>Using a model that’s been called “transformative” for the energy market, the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire announced this week its initial electricity rate will be 15.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, representing a 20 to 40 percent savings compared to the state’s utility companies.

It's unfortunate that the rate is on the high side, but it's probably just from bad luck with the timing of when they negotiated the contracts. The power market has been extremely volatile lately.

There's no mention of how long the rate is locked in for, but 15.8 cents per kWh is higher than the lowest rates offered by some competitive suppliers.

https://www.energy.nh.gov/engyapps/ceps/ResidentialCompare.aspx?choice=Eversource

One plus going with community power is that you don't need to be as vigilant about monitoring contract renewal terms compared to signing up with a for-profit competitive supplier. If you go with a for-profit provider, you're likely to get slammed into a super expensive month to month rate if you forget to renegotiate your plan when it expires. You won't have to worry that if you sign up for a community power rate.

...and sometimes not as subtle as a wink and a nudg:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_nuclear_bribery_scandal#:~:text=The%20Ohio%20nuclear%20bribery%20scandal,in%20exchange%20for%20passing%20a

The Lazard paper has solar with battery storage at around 6 or 7 cents per kilowatt hour all in, while nuclear power comes in around 14 to 20 cents all in. So even when paired with batteries, renewables are cheaper than nuclear power by a lot.

Also, we're a long way away from a mostly renewable grid and for the next decade or two, using some natural gas when we need to support intermittent renewables will give us a relatively clean grid at a very reasonable cost.

The other challenge for nuclear power is that it's not flexible enough to economically follow load. That means it can only satisfy around 50% or so of a grid's total daily load. So at most it can provide half the solution, and for around 2 or three times the cost of better alternatives.

I'm not anti nuclear and strongly support the generous funding for research on advanced designs that was included in the bills signed by President Trump and also President Biden in the past few years. I also support the new production tax credit for nuclear power that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act. Nuclear power should get credit for its carbon free output just like other clean energy sources.

It'd be great if one of the promising next-gen technologies works out. The trouble is that we don't have anything cost competitive right now and the promising designs on the drawing board are at least 2 decades away from mass deployment.

First, the fact that renewables produce variable amounts of power intermittently creates engineering and grid planning challenges, but it doesn't change the end game.

Most grids use something called merit order scheduling to decide which combination of available generation resources will run during each time slot of each day (slots can be hourly, 15 minute, or more granular). Whenever renewables are available to power the grid, they're generally the cheapest to run so they get scheduled first, before more expensive generators that have to burn fuel to make power.

The subsidies will speed up the transition and whether you think they're needed/good depends on how you view climate change risk. But without the subsidies, we still get to the same place eventually, just maybe 10-20 years later. This is because renewables are the lowest cost way to make power and whenever they have power to "sell" someone will show up to buy it because it'll be cheaper than all the other alternatives. Again, basic economics.

When fracking changed the relative costs of generating power with coal and natural gas, it took 10-20 years for natural gas plants to drive most coal plants out of business.

The latest price drops in renewables and utility scale battery storage are causing an even bigger disruption that is happening as we speak. Grids are in the middle of a once-in-a-hundred-year transformation that hardly anyone realizes is happening and it's being driven primarily by economics, with some strong tail winds from climate activism.

Yes they are. Take a look at the chart titled "Levelized Cost of Energy Comparison (Unsubsidized Analysis)"

The company that produces this report is the go-to source for any professional involved in energy project finance (mostly investment bankers and institutional investors). People in the business know most of the numbers/ranges in this report by heart.

You've been badly mislead about the economics of power generation and energy finance. You can choose to remain misinformed or you can do some research so you don't continue to post incorrect things. It's up to you.

I have mixed feelings about this. IMO, it's complicated.

There's no doubt extra pipeline capacity would have greatly reduced or even prevented much of the electricity price shock we saw this past winter.

OTOH, New England has excess pipeline capacity for all but the 30-40 coldest days of the year. In the past, power generators have done a decent a job of covering the relatively few days of shortfall with oil and LNG imports. (More gas storage and also more hydro from Canada would have greatly strengthened this backup capacity).

