Editor’s note: This commentary is by Willem Post, a retired engineer, who now writes about energy issues, currently specializing in energy efficiency of buildings and building systems. He is a founding member of the Coalition for Energy Solutions.
With regard to renewable energy, it does matter what Vermont does, especially if it is on the wrong track to the detriment of Vermont’s economy, which has been in near-zero-growth mode since about 2007, with declining real household incomes since about 2000.
Declining real household incomes
Real household incomes of the middle, fourth and bottom quintiles peaked in 2000, 2000, 1999, respectively; in those peak years their incomes were $56,311, $33,815, $13,663; in 2012 their real incomes were $51,179, $29,696, $11,490, for a decline from peak year of 9.1 percent, 12.2 percent, 15.9 percent. The bottom 60 percent of households with steadily declining real incomes! No wonder their part of the economy is in near-permanent recession. (Link)
Already struggling households and businesses have been dealing with a near-zero-growth Vermont economy since 2007, with the tax-burdened, hollowed-out, private sector shrinking relative to the growing, bloated government sector, which is acting as a wet blanket on the private sector, a sure recipe for economic stagnation, lack of well-paid employment growth (except in government), or worse.
At some point, clear-headed thinking must prevail, budgets must be cut, taxes must be reduced, wasteful programs eliminated, or else Vermont’s hollowed-out, private, tax-paying economy will continue on its near-zero-growth path, less and less able to scrape up enough money to pay for the rapidly increasing expenditures of the growing, money-guzzling government sector.
Increased energy efficiency
Vermont would have a much bigger bang for the buck, i.e., reduce more CO2 per invested dollar, if it practiced increased energy efficiency, starting with:
• A strict energy code for NEW subsidized, net-zero-energy buildings, instead of expensively subsidized renewable energy projects; there is no money to do both at the same time. Imposing new carbon taxes, increased Efficiency Vermont* surcharges, etc., thereby further harming Vermont’s weak economy, is not an option.
• Increased surcharges on electricity guzzling households; the greater the consumption, the greater the surcharge percent; the surcharge to be collected each month. Such households would quickly find ways to reduce their electricity consumption.
• Increased surcharges on gasoline- and diesel-guzzling light duty vehicles, i.e., cars, minivans, SUVs, quarter-ton trucks; the greater the gas guzzling, the greater the surcharge percent; the surcharge to be collected at time of annual registration. Such vehicle owners would quickly find ways to reduce their gas and diesel consumption, such as by driving fewer miles.
The above measures would quickly reduce CO2 emissions and raise revenues to subsidize weatherizing the housing of lower-income households and net-zero-energy buildings.
(*Efficiency Vermont spends almost 50 percent of its budget on salaries and benefits for its 180-person staff, plus overhead. The other 50 percent is used to subsidize energy efficiency projects. That is a very inefficient way to do energy efficiency. Some other way has to be found before the Efficiency Vermont budget, apparently on autopilot, goes to the scheduled $85 million.
It would be best if Efficiency Vermont were declared an expensive failure, and ALL the money used to subsidize weatherizing low-income housing and net-zero-energy buildings.
Vermont builders were building such buildings before EV even existed. There is no need for EV to tell them how to do it.
PS. Vermont’s government makes lots of high-sounding pronouncements regarding energy efficiency, but does not practice it!!)
Vermont state government buildings: average 107,000 Btu/sq ft/yr. Energy efficient buildings would use about 25,000 Btu/sq ft/yr. The Xerox Headquarters, Stamford, Conn., placed in service in 1979, needs only 28,400 Btu/sq ft/yr. (Link)
Vermont renewable energy programs
Vermont has subsidized about $500 million of renewable energy investments, including about $165 million for solar and about $300 million for wind, over the past 3.5 years and has practically nothing to show for it; about 0.75 percent of Vermont’s annual consumption from solar and about 4.11 percent from wind, for a total of 4.86 percent of Vermont’s annual electrical energy  consumption, or about 4.86/3 = 1.62 percent of ALL annual energy consumed by Vermont.
That is a long way off from the unrealistic 2011 Comprehensive Energy Plan goal of 90 percent of all annual energy consumed by Vermont from renewable sources by 2050, not just electrical energy which is only one third of ALL energy. How many tens of billions of dollars would that take?
It is likely that goal was set without any realistic, in-depth analysis, which should have been included in the 2011 CEP report for all to see. Poor Vermont’s goal is more extreme than rich Germany’s ENERGIEWENDE goal.
