Hang on to your hats, but Delmarva Power and Light is going to pass the costs of fighting the proposed wind farm onto it’s rate payers:

Delaware’s stalled effort to find home-grown sources of electricity will cost Delmarva Power ratepayers about $4.6 million.

Delmarva insists its $3.7 million share was money well-spent. Others contend it was spent in a way to discredit offshore wind power.

Delmarva spent the money on consultants and legal fees to address a legislative mandate to seek new in-state power sources, Delmarva spokesman Bill Yingling said. He offered no breakdown, and noted that the total is a preliminary estimate.

The costs do not include time spent by Delmarva staff on the issue or the costs of polling the public, Yingling said.

So they’ve hit their customers with a 59% increase, they’re fighting a clean source of energy for the state that would bring in a significant number of new jobs, and now they’re pouring salt on the wound by forcing their customers to pay for their attempt to kill a project that their customers, according to their own study, overwhelmingly support:

After exposure to a brief conceptual description of wind power, which communicated an increased cost (not specified) and long term commitment (also not specified), favorability experienced a statistically significant decrease (87% pre-concept versus 79% post-concept); however, remained high being somewhat or very favorable among three-fourths of customers. Read the survey they commissioned HERE.

Seventy-nine percent of their customers support the wind farm even after they explain it. Yeah, they’re really fighting for their customers.

(Thanks to Tommywonk, as usual, for bringing this to my attention and giving me a wicked case of heart burn).

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Business, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Health, Local Politics, Science, Sussex County, Technology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.