At 1:00 this afternoon in the auditorium inside 861 Silver Lake Drive, the Delaware Public Service Commission met to discuss that infamous proposal hammered together in Senator Deluca’s office.

The overall theme of the meeting could be lifted from Arnette McRae’s line of ……..”its been an extrodinary journey….”  Starting back with the April passage of House Bill 06 two years ago, ending twenty-four days from now, on July 31st when the four groups meet one final time to vote to fulfill of that piece of legislation…..

It was a love fest,  with everyone loving everyone else….   Delmarva loves Bluewater…Bluewater loves Delmarva, both love the PSC, everyone loves the public, who became the heroes of the day.  Praise abounds for Deluca.  Hmm. There wasn’t any dished towards Markell, Protack, or Carney……

In Dover, another public hearing will occur on the 17th of this month.  Comments on line will remain open until July 25th.  The vote will be held on the 31st.

A couple of wrinkles came out in the hearing as well as some good news.  Wrinkle one:  the 200 MWh version does not satisfy the growing demand downstate.  It is too little and is spread over too wide a base to have any effect on adding energy to the southern part of the grid.  Also, because of this deficit, whether or not to go forward with a backup generation facility, either by NRG or Connectiv will likely cause some controversy, and possibly stall an otherwise done deal.

Hats off to WDEL who broke the story that the MMS division of the Department of Interior has officially ok’d the building of offshore wind facilities and has issued a forty page memorandum which is so new, that not even I have had time to look it over.  ( I believe it was released at 1:00 this afternoon as well)

So where do we go from here?

We need to make sure that a considerable number of people show up on July 17th to represent the overwhelming support that Delawareans exhibited throughout this “journey” in support of wind…..

We need to debate whether or not back up energy is required.

We need to smooth passage of the high voltage MAPP transmission lines which will decrease the transmission cost of exporting wind driven electricity, thereby making a larger Bluewater Wind Farm more commercially viable to other areas besides ours…

With all the pieces in place, we lastly need to push for the largest wind farm possible off of Rehoboth, supplying  DC with enough energy to eventually wean us off of carbon fuel sources.

From this little room,  the wheels have started to roll………null