CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Latest 'Green-Power' Fiasco http://nyp.st/2s4cTQY "Indeed, two events Monday, one in Albany and the other in the upstate town of Somerset, showed just how difficult and expensive Governor Andrew Cuomo's plan has become and how New York ratepayers will be stuck with the bill.... In Albany, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority released its “offshore-wind master plan.” The agency said it was “charting a course to 2,400 megawatts” of offshore capacity to be installed by 2030. That much capacity (roughly twice as much as now exists in all of Denmark) will require installing hundreds of platforms over more than 300 square miles of ocean in some of the most navigated, and heavily fished, waters on the Eastern Seaboard. It will also be enormously expensive. According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration, by 2022 producing a megawatt hour of electricity from offshore wind will cost a whopping $145.90. Offshore wind promoters claim costs are declining. Maybe so. But according to the New York Independent System Operator, the average cost of wholesale electricity in the state last year was $36.56. Thus, Cuomo’s presidential ambitions will require New York consumers to pay roughly FOUR TIMES as much for offshore electricity as they currently pay for juice from conventional generators.... Never mind that New York’s electricity prices are already 40 percent higher than the US average or that his offshore scheme will send those rates even higher. As [Town of Somerset Supervisor] Dan Engert asked me Wednesday, “Who is looking out for the ratepayers? That’s the question that should be put to the governor.” http://nyp.st/2s4cTQY Since 2015, Gov. Cuomo has been hyping his scheme to remake the state’s electric grid so that by 2030 half of the state’s electricity will come from renewable sources. But Cuomo’s ambition — to pro…http://ift.tt/2zdPuzM