Governor-elect Phil Scott wants to push lawmakers for a ban on industrial wind projects next year, but said this week he would settle for a temporary moratorium.
He might have a hard time getting either.
“We just passed — literally in June — Act 174,” Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee chair Chris Bray (D-Addison) said. “I really want to stay with and develop that planning process.”
Bray was referring to a new state law designed to give municipalities more say in siting energy projects.
Scott pledged during the election to push for a moratorium on large-scale wind projects, a heated issue in some parts of the state. This week, speaking to reporters at a press conference, he said he hopes for legislation to pass next year.
He was already hedging his expectations. “What I personally would like to see is to protect our ridgelines in perpetuity,” Scott said. “The reality is that won’t happen.”
Still, Scott expressed hope that he could convince legislators to agree to a short-term halt on wind projects.
Bray wasn’t willing to call Scott’s idea dead, but his objections indicated it’s highly unlikely that the Democratic majority would go along. “You run the risk of gutting the planning process,” Bray said.
Though developers expect the pace of wind projects to slow in Vermont, renewable-energy advocates will fight a moratorium simply to fend off the precedent.
Olivia Campbell Andersen, executive director of the trade group Renewable Energy Vermont, said her members will argue that a moratorium would be a job-killer for Vermont companies in the wind field. “These are local jobs,” she said.
If Scott fails to persuade the legislature to enact a wind moratorium, he will still have other powers at his disposal as governor, though perhaps nothing that is foolproof.
Simply issuing an executive order banning wind projects isn’t an option. At least, that’s what former governor Jim Douglas’ staff learned from a 2003 inquiry about doing just that.
In an email to Douglas’ staff, Public Service Board chair Jim Volz advised that an executive order would violate state law that gives the board authority over such decisions.
But Volz did advise Douglas’ staff that the Public Service Department could reject most projects. To do that, Volz advised, the department would have to establish evidence that a project doesn’t meet the state’s criteria.
“I don’t think that would be too hard in most instances because of the potential negative aesthetic and economic impacts,” Volz wrote. But he added, “Even then, there might be some projects that would meet the criteria, so a true moratorium would not be guaranteed.”
Scott is due to appoint a Public Service commissioner, who will be in charge of the department, before he takes office January 5. In February, he also has a chance to pick a new Public Service Board chair.
Correction, December 15, 2016: Olivia Campbell Andersen’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.
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knowyourassumptions suggests, first, that wind turbines are not always operating efficiently or at peak times. Both points are true, but do not address the point hes challenging: to whatever extent wind turbines DO supply power, they displace supply that would otherwise have been provided by other sources.
Wind delivered 8% of Vermonts electricity supply in 2014: https://outside.vermont.gov/sov/webservice…, p. 215 of pdf. (The power sold in Vermont does not include its renewable attributes, since RECs are sold out-of-state). If we build more wind turbines, they will supply more.
As to costs, the most recent contract, announced earlier this year, was between Iberdrola and GMP for the new Deerfield Project. The power is being sold at 8.8 cents and GMP expects to sell the RECs for around 4 cents. That would make the cost to ratepayers highly competitive with all other sources (except efficiency) (and way below, e.g., the proposed VY contract that was declined 6 years ago).
The last two paragraphs of this reply appear to misinterpret what I said.
We already buy most of our power from both the grid and from out-of-state power projects. Spot market purchases are only a small portion of the portfolio.
I advocate building as much renewable energy as environmentally practicable, which would actually reduce the amount of power bought elsewhere. Hence, the concerns expressed about NIMBYism or lack of availability do not apply to me.
It might interfere with your joy in beating up on me, but those of you so inclined, how about if you propose a concrete solution? Not generalizations. What is your answer to solving Vermont’s energy needs, since you can do nothing but find fault with mine?
An observation on the media around wind. There have been two articles since the election. One on vtdigger raised the spectre that the Windham/Grafton wind project was not over, which seemed designed to keep people in a state of anxiety. Now comes Seven Days with their spin that it won’t be so easy to stop big wind. The news is that the towns of Windham and Grafton strongly said “no” to wind, and yes, it is over. And Vermonters voted solidly for the candidate that is not in favor of wind, so rather than clobber the idea in this article, why isn’t the media investigating all the different ways that wind can be stopped? This is a global problem, with media slanted in favor of wind — while Seven Days’ new blogger claims digger is anti-wind, their coverage sure doesn’t look that way but then maybe that’s because it’s fundraising time. And the wind industry has plenty of money compared to the rest of us.