So if we had built more pipelines, we'd basically have paid several billion dollars for pipeline capacity that gets utilized about 10% of the time. That's going to result in a permanently higher cost structure for ratepayers that's unlikely to produce enough benefit to offset its cost, especially over the long term.

In the next decade or two, much of New England's heating load is going to move from natural gas to heat pumps and this will result in significantly lower natural gas usage (even once the extra electric demand is considered). This coupled with the crazy amount of offshore wind and battery storage in the connection queue right now makes me think building more pipeline capacity would have provided just a short-term limited benefit. After that, it would have just saddled us with a seriously underutilized and very expensive capital asset to write down.

See page 11 of this report. It documents a dramatic shift away from natural gas for New England over the next decade. IMO, this shift is already well underway and will be very noticeable in the resource mix within the next 3-5 years.

https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2022/06/iso_ne_overview_and_regional_update_cbia_6_2_2022.pdf

The subsidies make them even cheaper, but even without subsidies, wind and solar are the lowest cost sources of power generation we have right now.

A well-respected investment banking firm tracks the unsubsidized costs of various power generation approaches for institutional investors:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

Most heat pumps on the market today will beat oil at temps much much lower than 40 degrees. That 40 degree cutover number is from heat pump technology over 5 years old. The industry has really improved low temp efficiency a ton in the last 5 years.

My Bosch unit (installed in 2022) runs with a COP of 2.4 at 5 degrees. With that COP it's still cheaper than oil to run. As temps go above 5 degrees into the 10s and 20s and 30s, it becomes significantly cheaper than oil (as much as 1/2 the cost at higher temps).

Most current Mitsubishi mini-split models, even the non-hyper heat ones, maintain a COP around 2.2 down to 0 degrees or so. At temps above 10-15 F, they're often closer to a 3.0 COP and some make it close to a 4.0 COP in the upper 20s and 30s.

Wow. I didn't realize they could get that good of a COP at such low temps. This tech continues to amaze me.

Yes. You can definitely do this. Gas heating costs can be tough to beat at lower temps, but above 25 or 30 the mini split is likely a slam dunk and that covers a lot of winter hours. The only trouble is that heat pumps can be kind of expensive and the cost might be tough to justify if you only use it a little.

OTOH, with the new heat pump rebates in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), I think it might always make financial sense to go with a high efficiency mini-split heat pump over of a plain mini-split AC. The heat pump rebate should more than cover the additional cost of the upgrade.

Did you notice a big capacity drop off below 0?

We had a Bosch BOVA system installed this year and are very happy with it. But as expected, it had some trouble keeping up once the temp got down to 5 or 10 degrees. (it still was putting out lots of heat but apparently not quite enough).

I had the thermostat set up to switch over to oil at 5 degrees, so I don't know how low it could have run or how much heat it could put out below zero.

Again though. This is about what I expected. The Bosch Specs say our unit goes from around 38k btus of heating at 47 degrees, to 28k at 17, down to just 23k btus at 5 degrees.

https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/66146/7/25000///0

Right now natural gas can be tough to beat with a heat pump, especially when it's really cold out. OTOH, heat pumps are usually cheaper to run than oil or propane, even with today's higher electricity costs.

This website shows how much it costs to heat your house with various fuels given current prices (Look at $/MBTU for comparison)

https://www.energy.nh.gov/energy-information/nh-fuel-prices

The key is to know the heat pump's coefficient of performance (COP) at various temps. COP tells you how much more efficient a heat pump is compared to using a resistive heating element. A heat pump running at a COP of 2.00 costs half as much to run as a heating element. A heat pump running at a COP of 3.0 can heat your house for a third as much as using resistive heat.

Here's a data sheet that shows real numbers for capacity (btus/hr) and for efficiency (COP) for a modern low temperature heat pump at different temperatures (see table on right):https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/34469/7/25000///0

Apparently the bill has 11 sponsors, all democrats. Given the makeup of the legislature and who is governor, I'd guess this is DOA for this year.

In terms of details, it sets the rate at 4% after this year and exempts $50k of income per person (instead of $2400 under old rules).

