It takes real audacity for the most heavily subsidised ‘industry’ on earth, to demand even more. And it takes real courage for the governments who have been handing out massive subsidies, without question, to reject demands for more of the same.
Which is where the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) comes in.
Led by two mega Scandinavian wind power outfits, Equinor and Orsted, the US wind industry has been engaged in a shakedown effort that would make the New York mob blush.
The PSC, to its credit, was unmoved by the industry’s usual bullying and belligerence, and unanimously rejected the demands made for guaranteed contract prices that would have added more than $12 billion to their coffers.
Yancey Roy and Francis Menton report on the predictable outrage that followed.
State PSC rejects offshore wind farm developers’ requests for more subsidies
News Day
Yancey Roy
12 October 2023
The PSC, in a unanimous 7-0 vote, rejected the request, citing the cost to consumers and the impact of possibly “corrupting” the integrity of the state’s bidding process.
Continuing a trend among Northeast states, New York said “no” Thursday to requests from offshore wind farm developers to rewrite contracts to allow them to charge more money for supplying power to the state’s grid.
In doing so, the state followed Connecticut and Massachusetts in rebuffing attempts by wind power companies to renegotiate in the wake of inflation, supply-chain bottlenecks and other economic turbulence hitting the industry.
Equinor and Orsted, two Scandinavian wind giants, had asked the state Public Service Commission to increase how much they could charge utilities for power generated by several projects in development but not yet built off Long Island’s shores.
The companies argued that rates were set in contracts awarded before the COVID-19 pandemic and now should be adjusted to account for inflation, rising interest rates and other related costs.
The requests varied for each would-be wind farm but ranged from 27% to 66% for the per-megawatt-hour wind companies could charge.
The PSC, in a unanimous 7-0 vote, rejected the request, citing the cost to consumers and the impact of possibly “corrupting” the integrity of the state’s bidding process.
The commission said the companies combined were asking for a $12 billion economic boost, an amount Commissioner Diane Burman called “jaw dropping” and Commissioner Tracey Edwards termed “just not doable.”
In Connecticut, a similar rejection led to the cancellation – for now – of what was to be the state’s largest offshore wind development. On Thursday, New York commissioners, apparently girding against possible blame, made repeated efforts to stress they weren’t canceling any contracts and any such decision would be up to developers.
A spokeswoman for Equinor, which has three wind projects in the works, said the company was disappointed and still is assessing the impact of the PSC decision.
An Orsted spokeswoman said the viability of “Sunrise Wind,” the company’s project planned off Brookhaven, would be “extremely challenged” without the rate hike adjustment.
“We will evaluate our next steps and communicate the status of the project as soon as possible,” Meaghan Wims said.
News Day
Keeping You Up To Date On New York’s Progress Toward Green Energy Utopia
Manhattan Contrarian
Francis Menton
15 October 2023
Consider Manhattan Contrarian as your go-to source for the latest on New York’s progress toward green energy utopia.
Can you remember all the way back to December 19, 2022? That’s the day that New York’s Climate Action Council officially adopted its “Scoping Plan,” telling us all how we are going to achieve, among other goals, 70% of statewide electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030 and a zero-emissions electricity system by 2040. The biggest part of the grand plan consists of some 9,000 MW (nameplate capacity) of offshore wind turbines to be built by 2035. As of the time of the Scoping Plan, the state claimed that some 4,300 MW out of the 9,000 MW of upcoming offshore wind projects were under “active development.”
On the very day that the Scoping Plan got finalized, I had a post titled “On To The Great Future Of Offshore Wind Power.” That post noted that even of the 4.300 MW of offshore wind supposedly under “active development,” not one turbine was operating, or even under construction. Several developers had made bids that had been accepted by the state, and some of those developers were getting kind of close to applying for permits. My prediction was: “Expect long delays and demands for lots more money before anything gets built.” Boy, can I call these things.
Shall we check back in for the latest information?
Just ten days ago, on October 5, I had an update on offshore wind developments throughout the Mid-Atlantic and New England. For New York, the news was that in September essentially all the developers of the New York projects in “active development” had demanded massive price increases, ranging from about 30% at the low end to almost 65% at the high end. The new prices being demanded by the developers would now be between $140-190 per MWh, which would be at least double to more than triple the prices charged by new natural gas plants.
So how did that go over? To its credit, the state Public Service Commission wasted no time in rejecting the price hike demands of the developers. On October 12 the Commission issued its decision on the Petitions of the developers for price relief. Excerpt from the press release:
The New York State Public Service Commission (Commission) today denied petitions filed by a group of offshore wind developers and a state renewable energy trade association seeking billions of dollars in additional funding from consumers for four proposed offshore wind projects and 86 land-based renewable projects. In denying financial relief, the Commission opted to preserve the robust competitive bidding process that provides critically needed renewable energy resources to New York in the fairest and most cost-effective manner that protects consumers.
