The PSC meets to discuss the Bluewater Wind PPA. This meeting is for the public. The PSC wants to hear from you, once again…..They want to know if you approve of the PPA as it was signed.

It’s a start. It is a good compromise which will allow Delaware to get its foot in the door of offshore wind building. If this goes forward, we WILL be the first state when it comes to offshore wind farms…..The economy, shortage of fossil fuels, and the cheapness of wind power, collectively insure that up and down the Eastern Shore, wind farms offshore will one day be quite common. Delaware needs and deserves to be the hub of such activity. But this can only happen if we move forward on July 31st, when once again the four departments meet and this time, unlike December 18th, unanimously vote for approving the PPA. They need to hear how much you want it….

Secondly, they want to know how we feel about separating the Bridgeville located Connective gas turbine from the Bluewater PPA. Should they be joined, or should we just go with Bluewater for now?

They need to hear from us that they should just go with Bluewater for now. One, speed is important. More controversy tying up the process will do nothing but give our state’s competitors the time needed to outflank us. The new jobs will go to them.

Two, the gas turbine idea, based on today’s natural gas prices, costs much more than it did a year ago. (Hey, weren’t natural gas prices supposed to go down?)

Three, there is today not enough natural gas in Sussex County. A major pipeline will have to be built across the Chesapeake in order to supply the generator.

Four, the PJM grid is the largest single grid on the planet. Stretching from Illinois to Philadelphia, we can pull energy off the grid whenever needed. It is what we have been doing since deregulation started.

Five, the MAPP high intensity power lines, which will need to be built in order tor Bluewater Wind to move its excess wind into DC markets, can bring additional power cheaper than it arrives through the bottleneck existing at the top ot the Delmarva Peninsula.

Six, better would be to have a bigger Bluewater Wind selling us power outside the PPA, if we need extra. The power we get, would be carbon free…..instead of costing us our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness……

Finally, the old dogs are expected to put the PSC on trial for how it handled the entire Bluewater Process. Personally, I can not offer enough praise on how it was handled. It was open. All could read every side’s views, all could see every side’s offer, all could see all of the facts, benefits, and problems that each side had to offer. The vetting of the Bluewater Wind process, is the perfect example how open government works. In fact, all of the problems slowing the process, came from our closed government within the leadership of our General Assembly….. Literally all of the problems came from that contingent. What will take place on Thursday, if the public is not present to insist otherwise, will be another version of the McDowell hearings. A one sided diatribe with no facts to support it. The attempt will be made to have the PSC run as is the Legislature, behind closed doors. When in fact it should be the other way around. The Legislature, should be run as was the PSC’s RFP. No secrets.

The reason is obvious. Malfeasance does not do well in the open. When one compares Delmarva’s bid, to that of Bluewater’s original bid two winter’s ago, Bluewater’s bid makes sense, whereas Delmarva’s bid was ……I really don’t know what…..Could we say it was a fabrication made to sound important? Obviously, they were used to no one reading it…. (“Give me forty pages…I don’t care whats in it…”)

But read it we did. And the next morning often just as the News Journal logged on and carried the official side, there was the alternative on the blogs, refuting the facts as they had been presented. In the end, Delmarva learned from us that there was a lot of money to be made in wind, both on and off shore. They couldn’t help it…. They had access to the same facts we did……

So tomorrow, anyone, everyone, needs to pack their loved ones into the family car, and head down or up to Dover for this historic occasion. If you are single, head there straight after work. Join us in making sure that the PSC understands that 90% of Delaware supports this PPA between Bluewater Wind and Delmarva, that the co-generation question can be decided independently at a later date, and that the entire state should be modeled on how the PSC ran this operation.

Well done! Arnette McRae! Chairperson of the Delaware PSC….. …Well done.