1) VtPolicyAnalyst claims: Wind in Vermont does not produce much power when it is needed the most: on hot, summer days. If power were only needed on hot summer days, this would be a damning statement.
But of course, thats not the case at all. Vermonters use varying amounts of electricity at different times, but they use SOME electricity ALL the time. So the argument does not show that wind turbines are not useful, as VtPolicyAnalyst implies, but rather as he also suggests only that solar is a better source for peak summer daytime power.
Everyone that Ive ever met who supports wind power ALSO believes that solar is an excellent source and that Vermont needs to build more of both.
2) The question of whether wind or ANY source is green is one that cannot be answered in isolation. All sources have issues, so the question is necessarily comparative: which ones have the least environmental impact? The question has been studied multiple times in multiple ways, and wind and solar are always at or near the top of the best sources from an environmental point of view.
3) VtPolicyAnalyst is absolutely correct that we need to significantly reduce our demand and again, multiple studies have shown that we can do so and actually save money as a result. But generating power from better sources does not in any way imply that wasting energy is ok, nor does generating it from worse sources improve things.
In fact, we need to save energy AND use renewable power. Energy efficiency and conservation are indeed our best sources, but they alone cannot meet our needs, which is why wind and solar are sensible additional solutions. We should be investing in efficiency and conservation as well as continuing to build out our renewable resources.
“Building wind turbines in VT means right now that less VT demand is being supplied by imported power, mostly fossil fuel.”
Yeah, except one thing. That’s barely true. A lot of the time they’re not working efficiently, and they’re often not working at all at peak times. So, what tiny fraction of our energy demand do they and can they supply, even if our ridgelines were covered with them? And, for what they actually produce, are they worth the cost of installing and operating them, compared to the cost of baseload power? And are they worth the non-financial costs?
It seems that in Vermont they were being pursued aggressively under Shumlin largely for two reasons: symbolism, and a certain amount of cronyism. No thanks to both.
You say that we can buy our excess power needs off the grid. But first of all you do not specify when and how much grid power we’re going to need. Generating a few megawatts by wind and solar but relying largely on spot buying from the grid is not a realistic solution. Second, that would mean that we have virtually no control over the cost of a large chunk of our energy supply. Lastly, if you rely on spot buying from the grid, esp. during peak, you don’t have 100% assurance that that power will be available.
Vermont would be much better off financially by contracting for reliable baseload power. And the best solution is to build it here. Which we could do if it weren’t for hypocritical NIMBYism.
knowyourassumptions claims that no matter what, Vermont either has to import lots of dirty power, or build baseload plants within Vermont.
First, were aiming for enough power supply to meet power demand at all times. Also, since demand is variable and generators fail from time to time, additional reserves to insure that demand will be met at every moment. Large plants running 365/24/7 appear to be a simple way to meet demand, but they create another problem: when one of these behemoths goes down (and they all do at one time or another), you find yourself needing adequate reserve power perhaps on very sudden notice to supply the large chunk of power that was being provided by the baseload plant, or confronting a grid outage. The same principle applies to large transmission lines.
Note too that power demand is highly variable, both on a time-of-day and on a seasonal basis, but most baseload plants churn out the same amount of power most of the time. As VTPolicyAnalyst notes, VT demand is now far greater on hot summer days than at any other time of year; not very long ago, New England demand peaked on cold winter nights.
Vermont is not an energy island; it is part of the New England grid. Accordingly, if Vermont sources generated 90% of its power needs from renewable sources (as the state plan aspires), we can draw the remainder when and as needed from the grid.
Every KWh generated in VT is one not imported from another source. Building wind turbines in VT means right now that less VT demand is being supplied by imported power, mostly fossil fuel. The opposite is also true: blocking wind generation here means continuing to import grid power (mainly fossil-generated) from somewhere else.
It’s nice to see some actual debate on this issue. Although, I don’t see a reason for personsl attacks, and I certainly don’t see Annette as “hysterical”. She has shown valid reasons, and sound arguments, why Big Wind for the most part does not make sense for Vermont.