OK then, what happens next? The New York Times has a write-up here on October 12. The Times quotes the Chair of the PSC, one Rory Christian, as standing up for the sanctity of the public bidding process:
Rory Christian, the chairman of the Public Service Commission, the state’s utility regulator, said that providing relief to the winning bidders would set an untenable precedent. “Taking exception today almost guarantees that we will be asked to do this again in the future,” he said. Mr. Christian added that the state’s ratepayers, who would have borne the cost, could not serve as an “unlimited piggy bank” for companies to tap. “We have a deal,” he said to the developers, calling on them to stand by the terms they agreed to.
Well, Rory, I’ve got news for you: the developers aren’t going to honor the deal. You’re going to have to hold a new auction. And the prices that will be bid will be as high or higher than those just demanded by these developers.
Oh, and then don’t expect any new round of accepted bids to stick either. The developers will come back again and again for new rounds of price increases. What’s to stop them? After all, they have you over a barrel. You have a “Climate Act” and a “Scoping Plan” that basically require you to build out a grid powered by “renewables,” whether that is feasible or not, and then limit your options to mostly offshore wind.
And meanwhile, until the next round of bids is held, we’re back to square one. We have a statutory requirement of 70% of our electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and a “Scoping Plan” that sees that goal being achieved largely through offshore wind turbines. And we have not one single operating offshore wind turbine, nor any under construction, nor, after the recent contract repudiations, any actively moving through the permitting process. At least for now, the whole thing is dead in the water.
The Times quotes a guy named Fred Zalcman, director of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance:
[T]he commission’s decision “puts these projects in serious jeopardy and deals a potentially fatal blow to the progress these projects have made. . . .”
By the way, the prices recently demanded by the offshore wind developers, in the range of $140-190/MWh, do not include anything for the transmission upgrades needed to deliver this power into the grid, nor anything for the storage or back-up needed to transform intermittent wind power into a useful 24/7 resource. The sooner we pull the plug on this whole endeavor, the better. But we are now only in the first phases of the collapse.
UPDATE, October 16, 2023: Meanwhile, I should have mentioned that New York City apartment buildings remain under a mandate from “Local Law 97” to convert to electric heat by 2030 or face large fines. The electricity is supposed to come from the offshore wind farms that, for the time being, are completely suspended.
Manhattan Contrarian
STOP THESE THINGS 
Fully amortized nuclear power plants in the US Northeast — Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York — make electricity to sell to the grid for $2 (US) per MWh — $0.50/MWh for fuel processing and $1.50 for operations. But the fuel for wind and solar are free, not 0.001¢/kWh, so solar and wind are cheaper, right?
BTW, 0.001¢ /kWh is the contribution of the cost of uranium as it comes out of the ground, before processing, to nuclear power plants’ costs. That was the origin of Lewis Strauss’s quip about “too cheap to meter.” He didn’t mean free, he meant at a fixed cost, like your internet, independently of the amount of energy (or bandwidth) you use. He thought that once the power plant was built, its costs would be dominated by mortgage and operations, not fuel, so consumers’ bills ought to pay for those, which don’t depend upon how much electricity you use.
Warren Buffet said the subsidies were the only reason he invested in wind and without it it made no economic sense. New Era has been the big fat subsidy consumer. I have tried to find what these wind behemoths have bonded for the eventual mega decommissioning remediation fund and cannot as they will be the new era orphan wells in a KKR Samson type of default and keep on sailing. smh
Oh dear, never mind, taxpayers will benefit
Is STT aware of thelightaustalia.com? Sept2023 issue has a copy of an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres from the Climate Intelligence Foundation (Clintel). It has a declaration signed by 1500 scientists & experts rivalling the IPCC’s Working Group authorship lists.
The newspaper is part of an international backlash against RE that STT has railed against for many years. Michael Shellenberger that STT ran posts on, has US maps of ocean wind farms.
Some think MPs are stupid but like actors they get paid for talking so it’s the majority of voters who are stupid for putting up with Malthusian philosophy & economics of wealth transfer from 96% to 4% of the population.
Would subsidies or war support stop if the world were only under this financial system based on the monotheistic belief that people are born without an innate sense of morality & IQ potential suppressed? No because aliens might dehydrate & steal our water. Amusing?
Well expensive non-cost effective hydrogen from water is intended as a fuel with the first compressed liquid shipment to Japan having caught fire April 2022. The hydrogen was produced from coal with $50m each from AU state and federal governments.
Some of you are lucky to have the trash offshore. We have them around our house placed by a repug. We consider them a ‘taking’ by measurement. Wish we could pursue this as a creative ‘taking’.