NOTE: It is amazing the Department of Public Service does not keep track of these numbers and post them, along with other project data, in spreadsheet format, on its website. Even for the expert, it takes quite some effort to gather the information from various sources.
SPEED Program
The SPEED program, with help of subsidies from the Clean Energy Development Fund, produces expensive energy. Adding more money to the CEDF will worsen a bad situation.
Here are the production results for the SPEED Program, 2.2 megawatt or less:
2010……..5,980,779 kWh……..0.1387 $/kWh; July – December
2011……20,172,973 kWh……..0.1644 $/kWh
2012……29,666,592 kWh……..0.1716 $/kWh
2013……44,822,813 kWh……..0.1919 $/kWh
Vermont annual electrical consumption……5,600,000,000 kWh/yr
(Link)
Here are the 2013 expected ridgeline wind production results for the SPEED program, greater than 2.2 MW:
Searsburg… …11,660 MWh……..CF 0.220
Sheffield………83,395 MWh……..CF 0.238
Lowell………..113,687 MWh……..CF 0.206
Georgia…….….21,024 MWh……..CF likely similar to the others
Total………….229,766 MWh
Production of SPEED projects, 2.2 MW or less, was 0.8% of consumption in 2013, after investments of about $150 million over 3.5 years.
Production of ridgeline wind SPEED projects, greater than 2.2 MW, was 4.1% of consumption in 2013, after investments of about $320 million over 3.5 years.
Solar
At end 2013, about 33 MW of solar panels, SPEED and non-SPEED, were installed that produced about 33 MW x 8,760 hr/yr x capacity factor 0.145 = 41,960 MWh. SPEED is compensated at an excessive 27 c/kWh for ALL energy fed into the grid, and non-SPEED, mostly roof-mounted solar systems, is compensated at 20 c/kWh for only the excess energy fed into the grid.
NOTE: The SPEED value of 27 c/kWh, set by the PSB, is at least 8 – 9 c/kWh too high.
Vermont consumption is about 5,600,000 MWh/yr, of which about 41,960/56,000 = 0.75% from solar, mostly SPEED solar.
Capital cost, nominal dollars, was about 33 MW x 5.0 million/MW = $165 million over the past 3.5 years. It would take many billions of dollars to get to 20% from solar.
Wind
1) Lowell Mountain, capacity 63 MW, capital cost about $165 million, 11-month production = 104,213 MWh in 2013; CF = 0.206, which will not become much greater with the ISO-NE mandated $10.5 million bank of synchronous converters.
Estimated subsidized energy production cost 15 – 20 c/kWh, based on 20-yr life, low ridgeline CF, high ridgeline O&M costs, and much less revenues from Renewable Energy Certificates.
– Green Mountain Power testified to the PSB, the CF would be 0.3587, “with the bigger rotor”. See URL
– The Lowell CF = 0.338, as calculated from the “estimated” production” stated on GMP’s website.
Already-struggling Vermont businesses and households in GMP’s service area, about 70% of Vermont ratepayers, will be on the hook for the extra Lowell costs for 20 or more years. GMP will not suffer, because it will roll all its extra costs into rate schedules, per PSB approvals.
2) Sheffield Mountain, capacity 40 MW, capital cost about $120 million, 11-month production = 76,329 MWh in 2013; CF = 0.238; better than Lowell, but much less than the predicted 0.33 or better.
3) Georgia Mountain, capacity 10 MW, capital cost about $28 million, 11-month production in 2013 likely was similar to Lowell and Sheffield.
4) Total energy from wind for all of 2013 was about 230,000 MWh.
Vermont consumption is about 5,600,000,000 MWh/yr, of which about 230,000/56,000 = 4.11% from wind.
Capital cost, nominal dollars, was about $300 million over the past 3.5 years. It would take billions of dollars to get to 20% from wind.
Regional wind turbine capacity factors
Wind energy promoters have testified before the PSB that their ridgeline wind turbine plants will have CFs of about 0.33 or better. Actual production results in Maine, New York, indeed all of the Northeast, have shown their testimony as not valid.
Here are the official regional 2012 CFs for NEW projects commissioned in 2010 and 2011:
– Central States………..0.370
– Great Lakes……………0.280
– West Coast…………….0.260
– Northeast………………0.252
– Southeast………………0.247
See page 48 of URL.
Maine and New York have CFs of 0.25 and 0.235, respectively. (Link)
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