Public paid for idled wind farms--WTF?

Public paid for idled wind farms

Xcel lacks the capacity to transmit all the wind power, so it pays for some machines to remain idle, and passes the cost to customers.
Tom Meersman, Star Tribune

Last update: June 01, 2006 – 11:12 PM

Xcel Energy electricity customers have paid millions of dollars for wind energy that was never produced, according to documents filed with state regulators.

snip

Xcel paid wind developers about $10.4 million -- called "curtailment payments" -- for wind-generated electricity that it could not accept from February 2004 through May 2005, according to a report by the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

snip

Xcel officials said curtailment payments are a legal and effective tool to develop wind power. The payments are unavoidable, they said, because it takes only a few months to build a large wind farm but it requires several years to construct the transmission lines to move the power the farm produces.

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/468717.html


What the hell? This last paragraph doesn't make any sense to me. Why would the management of Xcel spend millions on a wind farm when they don't have the capacity to transmit the power? Something is screwy here.

NATURALY IN THE REAL WORLD OF BUSINESS THE FARM WOULD NOT BE COMPLETED UNTIL THE TRANSMISSION LINES WERE CONNECTED.
MUCH LIKE THE TRAILERS (M0BILE HOMES) THAT WERE NOT USED FOR OVER 5 YEARS BY FEMA;THERE IS A LOT THIS ADMINISTRATION SHOULD go to jail for!
excuse the capitals !

"The wind developers set up a rotation system in which they took turns reducing output or turning off their generators."

Who are these unnamed wind developers.

I hope that www.carbonfund.org are not backing them.

But i guess if you are an energy trader that last thing you want is for the cost of energy to go down when you can't buy it and sell it at a higher price.
Money is usually the answer.

tax write-offs and other accounting/financial practices then anything else.