Gloucester’s turbines — paying more for less

My View

Mike Johnson

This essay is an accurate report of an in-depth analysis of the amount and cost of energy delivered by Gloucester’s wind turbines. The data analyzed was provided by the Office of the City Clerk under Record Requests 23-462 and 24-613. This service, provided willingly, promptly, and with courtesy does Gloucester proud. Thank you, Karen Scola. In summary: Delivered energy in fiscal 2024 was less than 50% of the “expected” energy, see Figure 1.

Average unit cost of energy from fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2024 has risen over 60%, see Figure 2.

We are paying 60% MORE for 50% LESS!

Page 1 of the binding Power Purchase Agreement (PPA, see Record Request 23-462) states, “H. The Facility is expected to generate as much as approximately 11,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year (subject to annual degradation of approximately 0.1%).”

The facility’s best year was about 80% of the “expected” 11,000,000 kWh. I have enclosed the word “expected” in quotations to emphasize the wording from page 15 of the PPA, “11.2 Limitations on Warranties. Seller does not warrant or guarantee the amount of Electricity to be generated by the facility.”

Question, are small cities and towns sophisticated enough to deal with the turbine industry’s pettifoggers, slick salespersons, and government subsidies? Joey Ciaramitaro, Gloucester’s voice, asks similar questions in his July 20 posting on Good Morning Gloucester.

Paying much more for much less describes Gloucester’s business posture regarding wind turbines and summarizes this essay. If you can think of a pithier yet polite descriptor, please let me know.

There is a strange spike in the Average Cost chart for fiscl year 2023. Its due to the national spike in inflation about that time and is beyond the control of either the buyer or the seller. I have normalized the inflation spike throughout my analysis.

Mike Johnson is a retired rocket scientist (junior grade). He lives in Gloucester and can be reached at mnosnhoj@comcast.net.