Posted on 12/17/2018 8:34:26 AM PST by TADSLOS
GEORGETOWN — The city of Georgetown’s bill for wind and solar energy ended up being $8.6 million more than anticipated in fiscal year 2018 because the falling prices of oil and gas meant it had to sell its surplus renewable power for less than forecast, said City Manager David Morgan.
The city had budgeted $45 million for renewable energy but ended up paying $53.6 million, he said.
Georgetown was able to reduce the $8.6 million unanticipated extra to $6.8 million through savings from lower capital improvement utility project costs, Morgan said. It paid the remaining $6.8 million with reserves from the city’s energy fund, he said.
The City Council also approved a budget amendment Dec. 12 that will build the reserves in the electric fund, which helped to pay for some of the loss, from $1.9 million back up to $4 million in 2019.
Georgetown is in the middle of renegotiating its 20- to 25-year wind and solar contracts to try to get a better deal, Morgan said.
But at least one resident and a conservative think tank said the city should not have made the contracts for so long and shouldn’t be relying on green sources of energy.
Georgetown began getting 100 percent of its power through renewable energy in April 2017. The city has received international attention for its commitment to solar and wind power.
Morgan said that when the city signed wind and solar contracts around 2012, it was looking at long-term demands and contracted for more energy than it needed to grow into it as the city of Georgetown grew. The city contracted for 20 years with a wind farm west of Amarillo and for 25 years with a solar power farm outside of Fort Stockton, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
Every financial decision is a bet (or a payoff). Welcome to the real world, Georgetown. Have you figured out who benefited from this decision?
Ha....good luck wid dat
Sun stops making sunspots and a new ice age starts up
Solar panels frozen over and windmills frozen solid.
They saved money but not as much as expected because of electricity price fluctuations. DISASTER!
It sure as hell isnt the residents here.
Just out of curiosity, how much did they pay for / use conventional power during that timeframe?
Wait....how can it “cost more” because they had less excess power to sell back?? Are they trying to paint (or so stupid) that less income is reported as higher cost?
Or are they paying more for renewables than generic power, and the reduced income offset less of the premium than forecast? If the second thing, then what business do they have paying a premium for PC power with other people’s money????
More liberal nonsense.
But the idiots I guess aren't aware of the cyclical nature of energy costs here, or that we have massive growth in oil and gas production. So they have to sell the surplus at a loss because of the drop in overall energy prices.
At the end of the day, the sh*t just don’t work. Period!!!!
It might be okay if you’re off the grid in Alaska, or someplace esle, and all your doing is charging up some, deep cycle marine batteries for some lights and tools. But, on a grand scale it doesn’t worth it at all.
And toss in the issues with solar panels and it all seems like one giant liberal scam that is, as usual, taking the taxpayer for a ride. Liberals, unless they’re the uber rich like Gates and Steyer, make all their money off the government and taxpayer. Hell, even Gates cashes in on the taxpayer as all software programs that every government entity, from the local level to the feds, uses microsoft office. Gates was a big proponent of Common Core and guess who was making the software for that debacle.
And now the issues with solar panels is coming to light, in addition to the fact that it isn’t all the reliable, either. Not sure what political slant this site has, but they detail some interesting information about the negatives of solar.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/21/are-we-headed-for-a-solar-waste-crisis
From a so called republican mayor.
We need a Constitutional Amendment that prevents bureaucrats from negotiating contracts longer than 6 months. Brutal how lousy they are at it. Pension liabilities to Democrats will bring the country to its knees.
HAIL STORMS wipe out solar panels...by the hundreds...Replacement will take 3 year plus....No landfill will accept the broken panels.....People wihtout power are angry.....
I live here too. This boils down to a bunch of liberal feel good crap at the expense of consumers. Our (R) mayor is an Al Gore fanboi and a Trump basher.
So the utility is municipal, and they’re locking in a contract wholesale price in exchange for guaranteeing the purchase of a certain amount of energy over the following year? Then the spot price falls and they get caught with their pants down if they bought too much?
Yep. Not just one year. 20 to 25 years. Nutz.
Holy crap. Is there any further evidence needed that municipalities don’t need to be in the utility business?
I’m curious about something.
It says that the wind farm is west of Amarillo. Driving, that’s almost 500 miles from Georgetown. I’m not sure how far as the crow flies.
I don’t know much about electricity. I wonder, though, isn’t some of the power “lost” in transmission? It would seem to me that it would make more sense to utilize the electricity generated closer to the source.
I’m sure that the infrastructure costs would be less.
I’ve wondered why more effort hasn’t been put into making wind and solar technologies more affordable for the individual homeowner. I think you’ve answered that; that’s not where the big money is.
I’ve looked into both solar and wind power for household use but something that takes 25 years to pay for itself isn’t something I’m interested in.
Especially when the life of solar panels is half that.
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