Wind in Vermont does not produce much power when it is needed the most: on hot, summer days…days when it is usually quite calm. Power plants must still be built to accommodate peak demand. Solar, on the other hand, produces maximum power on these same very hot, summer days. Yet on these hot, summer days, you will see the bulk of businesses on Church Street with their front doors propped open, blowing energy-intensive air-conditioned air outside.
And wind is certainly not what many consider “green”, as it has significant environmental consequences to our ridges, and noise and safety implications to those who live nearby. These facilities are often far from the grid, and power lines and transmission faciilities must also be built on sensitive lands.
And the elephant in the room is indeed still consumption. Until we make a firm commitment to reduce consumption by a significant amount, we will never build enough towers, arrays, hydro dams, or any other means of non-fossil fuel production to even make a serious dent in our energy portfolio.
“So wheres the rest of the power going to come from?”
That’s the key question in this whole debate.
Answer: from some source out of state as long as Annette doesn’t have to see it or think about it. And unless we can buy all of our electricity from HydroQuebec, some of that power is going to be from dirty, fossil-fuel consuming plants in the Midwest and South and nuke plants in NH. And even if we could get all of the power from HQ, many people do not consider that to be environmentally friendly.
Now, the truth is that this is also going to be true no matter how many industrial wind turbines Vermont allows.
The reality is that neither side — the radical, hysterical anti-wind side represented by Annette, or the “you’ve got to break eggs to make an omelet” pro wind side — seems to want to admit that no matter what, Vermont either has to import lots of dirty power, or build baseload plants within Vermont. The Governor and his allies did everything it could to shut down VY and then turned around and contracted for nuclear power from out of state.
Roys question is one I have often asked Annette (and others) The totally inadequate answer Annette provides here appears to be focused entirely on using residential solar as the electricity model for the state.
So, how much of our electricity can Annettes model generate?
Herewith some oversimplified calculations.
Most residential installations will be in the ballpark of <10KW. Solar panels produce only when the suns shining, so the larger of these projects will produce no more than 20% of that. It would take more than 500 10kw solar installations to generate the equivalent of 1MW of power.
Vermont uses approximately 600 MW at all times, and our usage peaks at roughly 1000MW. Vermont has about 300,000 households.
Accordingly, if every household in Vermont were to build a 10kw project, then we could generate approximately 10% of our current base demand for power through residential solar. BUT: 1) not all households COULD do it even under optimal circumstances; 2) not all that could, will; and 3) not all of those who would do it will build 10kw. Based on roughly 600 KWh per month average household demand, the average Vermont residence would need to build more on the order of 4kw.
In sum, even with all these overly generous assumptions, residential solar could potentially supply no more than 4-10% of Vermonts base demand for power (and closer to half that figure for peak power). The achievable figure would be considerably lower.
Annette disingenuously suggests There is probably a need for commercial and industrial solutions that differ from the small-scale community based systems. Theres no probably about it. Efficiency and conservation cannot possibly eliminate enough of our demand to make up what remains with just residential solar power.
So wheres the rest of the power going to come from?
Roy, solar technology is changing rapidly, as is battery storage. GMP is saying the same thing I have been, that the future of our energy systems are locally distributed renewable energy where communities can develop microgrids. It’s all positive, and so has my support of renewable energy been consistent over the last 17 years. My very first letter to the editor before VCE ever was formed was promoting solar as our future, that fossil fuels and especially gas are the wrong direction for Vermont. Do I support any industrial scale energy? There is probably a need for commercial and industrial solutions that differ from the small-scale community based systems. Think in terms of systems. My renewable energy system turns out to be a good model, and it is where the renewable industrialists are not being honest when they claim we can get off fossil fuels with wind. You need the renewable resource, batteries, and the generator. Until some greater breakthroughs in technology, building more industrial renewables just means we need more big power plants, and in New England, that’s gas. Smaller systems can incorporate smaller generators that can be phased out with technological advances.
Annette – Is there ANY form of industrial power generation that you dont have a problem with? When I spoke with you a couple of years ago your only suggestion was that we all go off the grid with our own little solar arrays. Thats obviously not going to work and is itself delusional. You and your little group seem to be against everything. How about telling us what you might actually be for? Otherwise you’re just running your mouth and accomplishing nothing.