Brookline —    The Cape Wind project, started by Jim Gordon in 2001, has largely turned into a distraction for renewable energy in New England. The projected construction cost rose from $500 million in 2001, for 168 megawatt annual average (not peak) generating capacity, to $2.6 billion recently for 183 MW.
Comparable conventional electricity is just across the Charles River from us in Cambridge: the Kendall Square station. Opened by Cambridge Light and Power in 1949 burning coal, it was converted to efficient combined-cycle natural gas by Mirant in 2000, and is now run by NRG Energy.

Kendall Square has a year-round (not peak) generating capacity of 218 MW. For the three most recent calendar years, it averaged 68 percent of capacity, selling into a New England bulk electricity market with average wholesale prices per kilowatt-hour of $0.051 in 2010, $0.048 in 2011, and $0.037 in 2012 — per ISO New England.

In 2012, Cape Wind had contracts to sell bulk electricity for $0.187 per kWh that it cannot fulfill because its offshore wind farm remains unbuilt. That’s about five times the actual, average wholesale price of electricity in New England for the year.

In September 2013, Massachusetts and Connecticut state agencies approved long-term agreements by Northeast Utilities, National Grid and other utilities to buy bulk electricity from land-based wind farms run by First Wind, Iberdrola Renewables and Exergy Development at an average wholesale price of less than $0.080 per kWh.

The total capacity of land-based wind power coming under contract in 2013 is nearly twice what was promised by Cape Wind. The price per kWh is less than half the price from Cape Wind. If Cape Wind had built its offshore wind farm at the cost projected in 2001, it too could sell renewable energy at a fair price.

— Craig Bolon, Fuller Street 

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