional Caution that urged officials that IF a single industrial scale wind turbine were to be constructed that at least a one mile separation would be required to protect the public from adverse noise impacts – and IF the project were to involve multiple wind turbines then that setback distance would need to be increased. Sadly, town officials approved the permit based on deeply flawed reporting by the developer’s consultant.
A November 2012 New Bedford Standard Times article reported on the serious issue of noise pollution which result from industrial scale wind power plant operations.
Yet, curiously, in January of 2017 CommonWealth Magazine seems to ignore the adverse health impacts, and associated costs, endured by Massachusetts wind turbine neighbors when reporting on energy which continues to be described as “pollution free” when it is NOT.
Noise (pollution) is regulated by the state of Massachusetts under 310 CMR 7.0 …and wind turbines operating in several Massachusetts communities have been documented to violate our state noise regulation. In Falmouth, for example, Barnstable Superior Court Judge Muse, ordered their wind turbine to be shut down from 7 p.m. to 7a.m. all Sundays and holidays in order to protect neighbors from further harm.
The 2012 New Bedford Standard Times article is linked here:
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20121110/NEWS/211100329
excerpt of note:
“A recently released study of industrial wind turbines in Northern Maine has found they can cause sleep disturbances that result in physical and mental health issues in humans living as far as 4,500 feet away.
The study, published in the September-October issue of Noise and Health, is the first of its kind to be scientifically vetted and approved through the peer-review process.
Industrial wind turbine noise is a further source of environmental noise, with the potential to harm human health,” concludes the study, which was written and conducted by three doctors from Maine, Canada and the United Kingdom.”
Again, I would ask Mr. Mohl to educate his readers on the as yet to be reported downsides to industrial scale wind power plant operations – particularly the cost to neighbors exposed to excessive, invasive and disruptive noise levels.
COST DIFFERENCES – ENERGY VS ETHICS
Identified in the article is the difference in price between conventional vs. renewable energy being huge for a typical customer. YET, for many Massachusetts communities the ‘elephant in the room’ is a residential safe setback standard for projects – especially IWT projects. If Falmouth can serve as example, the typical resident is paying a huge price for ‘PRIDE’. Some town leaders seemingly believe that to do the ethically right thing (comply with local bylaw) would have too high a price. A position that compromises the spirit of being a good neighbor… a good town leader?
It would be helpful for Mohl to include a “cost of carbon” or other such measure to include what many defenders of renewables emphasize–that green energy avoids deaths and illnesses, avoids pollution that needs to be cleaned up, etc., and that all the relevant social savings should be included in the final social accounting.
Sorry, all of our renewable energy efforts so far are not marketable. If I made a cheap and renewable energy source in my basement, I would have investors lining up at my door with checkbooks. Wind and solar are not viable in the market unless they get government (read: taxpayer) subsidies.