Providence’s New Electricity Supplier’s CEO Blasts Offshore Wind—Key Part of RI’s Future
Saturday, March 18, 2023
While Rhode Island is home to America’s first offshore wind project and now pushing forward with two major offshore wind projects in order to meet the state's renewable energy goals, the CEO of Florida-based NextEra has a much different view.
NextEra was selected to be the exclusive electricity provider to Providence and six other communities' community electricity program.
Barrington, Central Falls, Narragansett, Newport, Portsmouth, Providence, and South Kingstown are part of the program.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTNearly all residential and business customers in those cities and towns are being automatically switched from Rhode Island Energy in May.
Customers can opt-out -- READ MORE HERE.
NextEra and Close Ties to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
A series of reports in the Miami Herald, The Lever, ProPublica, and The Guardian has tracked millions of dollars in donations from NextEra to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida Republicans, GOP election deniers in Congress, and allegations of dark money fueling political dirty tricks.
A Democratic party whitepaper issued in September criticized the close relationship between Florida Power & Light (FPL) and Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. FPL is a subsidiary of NextEra.
"In fact, no other elected official in Florida did more to help Florida Power & Light land its $5 billion rate increase than DeSantis — who is now running for re-election and who, campaign-finance records show, has raised more than $3 million from FPL and a network of big-business front groups and dark-money nonprofits that the company helps to fund,” said the Democratic Party.
And last summer, CBS News reported that "U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that recent press reports in Florida had "exposed apparent corruption, influence peddling and breaches of the public trust by Florida's largest electric utility Florida Power & Light and its officers."
NextEra CEO Blasts Offshore Wind
Reuters reported, "Offshore wind is a bad bet due to the complications of installing and maintaining infrastructure at sea and the high cost of transmitting electricity back to shore, NextEra Chief Executive John Ketchum said last Wednesday at CERAWeek, one of the nation’s largest energy conference."
"It's very capital intensive," Ketchum said.
This criticism is not new for the Florida-based company. Previous CEOs also criticized offshore wind — the industry that many in Rhode Island call the future of the state’s economy.
In 2017, then-NextEra Energy CEO Jim Robo said the economics for offshore wind projects are bad for customers during an earnings call. He said offshore wind is “terrible energy policy.”
The Biden administration has a significant focus on growing the U.S. offshore wind power as part of its effort to cut greenhouse gases.
Both former Governor Gina Raimondo and Governor Dan McKee have been strong supporters of the growth of the offshore wind industry in Rhode Island. As Secretary of Commerce, Raimondo has continued her advocacy for offshore wind; in March of 2021, Raimondo said, "We look forward to working across the public and private sectors to invest in clean energy solutions, like offshore wind, that will contribute to our whole-of-government approach to combat the climate emergency and create high-paying, high-skilled American jobs.”
At the time, the Commerce Department, along with the Departments of Interior and Energy, announced a shared goal to deploy 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind in the United States by 2030, while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use. Meeting this target will trigger more than $12 billion per year in capital investment in projects on both U.S. coasts, create tens of thousands of good-paying, union jobs, with more than 44,000 workers employed in offshore wind by 2030 and nearly 33,000 additional jobs in communities supported by offshore wind activity. It will also generate enough power to meet the demand of more than 10 million American homes for a year and avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.
The Biden administration has auctioned leases in federal waters. But most of the interest in those leases has so far come from European companies.
"We find it hard enough just to take care of a fleet onshore with some of the issues that we deal with as a company, and we're best in class," he said at CERA.
Rhode Island's Strong Focus on the Offshore Wind Industry
Rhode Island is betting that offshore wind will be a critical economic and environmental engine for the future.
"We promised that we would lead when it came to helping Rhode Island meet its clean energy goals, and achieving this latest milestone is proof of our commitment,” said Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy in October. “This procurement is critical to meeting the state’s 100% renewable generation goal by the 2033 target and accelerating growth in the local clean energy economy.”
This past week Ørsted and Eversource announced their application to be selected for a major offshore wind project in Rhode Island. They were the only applicant.
This is a mega-project. It is poised to deliver renewable power to as many as 500,000 Rhode Island homes; according to the companies, the proposed 884-megawatt Revolution Wind 2 represents more than $2 billion in direct economic benefits to Rhode Island.
Ørsted and Eversource say they are expecting hundreds of new jobs and will be creating enough electricity to power as many as 500,000 in Rhode Island and the region.
Executives gathered for the Leadership Dialogue session with John Ketchum, Chairman, President & CEO of @NextEraEnergyR, and @DanielYergin, Vice Chairman of @SPGlobal, today at #CERAWeek. https://t.co/7eGq8evTNY pic.twitter.com/xvWdNWlpzI
— CERAWeek (@CERAWeek) March 9, 2023
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