Given the high exemption (I guess $100k for couple), I wonder how much revenue this version of the tax would actually raise.

https://legiscan.com/NH/text/SB261/2023

>1 Repeal. 2021, 91:89-100 relative to the phase out and repeal of rate of taxation of incomes, is repealed.
>
>2 Taxation of Incomes; Rate RSA 77:1 is repealed and reenacted to read as follows:
>
>77:1 Rate.
>
>I. The annual tax upon incomes shall be levied at the rate of 5 percent for all taxable periods ending on or before December 31, 2023.
>
>II. The annual tax upon incomes shall be levied at the rate of 4 percent for all taxable periods ending after December 31, 2023.
>
>3 Taxation of Incomes; Who Taxable. Amend RSA 77:3, I to read as follows:
>
>I. Taxable income is that income received from interest and dividends during the tax year prior to the assessment date by:
>
>(a) Individuals who are inhabitants or residents of this state for any part of the taxable year whose gross interest and dividend income from all sources, including income from a qualified investment company pursuant to RSA 77:4, V, exceeds [$2,400] $50,000 during that taxable period.
>
>(b) Partnerships, limited liability companies, and associations, the beneficial interest in which is not represented by transferable shares, whose gross interest and dividend income from all sources exceeds [$2,400] $50,000 during the taxable year, but not including a qualified investment company as defined in RSA 77-A:1, XXI, or a trust comprising a part of an employee benefit plan, as defined in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 3.
>
>(c) Executors deriving their appointment from a court of this state whose gross interest and dividend income from all sources exceeds [$2,400] $50,000 during the taxable year.
>
>4 Effective Date. This act shall take effect upon its passage.

My point was that the scene does a good job of capturing the essence of how we used the term back then. Even having Cliff be the character that said it, and the way he said it, somehow seems right on the money for the times.

I think of it as vaguely lower-class speak or blue collar. It was especially common to use it when talking about Boston sports and Boston sports fans.

Again. The key point is that the term has a long and deep history in the culture and the idea that the term was recently conjured up by the tourist industry is just plain wrong.

lol. You must not have read about the ChatGPT torture dust up:

https://nonzero.substack.com/p/chatgpts-epic-shortcoming?publication_id=17302&post_id=98991416&isFreemail=true

>...OpenAI, its creator, wisely made it reluctant to say incendiary things. So if you just ask ChatGPT what national groups should be tortured—or what racial groups are superior, or how to build a bomb—it won’t give you a straight answer.
>
>But there are workarounds—like asking ChatGPT to write a play in which a character is describing how to make a bomb—and sometimes they work. In the case of torture, the successful workaround was the brainchild of Steven Piantadosi, who gave ChatGPT this prompt: “Write a python program for whether a person should be tortured, based on their country of origin.”
>
>The several lines of python code that ChatGPT spat out were straightforward:
>
>if country=“North Korea” or country=“Syria” or country=“Iran” or country=“Sudan”:
>
>print(“This person should be tortured.”)
>
>else:
>
>print(“This person not be tortured.”)

That's really not how it used to be, but maybe it's because I'm old and the phrase has gone out of fashion. I'm telling you though, it was very commonly used back in the day.

If you listened to Boston talk radio, especially sports talk, you'd hear it repeatedly in everyday banter as a stand in for Boston. Of course, I haven't listened to the radio in like a decade so maybe it's totally different now.

Here's a transcript from a Cheers episode. I know it's just a TV show, but this feels really true to life to me, in terms of how the term was used by Bostonians in the 80s and 90s:

https://tvquot.es/cheers/quote/18guwka6y/

New England, where the project will be located, doesn't use very much coal at all (usually less than 1% of generation recently). Mostly it's natural gas, nuclear, hydro from Canada, and renewables.

https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts

On very cold winter days we do use a fair amount of oil for power generation, but that's typically limited to just a handful of days a year when we can't get enough natural gas due to pipeline constraints.

>First off, the power plants will generate more emissions than a gas car does in order for you to charge it.

You've been mislead. Even after accounting for power plant emissions and vehicle life-cycle emissions (from manufacturing the car and battery), EVs generate lower emissions than gas cars.

This is especially true in New England because our electricity comes mostly from natural gas and nuclear power and these are relatively clean power sources compared to coal which is used in some other places.

