If you are one whom takes joy from others’ misfortunes, it probably will go down as the feel-good story of the week. But as Francis Menton points out, sometimes it’s hard not to take a bit of pleasure from others’ misfortunes.
The remaining wind/solar development projects still in development in the state of NY are under imminent threat of cancellation.
Details, however, are sketchy. And given that there are no named sources to refer to, where is one to go?
The short version: beginning in 2019, New York State entered into fixed-price contracts (in the range of $80-90/MWh) with big-time developers (Equinor, Ørsted, etc.) to develop 4+ gigawatts of offshore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean; but in September 2023, the developers all came in and demanded big price increases and threatened to cancel. Initially, the state bluffed and blustered that it would hold the developers to their contracts. Several months later, the NYSERDA caved and re-bid the contracts, ending in early 2024 with contracts with the same developers at nearly doubled prices in the range of $150/MWh.
Then President Trump swept into office in January 2025 and blew the whole thing “out of the water” as they say. (At least one of the off-shore projects has since been revived under some kind of deal between the Trump administration and Governor Hochul. However, the rest of the off-shore projects look rather dead at this point.
As far as the upstate and onshore projects go, there may be fewer cards available than last time around. Many of these upstate developments, continues the Manhattan Contrarian, have likely qualified for federal tax benefits that, in light of the One Big Beautiful Bill, will no longer be available to anyone who starts today from scratch.
Perhaps the best option would be to use this opportunity to walk away from the renewable energy fantasy, suggests Mr. Menton.
In any re-bid of the on-shore wind contracts, the prices are likely to be double to triple the price that could be had from a brand new natural gas plant. And the power from a natural gas plant would be dispatchable and reliable, instead of the intermittent power from wind turbines or solar panels that is never there when you really need it. I don’t think that our Governor and bureaucrats are quite ready to go that route yet, but they are getting closer with every passing day.
