The city of Berlin has an industrial assessor by the name of Skip Sancousy who is all in favor of the Laidlaw project. There are many things I admire about Sancousy's work, especially his accuracy. Very impressive responses made by Sancousy to the IPPS that were just emailed on the subject of the positives pertinent to the location of the proposed Laidlaw biomass project in Berlin, and as a result, its cost effectiveness. I especially like his sentence as follows:
"This savings is directly translated into reduced energy, capacity, and REC costs incurred by Public Service for the ratepayers of Public Service."
This statement, in a perfect world, should be true. PUC staff expert testimony, however, is testifying the opposite is true of what Sansoucy logically concludes; that in staff expert opinion the price of power is significantly higher in the Laidlaw PPA. Why is that? Why would a touted savings due to existing infrastructure lead to significantly higher electrical costs in the PPA than what PUC staff suggests is available elsewhere?
The problem with having too many players in a deal appears to be that too many players need to get paid one way or the other in this case, at the expense of the rate payer. There should be plenty of room to bring the price of this PPA down below what expert testimony suggests is available elsewhere, due to existing infrastructure. Whatever happened to the benefit of the 100 million already invested in the existing infrastructure? This issue needs to be substantially brought to the forefront in the next few weeks. This apparent absence of infrastructure reduction specifically calls into question not only pricing of power, but also of wood and the very survival of biomass facilities already in existence that are needed to accomplish the 2025 initiative. Are we taking one step forward and two steps backward here?
