Travis Kavulla's Attack Ad: false (Part II)

The blog got a lot of activity after the previous post about Travis Kavualla's attack ad, and i suspect that Travis' google alert has directed him to the site.  So, now that i have your attention, let's get to the real meat of the problem with Travis' ad.

Your second claim,   "And he voted to force your power company to spend double the market price to buy renewable energy or credits".  First, I doubt this would survive a complaint to the Commission of Political Practices without even a date to reference Don Ryan's purported vote or the bill number.  But for the purpose of argument, and please correct me if I am wrong, the reference was probably to the MT Renewable Portfolio standard (RPS) which mandates that regulated utilities (NorthWestern Energy, MDU, and apparently the City of Great Falls) purchase a portion of energy from renewable energy products. 


Ok, so does the RPS standard require utilities to buy energy at double the market price?  Travis offers two links, which i have pulled and posted for everyone's convince, that are apparently related to his claim.   

1. http://ferc.gov/market-oversight/mkt-electric/northwest.asp (This link was slightly modified to work), referred to as "link 1"

2. http://www.psc.mt.gov/eDocs/eDocuments/pdfFiles/D2010-7-77IN10080634144TA.pdf , referred to as "link 2"


As Travis did not provide page references or any analysis, we are left to wade through the data to provide the substance for his claim (Travis consider this an open offer to provide your analysis). 

First, Travis's link to the MT PSC Docket (Link 2) is about rates for qualifying facilities, which is the rate approved by the MT PSC for such faciliteis (wind, biomass, etc.) to be paid if they elect to sell power to either of the state's regulated utilities.  Oddly, these facilities are not part of the MT RPS standard, so I am not sure how their rates (at least on face) relate to the rate that NorthWestern Energy or MDU pays for energy from RPS facilities.
 
Also, to the extent the rates are related, they are forward projections and do not reflect the actual rates NorthWestern Energy has paid for RPS energy, and as Travis' claim was past tense, I am going to limit my analysis to that world. 


Thanks to Commissioner Toole's op-ed the actual rate that NorthWestern Energy pays is known, and it is .38 cents.  With that, we can use link 1 to compare that to historical market rates, as described by FERC, to the price that NorthWestern Energy has paid for it's RPS Energy. 

See chart.

Now, i read that chart to show an average rate of about $40 per MWh over the last year, with some interesting spikes and valleys.  For arguments sake, lets actually call it an average of $30 per MWh, which makes it cheaper than wind.  We are also looking at a selective period of low prices.  See the chart in the upper right for market prices during periods of greater economic demand (they average above $60 per MWh during 2007-2008).


My call from Travis' information?  That the MT RPS standard has resulted in NorthWestern Energy paying about an equal amount for energy from renewable as power from the market.  I actually think the Montana RPS has saved Montana Consumers money, but I will not ask for you to believe an anyomoys blogger until I take the time to throughly prove my case.