By Rob Roper
As Vermont Democrats and Progressives gear up for a veto fight with Gov. Phil Scott over the Clean Heat Standard bill, which is designed to electrify the state’s home heating and cooking infrastructure, an alarm bell just rang across the border in Canada.
According to a story in Bloomberg (“Big Power Shortfall Looms After Quebec Wooed US With Cheap Hydro“), Vermont’s largest and most economical supplier of electricity is sending signals it won’t be able to produce enough to meet demand.
To quote Dave Rheaume, Hydro-Quebec’s risk management officer, from the Bloomberg article, “We sell cheap, reliable and renewable energy. However, it is precious and now everybody wants to come and have access to it — but we don’t have the ability to infinitely replicate these kinds of generation assets.”
This is a problem for Vermont as the Global Warming Solutions Act put us on a path mandating that Vermonters largely, if not entirely, electrify our thermal and transportation sectors, with major goals in this quest to be completed by 2030 and completed by 2050. This is estimated to double the state’s overall demand for electricity.
Hydro-Quebec is considering building more dams to increase its potential output, but there are environmental concerns around flooding river valleys, and political concerns about doing so on land linked to Native American tribes. So, an expanded generation capacity from Canada for Vermont is by no means is a sure thing.
In 2010, Vermont and Hydro-Quebec entered into a contract guaranteeing approximately 1.3 TWh of energy each year to the Green Mountain State through 2038. This represents about 25 percent of Vermont’s current electricity needs, and the long-term contract is credited with keeping Vermont’s electric rates relatively stable as compared to other New England states. Places in Massachusetts and Connecticut, for example, recently experienced rate hikes of as much as 20 to 40 percent. But the question needs to be asked, what can we expect when that contract expires?
Notably, this deal was contingent upon Vermont classifying large scale hydro as “renewable” energy, which is something a lot of other states do not do, and remains a controversial sore point for many environmental activists.
If Vermont doubles demand for electricity by largely electrifying our thermal and transportation sectors, which is what the Global Warming Solutions Act demands, cheap hydro from Canada will represent a much smaller percentage of our overall electricity supply mix. It appears that increasing that supply is unlikely, so we will have to find alternatives — probably much more expensive alternatives that what we are currently use.
It is highly unlikely that we can renew our contract with Hydro-Quebec on anything like the same terms as our current contract. HQ contracts with the American utilities are already being called a “strategic mistake” by some in the province. If trends continue, competition for that power from other New England states, businesses such as Amazon and General Motors, who also have contracts with HQ, and not to mention Canadians themselves who are laboring under greenhouse gas reduction mandates of their own will drive up prices.
What this portends, given our current policy prescriptions, is that Vermont will spend the next decade and a half converting our oil furnaces to electric heat pumps, our gas stoves to electric induction, and our internal combustion engine vehicle fleet to EVs only to see the cost of electricity explode when our contract with Hydro-Quebec expires — if not before, and if we can even find enough electricity to run all of this equipment in the first place.
One of the primary arguments supporters of the Global Warming Solutions Act mandates and the clean heat standard is that fossil fuel prices are volatile, and currently very high. Transitioning to electricity will lead to more stable pricing, and lower costs. This development regarding Hydro Quebec calls both those assumptions into question.
Asked if the announcement by Hydro-Quebec came as a surprise to her, Meredith Angwin, an expert on the ISO-New England electrical grid and author of “Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid,” replied, “That article was no surprise to me about the facts. I was somewhat surprised that Quebec was admitting to the situation! Our dependence on HQ is a cliff and Vermont is about to step off. Either soon (competition for HQ energy and HQ overpromising power to too many entities) or later, when our current HQ contracts run out.”
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. © Copyright True North Reports 2023. All rights reserved.
In Cuba, today, there is rationing of water and electricity.
Leaky pipes and poor connections they say.
This Works very well in completely control the population. Have to be a certain place when you get water and electricity. When you are forced into a camping lifestyle, it’s hard to better yourself to become free, financially, mentally and spiritually.
Who are we slaves to? Makes a big difference in our life.
