Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest -- built
with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every
megawatt produced -- are now getting paid to shut down as the federal
agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.
The problem arose during the late spring and
early summer last year. Rapid snow melt filled the Columbia River
Basin. The water rushed through the 31 dams run by the Bonneville Power
Administration, a federal agency based in Portland, Ore., allowing for
peak hydropower generation. At the very same time, the wind howled,
leading to maximum wind power production.
Demand could not keep up with supply, so BPA shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days.
"It's the one system in the world where in
real time, moment to moment, you have to produce as much energy as is
being consumed," BPA spokesman Doug Johnson said of the renewable
energy.
Now, Bonneville is offering to compensate
wind companies for half their lost revenue. The bill could reach up to
$50 million a year.
The extra payout means energy users will eventually have to pay more.
"We require taxpayers to subsidize the
production of renewable energy, and now we want ratepayers to pay
renewable energy companies when they lose money?" asked Todd Myers,
director of the Center for the Environment of the Washington Policy
Center and author of "Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism
is Harming the Environment."
"That's a ridiculous system that keeps piling more and more money into a system that's unsustainable," Myers said.
Green energy advocates also oppose BPA's oversupply solution.
"It sends a very poor signal to the market
about doing business in the Northwest," said Rachel Shimshak, executive
director of the Renewable Northwest Project. "We want the Northwest to
be a good place to do business."
Now we are subsidizing renewable energy. Sounds ridiculous to me. Didn't anyone see what was going to happen. And why isn't this excess supply sent to parts of the country that can use it. We've been talking about upgrade the power grid for years. Lets do it, instead of subsidizing an industry that doesn't need it.
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