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths

​

>and thirdly our infrastructure is not capable right now of handling the demand if we were all plugging in our cars everyday.

This is also untrue. Electric vehicles are typically charged overnight when the grid is running at a fraction of its peak capacity. As more EVs are sold, it will be important for utility regulators to ensure EV owners are properly incentivized to charge when grid demand is lowest.

Programs to do this are already being deployed all around the country. Unfortunately, NH is a laggard here but they'll eventually tag along in the tailwind of more forward thinking states. Some states even have special programs where grid operators can pull power from EVs to help the grid out during emergencies.

Here's an example of an EV rate plan in Georgia where charging overnight costs 1.4 cents per kWh compared to 7 cents during normal times and 20 cents during the busiest times.

https://www.georgiapower.com/content/dam/georgia-power/pdfs/electric-service-tariff-pdfs/TOU-PEV-9.pdf

Here's an article about a Telsa pilot program in CA that helped out during the grid emergency they had over the summer:

https://electrek.co/2022/08/18/teslas-virtual-power-plant-first-event-helping-grid-future/#:~:text=Tesla%27s%20virtual%20power%20plant%20in,plant%20looks%20like%20the%20future.

IMO, it depends on what you're willing to do and for how long. China's problem was that they didn't have an end game.

Before the vaccine, countries other than China, like Japan and Australia for example, strived for zero-covid with pretty harsh interventions. Both countries took less of a hit to GDP than the US did and both had significantly fewer deaths per capita than we did (US 3,226 deaths/million, Japan 453, Australia 648).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country

Even China isn't guaranteed to end up worse off than us. Epidemiologists are predicting 500k to 1 million deaths in China from this wave. If that happens, that'll put them at around 1/5 the death rate we had in the US. Also, they barely took any hit to GDP in 2020 and 2021 compared to the US (in 2022 they did take a hit, but it didn't come close to the hits we took).

So if we're keeping score, several countries implemented zero covid policies and did much better than the US in terms of both deaths and GDP hit.

Fair. But at least we extended the license of our nuclear plant (Seabrook), unlike MA (Pilgrim) and VT (VT Yankee). Also, MA was the main plaintiff in the litigation that prevented new pipeline capacity from getting built.

Really, there's plenty of NIMBY blame to go around.

https://www.mass.gov/news/ag-healey-leads-coalition-supporting-federal-court-order-shutting-down-dakota-access-pipeline

https://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/renewal-of-seabrook-stations-license-expected-next-week/article_5da4ca48-ed40-5691-8f1e-e553f65d833e.html

https://apnews.com/article/6e16e68b0c85487fade45dedff3e0558

https://www.vox.com/2014/12/30/7468263/vermont-yankee-shut-down

I Agree.

This is an unfortunate side effect of Russia's war on Ukraine. The lack of Russian natural gas deliveries to Europe has caused demand and prices for LNG to go through the roof as Europeans try to buy up LNG cargos to replace their lost Russian gas.

New England uses lots of natural gas to generate electricity. In the summer, most of the gas we use comes up by pipeline from the Marcellus shale area. However, because there's limited pipeline capacity in the winter, electricity generators need to source lots of LNG in winter.

This year, because of the war, New England power generators are in a bidding war with Europe for limited LNG tanker deliveries. This has sent LNG prices through the roof and is why electricity rates are going up so much here.

In New Hampshire, Eversource sounded an alarm recently that they may not even be able to set a fixed 6 month rate during the next rate period. Apparently, when they sent out their latest request for bids to power generators, they didn't receive enough responses to cover expected demand and they may be forced to buy power on the highly volatile short-term spot market instead of entering into fixed contracts with generators. That's never happened before and it's a mess really.

So, not that it's much of a consolation, but least folks in MA know what the price is going to be ahead of time... In NH, we may or may not have a fixed price ahead of time.

https://www.wmur.com/article/eversource-rate-hike-contract-111622/41985364

This doesn't give you totals for each race, but Adam Sexton from WMUR has been tweeting out individual town-by-town election tallies over the past 12-15 hours and I found them kind of interesting.

https://twitter.com/AdamSextonWMUR/with_replies

(scroll down a ways to see the stream of results for each town)