This is nothing but climate tyranny imposed on the human lab rats of Vermont who the office-holding power brokers and globalists see as impediments to their personal global vision of a perfect planet. Humans are a sore on the planet’s skin. Therefore, we must tiptoe around so we don’t disturb Gaia and make as little impact as possible. NOT what the Bible has to say about the whole situation and the relation of humans to the planet. Judeo-Christian ethics and morality are being replaced by earth worship. Notice that the Judeo-Christian God is absent from all of the arguments of these climate tyrants.
Truth and love have left the state, surely we are experiencing the fruit of a different, but entirely different spirit.
I posted this a few weeks ago, but it is appropriate for the article.
In the saga on the Affordable Heat Act, there has been much said about the future cost of fossil fuel, the upfront cost of weatherization, heat pumps, EV vehicles and whether there exists sufficient resources to install the huge numbers of these devices, to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction requirement. But there is another potential problem. It is the amount of electrical energy and the source of this energy that will be needed to replace the energy that was eliminated from burning fossil fuel.
According to the “Vermont Pathways Analysis Report 2.0”, prepared for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, the demand for electrical energy will increase from 5,500 GWh/yr (in 2020) to 12,000 GWh/yr by 2050. Of the 5,500 GWh/yr, about 38% is generated in Vermont. The remainder is purchased from Hydro Quebec or through the grid (ISONE).
Looking at the amount energy not generated (burning fossil fuel) to meeting CO2e reduction requirements versus the estimated additional electrical energy (adjusted for efficiency), the 2050 estimate of 12,000 GWh/yr is conservative. By using this comparison, the estimate the 2050 figure needs to increase by 20-25% (meaning 14,400 to 15,000 GWh/yr).
The real potential problem shows up from the assumed sources for this increase demand for electrical energy. From the “Vermont Pathways Analysis Report 2.0”, for both years 2030 and 2050, they show a predominate dependency on “Off Shore Wind” as the source (purchased through ISONE). In 2030, “Off Shore Wind” energy accounts for 26% of the demand. By 2050, it accounts for 63% of the demand. Just as a side note, the percentage of electrical energy generated in Vermont drops from 38% in 2020 to 14% in 2050.
As other New England states convert from fossil fuel to electric energy (EV vehicles and heat pumps), their demand for electric energy will also increase in the future. Add to this, almost all of these states require that 100% of their electrical energy comes from renewables by 2050. And they are expecting “Off Shore Wind” to by their predominate source.
It is projected that by 2050, New England will need 45 GW of “Off Shore Wind” power to generate 181,000 GWh/yr. The other New England states, excluding Vermont, will demand all of this power (180,000 GWh/yr). And they are closing contracts to make sure they receive their share.
Add to this, the timeline to install all these “Off Shore Wind” turbines is staggering. By 2028, there are proposed plans to have 584 operational “Off Shore Wind” turbines (about 80 exist today but not all are operational). By 2050, the need will be to have 3,750 turbines operational. This is especially troubling since the BOEM (U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) timeline from ‘proposal’ the ‘operational status’ is 10-11 years. From a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, half of the U.S. offshore wind energy projects in the pipeline are at risk of being delayed beyond 2030 because of limited port and vessel infrastructure.
So Vermont may have ‘saddled’ itself to an electrical energy source with limited quantity availability and on a risky operational timeline.
Lance,
1) Vermont utilities purchase about 6000 GWh/y from various sources under PPAs, including about 1300 GWh/y from HQ, of which 5500 GWh/y arrives at user meters.
The difference is losses
2) Please show the sources of the 38% of 6000 GWh/y GENERATED in Vermont. I think the 38% is much too high.
3) On a physical basis, Vermont utilities draw almost all of the 6000 GWh/y from the NE high voltage grid, via substations, which has an ISO-NE-calculated grid CO2/kWh
4) Electricity moves on the grid as electromagnetic waves at near the speed of light, i.e., from Northern Maine to Southern Florida in about 0.01 second. The electrons vibrate in place at 60 cycles per second. This has been an established scientific fact since about 1900.
There is absolutely no such thing as VT, or NH, or ME electricity. That is a semantic invention by non technical people.
