BREAKING: HCR 38 & 40 Released
March 12th, 2008 by Maria EvansThe public spoke out tonight in Dover at the House Energy and Natural Resources hearing over two House Concurrent Resolutions dealing with the proposed off shore wind farm. HCR 38 would bring the project to the House floor and if passed, would basically tell Controller Russ Larson that the House wants the wind farm. The Senate would have to say the same thing, too, so don’t get too excited. HCR 40 would spread the cost of the wind farm to every Delaware energy user, even people who may not actually be getting electricity from the wind farm.
Things got interesting during the public testimony over HCR 38 because one of the Representatives on the committee, an alleged “yes” vote, apparently had to bail early, which meant that if all of the wind farm supporters who were slated to speak got up and used their luxurious 3 minutes of time, they could possibly lose a precious vote.
So instead of speaking, supporters simply stood up, asked that the committee release the legislation to the full House for a vote, and yielded their time. HCR 38 passed out of committee, so did HCR 40…incidentally…there was only one person who got up and spoke out against the project, Delmarva Power and Light President Gary Stockbridge….
More to come…and you know it’s all gonna be good….
March 13th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I hope for more good, Maria, but I am not encouraged.
Now we are once more at the decision point for off-shore wind power.
Maria, any idea when the vote is scheduled on these two HCR’s in the House. As I understand it, it will have to then go to the Senate for their vote.
Since I know personally that Senator Adams has delegated his position on the issue to Senator McDowell, I would not be surprised to see Adams pull some gimmick to prevent the bills from coming to the floor for a vote. Thus, McDowell has the final trump card to play. Perhaps this is why the wonderful Senator Peterson sounded a pessimistic tone a few days ago. I hope not, but we should see soon.
If this off shore wind project should not go to contract signing, our state will lose a fantastic opportunity for clean cheap fuel, 500 jobs, and a technology center for training at Del Tech.
March 19th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Every year DPL goes out and bids for 1/3 of the SOS power needs. A contract that they then enter into with approval of the PSC. The BWW PPA is little different.
The BWW PPA represents about 25% of the SOS power needs and slightly more than the 20% renewables that SOS customers must purchase by 2019. If spread to all DLP it drops to ~9% of power needs, to all Delaware uses more like 7%. Under last years, SB-19, regardless SOS customers have to move to 20% renewable energy by 2019. The spreading of power and costs does not make this go away, but would give the Co-op in effect a renewable energy requirement of ~7%.
The goal of SB-6 was price stabilization for the SOS customer. Spreading the BWW PAA leaves 11-13% of renewable power that DPL must still go contract for. If they can fulfill the needs with at the same or lesser costs than the BWW PPA, great. However, the only way to stabilize the cost is by longer term contracts.
The WGES wind price rose 5% for 2008. DPL new bid was 15% higher than 3 years ago. We can’t afford to sit back and watch prices going up and up.