Time to correct PUC’s bad decision
PBN Editorial
Last week’s approval of Massachusetts’ Cape Wind offshore wind energy farm by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar seems to have lit a fire under Rhode Island’s renewable energy advocates, including, most importantly, those in the Statehouse. Finally.
Just last month, the R.I. Public Utilities Commission rejected Deepwater Wind’s initial power purchase agreement with National Grid on the grounds that it was too costly. That first part of the project was designed to connect Block Island to the mainland electricity grid while building up to eight turbines just off the island to supply its electricity (at a price, by the way, far below what residents there are paying right now.)
Without that deal in place, the overall plan, which was to result not just in the Block Island wind farm but a 106-turbine project 15 miles off the mainland, was put in doubt. And without that larger Rhode Island piece in place, the prospect that the state would become a regional hub for building ocean-based wind energy projects – with up to 800 new jobs in the Quonset Business Park – was dim. Read more…