Willem, two sources
https://www.eia.gov/beta/states/states/vt/analysis
More than half of Vermont’s electricity supply now comes from out of state. The largest share comes from hydroelectric power, most of it generated in Canada. In 2021, Vermont’s in-state generation from both utility-scale (1 megawatt or larger) and customer-sited, small-scale (less than 1 megawatt) facilities equaled 40% of the state’s retail power sales, and almost half of that came from hydroelectric power. Nearly one-fourth came from biomass, primarily from generating units that burn wood and wood-derived fuels. Almost all the rest came from solar and wind.
Also
“Vermont Pathways Analysis Report 2.0” figure 15
When I talk about other New England states, I am talking about their power demand and I am not implying anything about ownership
Wood is Good….
So now Hydro is moving off the table and big wind (offshore) is more in doubt with the increase in whales committing suicide on the beaches because of the vibrations. The leftist commies will never give in to the most efficient and clean power source Nukes. I guess we will have to cover every exposed space in the state with black squares and bird choppers with life spans of 10-15 yrs. We will need to fill in the valleys with the eco junk after they’ve expended their useful life. We will also have to change our name to the black and white state as very little green will still be exposed.. Good job you ignorant voters and even more clueless political hacks with zero foresight. Full speed ahead to the destruction of the Green Mountain boys vision of a independent utopia for free thinkers.
DBean,
Whales can see the way we do about 30 to 50 ft, so they do not bump into each other when in a group.
Beyond that distance, they rely echo location, similar to bats.
The explosions to determine geo-strata for wind turbine foundations destroys their echo location, similar to soldiers becoming totally deaf, due to operating artillery guns.
Whales without echo location cannot communicate with other whales or items, such as moving ships and shores, and they cannot find food.
After the geo-strata are determined, piles are driven to bedrock for foundations to support 850-ft-tall wind turbines during category 4 or 5 hurricanes, and high voltage cables are laid to connect all the wind turbines to shores.
This pile-driving will further damage any left over whales.
Any fish populations will flee to other, MUCH LESS DESIRABLE areas.
Welcome to the idiocy of reducing CO2, a life gas, without which, no life on earth is possible
The world’s flora coverage during the past 2000 years has been much less, due to only 275 ppm CO2.
Due to burning fossil fuels, the CO2 ppm increased, and the world’s flora coverage has increased by 30% during the past 50 years, based on NASA satellite observations.
That CO2 increase also increased worldwide crop growth to feed the world’s population.
One would think the cultist would take into account what happened with electricity in a certain west coast state Vermont is trying it’s best to be like. They should change the name of our state to Vermontifornia. They have the votes to override the governor’s veto.
Again I ask, where is the juice going to come from if not fossil fuels ?
Nuclear ? No, that makes too much sense. Biomass ? How do you spell McNeil ? Hydro ? Sure, but the greenies are running up against their environmental friends who would rather protect nature, animals and fish over humans. Wind ? Yeah, that is working out well with the greenies pissing off and trampling on the rights of citizens who live nearby. Solar ? Do we have enough land to create the solar farms that are made with materials mostly from overseas ? Hydrogen ? I haven’t a clue. Not exactly an abundant gas such as N, O, CO2,
Prediction: We will continue to depend on fossil fuels for at least 30-50 years until Nuclear Fusion becomes what it promised to be 70 years ago. We will never be able to depend upon wind/solar because of the fact that it is intermittent and requires incredibly expensive resources for storage technology.
I am sad that I will not live to see the ultimate solution, but I have confidence that human endeavor will solve the problem if the idiots are pushed out of the way.
I do not live where there is no electricity. Some of us will simply not comply.
Just build a highly insulated, highly sealed house (r40 walls, r60 ceiling, r20 basement, r8 doors, r8 windows, with positive ventilation), add solar panels, $25,000, a battery system, $25,000, a large hot-water-storage tank, $5,000, and a generator, $3000, to cover solar lulls. Then disconnect from the grid.
The state should subsidize people who do this
I will NOT be going to electricity. There is none where I and lots of others live. I use propane for my refrigerator and stove and will now be taking the 100 pound tanks to New Hampshire to get them filled. These liberals idiots are going to drive normal folks to go back to heating with dirty firewood. I will never stop burning wood or using gas powered equipment.
Yes, Vermont’s all-electric strategy ……… another liberal cart before the horse scenario,
do they ever think anything all the way out, and their minions will follow them off any
cliff…………………. Idiots !!
Keep working, they’ll keep spending for foolish projects, you put them in charge.