Delmarva Power Releases Land Based Wind Reportish
April 9th, 2008 by Maria EvansJust last week Delmarva Power said it wasn’t going to release “preliminary numbers” on purching land based wind power, which lead to this juicy fun:
Cathcart and Rep. Robert Valihura, R-Beau Tree, said senior Delmarva officials and their lobbyist, Joe Farley, met with the House Republican caucus shortly before the break. Both lawmakers said they heard Delmarva representatives promise them cost estimates for onshore wind bids, which they could compare to Bluewater prices, by the time they return next week.   Â
But Delmarva spokesman Bill Yingling said the company never made such a promise. He said the company only said it would have preliminary numbers by the end of March, and those numbers would not be released.
“Representative Valihura must have misunderstood our statements,” Yingling said.
In reaction, Valihura said, “That’s just a flat-out lie.” And Cathcart added. “If they’re telling you they did not say that, they’re not telling you the truth.”
Yesterday, Delmarva Power released “final” numbers on purchasing land based wind power. You can read what the summary says HERE.  Let’s just say it’s a little short on information.
April 10th, 2008 at 3:37 am
[...] needs, Delmarva Power, Economic collapse, economic fallout, wind farms, wind power, wind turbines Maria seems to have uncovered this first. It is the preliminary release of bids for on-shore wind. Having [...]
April 10th, 2008 at 5:56 am
Delmarva Power has always been a very disorganized and horrible company to deal with. As a former electrical contractor, I hated to deal with them because they worked against the electricians who were trying to work with them on behalf of my customers.
Example one: I needed to talk with an engineer about a replacement service on a person’s house. They told me the engineer would meet with me at 7 p.m. that evening. I questioned the late hour but the clerk said that they work all hours. That was around 4 p.m. At 6 p.m. I called them, again, to make sure that the 7 p.m. time was not a mistake. Again, I was told the engineer would be there at the appointed time. I drove to the house and sat in my van on a dark, wet night. The customer came out to see what I wanted, and said that Delmarva Power doesn’t send anyone out at that time of night. I agree with him but was told, twice, that they would be there. I waited until 8 p.m. and nobody showed up. I called them the next day and was told they don’t work at that time of night. Of course, they refused to pay me for my wasted time.
Example two: I was called to a customer’s home at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. It was over 90 degrees and the person had no electricity in their summer home. The power disconnect outside the house had burned up. I had a replacement box on my truck but needed to have the meter seal cut. I called Delmarva’s emergency service and was told, “We’ll be there on Tuesday!” After a lot of arguing with them, the customer said they would go back home. On Tuesday, they sent out a service truck. The man put on his helmet, protective glasses, insulated gloves, and with a pair of sidecutters, cut the meter seal. I could have done that, myself, but they threaten prosecution if I do such a thing. They maintain that I could be electrocuted and that their insurance doesn’t allow electricians to cut seals. That was all the man did, and I had to pull the meter, revealing the live terminals. I had to feed new wires into the meter box and make the connections, just inches away from being shocked. That was an everyday part of my job. It was the meter seal which they maintain was dangerous.
Example three: I had to replace a service disconnect (main breaker) in a man’s house. It was Saturday. They said they would come out on Monday. I told them the man has no electricity. They said there would be a fifty-dollar charge to come out on the weekend. I told them not to bother, that I would work on the wires, live. They warned me I could be killed, so I said they would have to bear the responsibility for that. So, carefully, I removed the incoming live wires, replaced the breaker, and installed the wires. These three incidents were not exceptions but were everyday business with Delmarva.
In contrast, the Delaware Electric Coop allowed me to cut seals, get the job done and then inform them I had cut the seal. Insurance had nothing to do with it. In twenty years I had a great working relationship with the Coop who were geared to working with electricians to get the work done. Delmarva was ALWAYS a problem. I never went on a job in their area where they didn’t make it difficult, often having to go to a job, call them, leave the job and then come back later when the seal had been cut.
Even making a phone call to them was difficult. There were times I was told I was calling the wrong number and was given another number to call. I would tell the clerk that that was the number I just called and got them. They couldn’t understand it.
Delmarva Power (or Connectiv) is the utility company from hell, and it doesn’t surprise me what’s going on with them over this Bluewater plan. Their incompetence is second to none.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am
A little research at http://www.awea.org/projects/projects.aspx? finds that every wind project in PA, MD, IL, and ID would have to be offering ALL their power to DPL for there to be 1697MWs.
Based on the cost of WGES wind which has gone from 13.9 cents/kwh last Dec. to 15.6 cents/today, and the cost differential for 20% wind energy today of $5/month, we face $6.70 more, if there is a similar onshore contract. Didn’t the PSC calculate the BWW PAA at $6.46/month???
April 10th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Here’s my very rough wildcard solution for this mess: Why don’t Delmarva Power customers put up wildmills or enegry saving devices on their property. If DPL employee sees it & freaks out about it. The employee may threatened legal action; just turn around & say, “if you touch my windmill, or this device than I will take you to court for vandalizing my propery”. DPL & Blue water wind will keep fighting until there’s no end in sight. I think its time to tell electric companies - TO STICK IT!!!!
April 10th, 2008 at 11:15 am
@JohnB:
Only in government, and government backed monopolies do you see blatant incompetence such as you describe. Generally when such bureaucracies try and fix something they only make it worse.
The other day IBM was banned from bidding on all Federal contracts… for about 4 days… over procurement irregularities at a single agency. Only reason the punishment was so short lived was it rocked the boat for other agencies that were quite happy with IBM’s procedures. The allegations that started all of this apparently are still to be proven.
On another contracting front from this source:
http://www.fcw.com/blogs/thelectern/152187-1.html
“The former student noted that his company’s labor rates for government business were already l5 percent under its rates for the same labor categories for commercial customers. Add on the hassle, oversight and second-guessing for a cost buildup for a competitive fixed-price contract, and his firm has concluded it’s just not worth it.”
A friend of mine who owns a company in DC told me much the same thing. They are moving more to commercial contracts because as he put it the Feds pay their bills reliably… reliable 3 to 6 months late that is. He has to take out loans to meet payroll while waiting for the feds to get their heads out of their asses.
With so many lefties demanding that the government do more why can’t our brilliant legislators at least fix what is already beyond broken?
They are too busy investigating things that aren’t even real, that is why:
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=165604
The video above, meant to be funny, is really a sad sad commentary of how low we have sunk, and should serve as a warning for where we will end up as government continues to play a larger part in our private lives.
April 13th, 2008 at 11:32 am
[...] last week by a 22-11 vote. Representative Dick Cathcart (R-Middletown), the House Majority Leader, was quoted slamming Delmarva Power recently for their, shall we say, verbal prowess. I spoke with Mr. Cathcart Friday morning and we talked about how every Sussex County Republican [...]
April 15th, 2008 at 4:56 am
[...] in the morning (session went late the night before), things didn’t sound so good, Especially everywhere one turned, something was being said about the end of the [...]